Hitfilm 3 Pro contains a variety of Masking tools, which enable you to control which parts
of a layer are visible.
I’m Axel Wilkinson for HitFilm.com, and we are going to look at the basics of using
masks right now, to get you started.
Masks can be drawn directly onto your layer in the HitFilm viewer of any composite Shot.
We have three mask tools in the Viewer: The Rectangular Mask, the Ellipse Mask, and the
Freehand mask.
Select the Rectangular Mask tool, select the layer you wish to draw on, and drag a rectangle.
The area inside our mask is kept, and everything else is hidden.
If you hold shift while dragging, you can constrain the mask to a perfect square.
Hold Alt, or Option on Mac, and you can drag from the center.
Hold Alt+Shift, or Option+Shift on Mac, and you can drag a perfect square from the center.
The same constraints apply to the Ellipse mask.
Select the tool, select our layer, then drag an ellipse.
Hold Shift, and you can create a perfect circle.
Alt, or Option lets us drag from the center, and Alt+Shift or Option+Shift lets us drag
from the center and create a perfect circle.
For more complex shapes, we can use the Freehand Mask tool.
Select the Tool, select our layer, and click in the top left corner to create a point.
Click halfway down the frame to create another point, and a line connects them.
We can continue like this to draw whatever shape we need.
On the next point, click and drag, and we will create a curve in the line, with bezier
handles to control its shape.
Continue the line around all of our existing masks, and at the top left, click on our original
point to close the shape.
Open the Mask controls, and tick the box next to Inverted.
This turns the whole shape inside out, so that the area outside the mask shape is kept.
Open the Shape controls now, and we will look at two other properties here.
Expansion lets you retain the shape of the mask, but adjust its size inward or outward.
Feather Strength softens the edge of the mask.
The Feather menu gives you options of applying the feather inside the mask shape, outside
the mask shape, or both.
Let’s delete this layer with its masks, now, and look at how we can use keyframing
to control the shape and position of a mask over time.
Let’s start by duplicating our video layer, and turning off the lower copy.
Now, select the Elliptical Mask tool, select our top layer, and drag a mask around this
woman’s face.
Add a strong feather to the mask, so its edges will blend with the layer underneath.
In the Transform controls for the Mask, find the Path property, and enable keyframing for
it.
Now advance to the end of the timeline, and use the Selection tool to adjust the mask
so it covers her face again.
Now move through the shot, finding the places where the alignment is off, and adjusting
it.
Try to find the frames where the mask is the farthest out of place, and adjust it there.
This will keep the number of frames that need adjusting to a minimum.
Now, with our mask in place, let’s put it to use by adding some effects.
We are going to gradually darken everything outside the mask, so her face is highlighted.
Enable the bottom layer, select the Effects panel and search for Curves, and drag Curves
onto the bottom layer.
Then, in the Controls, enable keyframing for the Curve property of the effect.
Drag the center of the curve downward a bit, to darken the background just a touch.
Jump ahead to where her face fills the frame more, around 3 seconds and drag the middle
of the curve downward.
Our mask isolates her face, so the top layer contains only her face, above the darkened
layer beneath.
Since her face remains bright, it draws our focus.
HitFilm 3 Pro has several options for more advanced masking as well.
The Set Matte effect lets you to take the shape of one layer, and apply it to a different
layer, like a stencil.
Add the Mystical Fire preset to the timeline, convert it to 3D, then disable it.
Find the Set Matte effect, and add it to our top Face layer.
Open the controls, and select Mystical Fire as the source Layer.
Turn off our bottom layer to better see what is happening, and play the timeline.
Our video takes on the shape of the Fire effect.
You can also use the planar tracking in mocha HitFilm to create tracked masks, which greatly
simplifies creating masks for moving shapes with greater detail.
This will be covered further in a future tutorial.
Our next video will discuss the basics of tracking in HitFilm.
Tracking is an essential aspect of compositing, so please subscribe if you haven’t yet,
so you don’t miss it.
Until next time, thanks for watching!