Character reaching into clothing (Masking?)

[Leon13DM]

For an animation I've been working on, there is a sequence where a character reaches into their onesie (it's a toddler) and pulls out an object (nothing phallic, don't worry). I've been struggling to try and find a way to do this. I attempted to use a mask, but it would require me to create a circular shape for the mask itself, and then I need to somehow cut an opening in the middle of it for the onesie and I have yet to find a way to edit masks in this way. I tried using the eraser tool, but it is very stubborn and only works for certain shapes (It doesn't effect the shape unless you go through like the entire thing).

I recall someone else saying that you could animate a character reaching into a pocket by putting a layer above the hand, but I'm not sure if this will work since I only need it for one scene and if I just left it on, the character's hand would keep vanishing everytime it went over the onesie. If there is some way to toggle masks on and off, that would work.

[synthsin75]

Depends a bit on how you have the character structured, but generally you do it like this.

Bone layer - masking set to reveal all
- arm/hand layer to reach into pocket - masking set to mask this layer
- pocket vector - masking set to subtract from mask
- onesie (and all other layers) - masking set to do not mask

[Leon13DM]

Depends a bit on how you have the character structured, but generally you do it like this.

Bone layer - masking set to reveal all
- arm/hand layer to reach into pocket - masking set to mask this layer
- pocket vector - masking set to subtract from mask
- onesie (and all other layers) - masking set to do not mask

Ah yes, this does the trick. I was even able to use a switch layer so I can turn it off when not needed. Doing this causes the mask to change into a box shape, but the render still shows it in the correct shape, so it should work fine. Thank you!

[synthsin75]

Glad I could help.

Doing this causes the mask to change into a box shape...

Probably because you have GPU acceleration enabled.