Shapes and Masks
Shapes are timeline items like any other clip: they have transform, opacity, and keyframes. Turn one into a mask and it decides what shows through from the tracks below.
Add a shape
- Open the Shapes tab and click a shape to add it at the playhead, or drag it onto a specific track.
- Built-in shapes: Rectangle, Circle, Ellipse, Triangle, Star, Polygon, and Heart.
- A new shape lands sized to the canvas and selected, ready to position and style.
Style a shape
| Control | Notes |
|---|---|
| Type | Switch between the seven shape types. |
| Fill | A solid color or a gradient. |
| Stroke W. / Stroke | Outline width (0 to 50 px) and its color, shown when the width is above 0. |
| Cap / Join | Stroke endings, and the way connected stroke segments meet. |
| Trim Paths | Start, End, and Offset controls for drawing only part of a path. |
| Taper | Start and end widths for a tapered stroke. |
| Radius | Corner rounding (0 to 100 px) for rectangle, triangle, star, and polygon. |
| Points / Inner R. | Number of points and inner radius, for star and polygon. |
| Direction | Which way a triangle points. |
Position, size, rotation, and opacity live in the Transform controls, and most values can be keyframed. See Keyframe Animation.
Draw a custom path
- In the Shapes tab, choose the Pen tool.
- Click in the preview to place points. Click and drag a point to pull out curved (bezier) handles.
- Backspace removes the last point, and Escape cancels.
- With at least three points, choose Finish Shape to commit it, or Cancel.
To reshape a path later, select it and use Edit Path: drag points and handles, double-click an edge to add a point, and convert a point between Corner and Bezier. Choose Done when you are finished.
Animate path vertices
- Open the shape in the Motion workspace and expand its property rows.
- Select path points in the preview.
- Choose Selected vertices to key only those points, or All vertices to expose every point.
- Add keys to the vertex coordinates, then move the playhead before reshaping the path.
Path Geometry keys lock the path topology. Remove them before you add, remove, reorder, or change the first vertex.
Use a shape as a mask
- Place the shape on a track above the clip you want to mask.
- In the Shape section, turn on Use as Mask.
- Choose a Mask Type: Clip for hard edges, or Alpha for soft edges.
- For an Alpha mask, adjust Feather to soften the edge. Use Invert to hide the shape area instead of revealing it.
A mask affects everything on the tracks below it, following the shape geometry. Feather applies to Alpha masks only, and Clip masks stay hard-edged. While you edit a mask or draw with the pen, the rest of the editor is locked until you finish or exit.