After Effects Help | Creating shapes and masks

This question was posted in response to the following article: http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/creating-shapes-masks.html

Hi Todd,
I don't think either approach accomplishes what I am trying to do. Just as when using a shape tool on an existing layer to create a mask, none of these approaches lets me alter a shape path after creating it, in terms of number of points, inner/outer radius and inner/outer roundness. Nor can I animate those characteristics.
The Help file creates the impression that you can copy/paste a Shape path from a Shape layer. If that were true, I could create a shape, copy/paste that path to a mask path, keyframe it, go back to the original shape layer, change its propertie and copy/paste that new shape path to the mask path at a different time, thus morphing from one shape to another. I don't see any way to do that.
Jeff

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