Adobe After Effects - Manual (Page 259)

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Speed
Smoothing
Use Draft Deformation
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Click within a closed, unlocked mask to apply the Puppet effect and create a mesh for the outline defined by the mask path.
Click outside all closed paths on a vector layer to apply the Puppet effect without creating a mesh. Outlines are created for paths on the
layer, though an outline is only visible when a Puppet tool pointer is over the area that the outline defines. Place the pointer over the
area enclosed by a path to see the outline in which a mesh will be created if you click that point. (See
How the Puppet effect creates
outlines .) Click within an outline to create a mesh.
A Deform pin is placed where you clicked to create the mesh.
If an image is too complex for the Puppet effect to generate a mesh with the current Triangle value, a “Mesh Generation Failed”
message appears in the Info panel. Increase the Triangle value in the Tools panel and try again.
3. Click in one or more places within the outline to add more Deform pins.
Use as few pins as possible to achieve your desired result. The natural deformation provided by the Puppet effect can be lost if you over-
constrain the image. Just add pins to the parts of the figure that you know that you want to control. For example, when animating a person
waving, add a pin to each foot to hold them to the ground, and add a pin to the waving hand.
4. Go to another time in the composition, and move the position of one or more of the Deform pins by dragging them in the Composition or
Layer panel with the Puppet Pin tool. Repeat this step until you have completed your animation.
You can modify the motion paths of the Deform pins using the same techniques that you use to modify any other motion paths.
After Effects no longer draws the tinted fill for the original layer region when hovering using the Puppet Pin tool.
Record animation by sketching motion with the Puppet Pin tool
You can sketch the motion path of one or more Deform pins in real time—or at a speed that you specify—much as you can sketch the motion path
of a layer using Motion Sketch.
If your composition contains audio, you can sketch motion in time with the audio.
Before you begin recording motion, you may want to configure settings for recording. To open the Puppet Record Options dialog box, click Record
Options in the Tools panel.
The ratio of the speed of the recorded motion to speed of playback. If Speed is 100%, the motion is played back at the speed at which it
was recorded. If Speed is greater than 100%, the motion plays back slower than it was recorded.
Set this value higher to remove more extraneous keyframes from the motion path as it’s drawn. Creating fewer keyframes makes
motion smoother.
The distorted outline that is shown during recording does not take Starch pins into account. This option can improve
performance for a complex mesh.
This procedure assumes that you have already placed Deform pins in the object to animate. For information on placing Deform pins, see
Manually animate an image with the Puppet tools .
1. Select one or more Deform pins.
2. Go to the time at which to begin recording motion.
3. In the Composition panel or Layer panel, hold the Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) key to activate the Puppet Sketch tool. Ctrl-drag
(Windows) or Command-drag (Mac OS) the pins to animate.
Recording of motion begins when you click to begin the drag. Recording ends when you release the mouse button.
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