Adobe After Effects - Manual (Page 522)

Brush Hardness
Spacing
Paint Style
To the top
Stroke
Image Contours
Input Layer
Invert Input
If Layer Sizes Differ
Channel
The Stroke effect creates a stroke or border around the path defined by one or more masks. You can also specify stroke color, opacity, and
spacing, as well as brush characteristics. Specify whether the stroke appears on top of the image, on a transparent image, or if it reveals the
original alpha channel. To use a path created in Illustrator, copy the path and paste it into a layer in After Effects.
This effect works with 8-bpc color.
Andrew Kramer provides a video tutorial on his Video Copilot website that demonstrates the use the Stroke effect to reveal an image as if it is
being written by hand on a wall.
Steve Holmes provides a tutorial on the Layers Magazine website that shows how to create and prepare vines, swirls, and flourishes in Illustrator
and then import, reveal, and animate them in After Effects using the Stroke effect.
Original (upper-left), with mask (lower-left), and with effect applied (lower-right)
Specifies the edge quality of the stroke, between hard and soft.
Specifies the spacing between stroke segments.
Specifies whether the stroke is applied to the original layer or to a transparent layer.
Vegas effect
The Vegas effect generates running lights and other path-based pulse animations around an object. You can outline just about anything, surround
it with lights or longer pulses, and then animate it to create the appearance of lights chasing around the object.
This effect works with 8-bpc color.
John Dickinson provides an example on his Motionworks website of an EKG (electrocardiogram) simulation created using the Vegas effect.
What to base the stroke on: Image Contours or Mask/Path.
If Image Contours is chosen from the Stroke menu, you specify what layer to take the image contours from and how to interpret
the input layer.
The layer whose image contours are used. High-contrast, grayscale layers, and alpha channels work well and are easy to
work with.
Inverts the input layer before creating the stroke.
Determines how to adjust the layers if the size of the input layer differs from the size of the layer to which Vegas is
applied. Center centers the input layer in the composition at its original size. Stretch To Fit scales the input layer to match the layer to
which Vegas is applied.
The color attribute of the input layer used to define the contours.
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