Paint with the brush tool – Adobe After Effects CS4 User Manual
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USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Drawing, painting, and paths
Last updated 12/21/2009
Brush strokes using 100% roundness (left) and varying percentages (right)
Hardness
Controls the transition of a brush stroke from 100% opaque at the center to 100% transparent at the edges.
Even with high Hardness settings, only the center is fully opaque.
Hardness settings at 100% (left) and 0% hardness (right)
Spacing
The distance between the brush marks in a stroke, measured as a percentage of the brush diameter. When this
option is deselected, the speed at which you drag to create the stroke determines the spacing.
Decrease spacing for continuous strokes (left); increase spacing for dashed strokes (right).
Brush Dynamics
These settings determine how the features of a pressure-sensitive digitizing tablet—such as a Wacom
pen tablet—control and affect brush marks. For each brush, you can choose Pen Pressure, Pen Tilt, or Stylus Wheel
for Size, Angle, Roundness, Opacity, and Flow to indicate what features of the pen tablet you would like to use to
control brush marks. For example, you can vary the thickness of brush marks by setting Size to Pen Pressure and
pressing more firmly when drawing some portions of the stroke. If Size is not set to Off, Minimum Size specifies the
size of the thinnest brush mark.
Paint with the Brush tool
Use the Brush tool to paint on a layer in the Layer panel with the current foreground color.
Important: To specify settings for a paint stroke before you apply it, use the Paint and Brushes panels. To change and
animate properties for a paint stroke after you’ve applied it, work with the properties of the stroke in the Timeline panel.
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