Sequential strokes in vector paint

Is there a way to animate vector paint strokes over time so that they appear sequentially over the time line? When I use "Animate Strokes," all the strokes appear simultaneously at the spot where the time line marker is parked.
I suppose I could do a stroke, move in the time line, then do the next stroke, but that seems really tedious and I think I've done this before in the past with previous versions of After Effects. But I can't seem remember how or make this work. (Using AE CS 3)
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

When you're painting sequential frames (use the Shift+Paint option) in Vector Paint, you really don't have as much control as using Paint, but there might be some good reasons to use it still.
You'll want to use Shift+Paint.
Make sure you don't lift your pen, or you'll start on the next frame.
Then, change your playback mode to PAST STROKES.
that should do it.

Similar Messages

CS4 and Vector Paint crash

I don't normally post over here in the AE forum (mostly the PPro forum) because well...AE really never has any problems for me.
However, I'm having some issues with the Vector Paint effect. I'm trying to get that "write-on" effect by using vector paint, and as I paint over the text, AE will freeze up on me and become non-responsive.
I tried turning off the OpenGL previews, but it still happens. I've got AE CS4, all the updates, on Vista 64 with a Quadro 1500 video card...
Any idea what might be happening here?

You are very likely simply running out of memory. Similar behavior can be observed with other temporal effects such as for instance here: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/474366?tstart=60. In your case this is compoiunded by Vector Paint establishing its own interface and memory buffer and generally being quite hungry. The "good" way to avoid these issues would be to beef up the system with more RAM, the workaround way would be to use the native paint tools (which are much more memory friendly) or otehr techniques such as creating a mtte with the Stroke effect based on a mask path.
Mylenium

Did Vector Paint ever make it back into After Effects??

I have been missing Vector Paint (like a lot of people) since it's removal a few years ago. I have read a lot of discussion where reviewers, etc. expected it to finally return in CS6 (with added features), but I can't find confirmation anywhere that it did indeed return. I'm still using 5.5, and this would be a major motivator to upgrade. If it has not, did they replace it with something different?
Thanks.
-Tim

In a recent response to another thread on Vector Paint, Todd Kopriva stated:
Our current plan--subject to change depending on many factors, of course--is to do substantial work on the paint features for After Effects releases targeted at 2014, with specific work being done to add functionality similar to that in Vector Paint (onion skinning, painting in the Composition panel, wiggly strokes). So, though we can't make promises about future features, this is a high priority for us for the near future.

VECTOR PAINT DISAPPEARS

sorry i tried to find this out but haven't seen any results. whenever i use vector paint it just disappears. i see the stroke as long as im holding down the mouse button and then it disappears as soon as i let go. i need this effect and i can't seem to fix this.

If you have the playback mode set to "Animate Strokes", the strokes will disappear as you draw them because your current time indicator defines the start of the draw-on animation. In effect, the moment you lift your pen, the time "rewinds" back to the start of the stroke.

How can I live without vector paint?

hey everyone
I use the vector paint plugin in AECS3 to create hand-drawn style line art animations.
I use vector paint applied to a solid together with my wacom cintiq to draw lines freehand. sometimes I use the 'animate strokes' setting within vector paint to make it look like the strokes are being drawn on.
there are some downsides to this plugin over the standard AE paint engine (principally that I cannot edit individual strokes, easily retime my strokes, or apply masks to my paint layer without precomping), but vector paint wins for me for 2 critical reasons:
1. I can paint directly in the comp window, meaning I can easily trace directly over another layer in my comp; and
2. Vector Paint has a built in wiggle engine which enables me to wiggle my paint strokes - this makes the images I draw feel dynamic and alive. it suits the simple hand drawn style of the animation.
as anyone who reads this forum will be aware, vector paint has been removed from CS5. I am needing to upgrade my creative suite but I need to be able to continue making this look for my clients.
my question to you all is how can I continue creating animations in this style with CS5?
Any feedback would be *most* appreciated!
cheers
dan
here are some examples of the kind of animation I am refferring to -some of these are WIPs so appear quite rough!

thanks Todd and Mylenium for your responses.
With regard to Myleniums first point:
1. I can paint directly in the comp window, meaning I can easily trace directly over another layer in my comp
You can do that with normal paint just the same by painting on solids on top and setting the brush to paint on transparent and layer and comp windows side by side. You can even get that functionality in the layer window by adding effects like CC Composite before the paint to enforce rendering of the current frame.
I have tried this setup with layer and comp windows next to each other but the result is that I still have to draw my strokes in the layer window (which is transparent, so appears empty). Once I have drawn a stroke it appears in the comp window. So I was unable to use this workflow to trace over an existing layer in my comp. Can you expand on the use of CC composite in this way? I tried adding this effect and playing with the settings but couldn't find a way to use it in this context.
Also, with regard to point 2 (and Todd's helpful link):
Occassionally also consider shape layers - there's a Wiggle Path modifier there, after all.
I have tried working with the wiggle path option in here but the results are totally different to the wiggles produced using vector paint - I'm guessing its a different algorithm or something? the variables are quite different in either package.
Can anyone here point me to a 3rd party plugin that does the same thing as vector paint? Mylenium suggested video gogh but this plugin is more about making video layers resemble brushstrokes. I am simply wanting to draw brush strokes directly into the after effects comp window and animate them, and to be able to apply some kind of wiggle modifier to create a degree of organic 'dynamicness'.
Mylenium also says:
Yes, it's been much lamented but it's not coming back - for a while, anyway.
When you say 'for a while', do you mean CS 6? CS7? I am starting to feel like my options are to sit tight with AECS3 until the situation changes, or to move away from AE altogether and work with different software to acheive this look (flash? toon boom? any suggestions?). If I had some confidence that a new improved tool featuring the same functionality as vector paint was going to be introduced in the next version of AE I would feel much better about working around it for the time being.
... yes I have filed a feature request! Please If you find this post in your own search about vector paint, can you also file a request? Vector paint had its downsides, but it is pretty clear to me that taking it away has reduced after effect's functionality in this area, which is a profound shame. I have won awards for projects that have been built around vector paint material, but I now cannot keep my AE version current without losing the ability to produce this look. thats a total bummer!
dan

Where is vector paint effect? cs6

Hi, i am trying to follow a tutorial and the person went to 'effects> paint> and then vector paint' but i realise that I dont have the paint section in my effects??
Can anyone help me understand why? Is this an extra plugin to download? I am using cs6 after effects
thanks

Vector paint is a 32 bit plug-in that was not moved to CS6. There are other options. Post a link to the tutorial and someone will be able to show you how to achieve a similar effect with CS6

Line Wiggling Without Vector Paint

Hi,
I recently bought the mac cs5 master suite specifically to get after effects to do wiggly lines using vector paint -- then I find out Adobe removed vector paint.
Is there a way to get the same effect without vector paint? Specifically I'm trying to do stick figure animation with a kind of Red Bull random wiggle effect.
I tried using the wiggle transform in ae but it just moves stuff around -- it doesn't randomize the line shape.
Any advice, pointers much appreciated.
thanks

Shape Layers using the "Wiggle Paths" animator should do the trick.

How can I create a vector (editable) stroke?

All of the tutorials I've found address how to create a stroke from a path, but that stroke is not editable. What I'd like to do is create a vector shape that is only a stroke, not a closed shape. Thanks!

If you create a vector path and save it in the path palette you can edit it. When you stroke a vector your laying down pixels. Pixels can be edited however not with vector tools. If you want to be able to edit a stroked path using vector graphics a good method is to add and empty layer and stroke that layer. When you want to edit the stroke you delete that stroked layer. Add a new empty layer edit the saved path and stroke the edited path.

Looking for free vector brush strokes (not brushes)

Hi,
I'm looking for free vector brush strokes. Not brushes, but actual pre-drawn brush strokes, in vector format (looks something like this).
The first few pages of Google results yield pay websites, and I just didn't have the patience to keep hunting for the free ones. Can someone help me cut to the chase?
Thanks!

If those are vector shapes, they'd need a million points each!
This claims to be a Shape though, and they pretty rough round the edges.
http://myphotoshopbrushes.com/custom_shapes/id/2032/
Google Photoshop "Brush Shapes". The quotes should make a difference.

How to paint-in visibility of a layer

I recently upgraded to cs5 after effects after years of using earlier versions.
It is a normal part of my working procedure to use a white solid layer as a track matte in order to reveal or hide the layer beneath
it by painting in the invisible solid layer with Vector paint in the composition window.
This means I can paint directly over the underlying image and brush-in the visibilty of the hidden layer.
How do I achieve this now that vector paint has gone and the ability to paint in the composition window is also gone?
It is no use to me to have to paint in a layer window when I cannot see the underlying layer beneath my paint strokes.
How do I achieve this basic requirement?
Thanks for any responses
Geoff

Hi Rick,
Many thanks for trying to help me here.
I don't need to see the layer i am painting on, i need to see the underlying layer.
If for instance i have an adjustment layer with say curves applied to it. I want to be able to brush in and out that effect to the underlying layers and see the result as i paint.
This is a pretty basic requirement that has been easy in all versions of ae up to the current version, by simply painting in a white solid track matte layer in the comp window so you can see all layers beneath being affected in realtime as you paint.
How do i do this now that painting on a layer in the comp window is no longer possible?

Why is the History Brush only painting white on my picture instead of the colors from my text file?

I am working on a project for my online class and am having difficulties with the History Brush. Note that both files are identical in size etc.
1. I created a color text file and saved it with a specific name.
2. I copied an existing photo from iPhoto, as I couldn't import into PhotoShop, and pasted it in a new file. I then removed the white background layer and then saved it with its now specific name and closed the file.
3. I re-opened the Color Text File.
4. I then re-opended my photo.
5. I performed a "Select All" from the menu bar of my active Photo then selected Edit - Copy and then closed my Photo file.
6. From my Color Text File I selected Edit and then Paste from the menu bar.
7. I selected Layer and Flatten Image from the menu bar.
8. I right clicked the background image from the Layers Panel and created a snapshot (which is my photo)
9. I selected the History brush and verified that this also displayed in the gray box associated with the Color Text file within the History Panel.
10. I verified that my photo image was displayed in my work area.
11. I start to fill the photo with my History Brush and the only color I get is White.
Any assistance would be appreciated.

You seem to think that a History State equals a Layer. That couldn't be farther from the truth.
aswencak wrote:
…We are then suppose to click the History brush from the Tools Panel and verify that the little box next to the Tie-Dye image is selected and displays the History Brush. Now the document area should display the photo, at this point we are suppose to paint the photo with 1 stroke. The painted colors would be that from the Tie-Dye image…
That's not clearly phrased, but it sounds totally wrong. Again, a History State will not just show you what you just pasted, but your entire image, with ALL its layers.
Normally, to use the History Brush one goes back one step in the History Panel AFTER you have created your snapshot, so that you'll be selectively applying the changes to your image as it was before the filter. Here's an example:
You've finished editing an image. Fine. Now you apply an Unsharp Mask filter (to the whole image, of course) and immediately create your Snapshot.
Now you step back in the History Panel to the state BEFORE you applied the sharpening. You make sure your History Brush is targeting the sharpened Snapshot, but you start painting on the History State BEFORE you applied the sharpening.
Now you can start applying selective sharpening with your History Brush in whatever blending mode you wish. For selective sharpening, the History Brush in Luminosity blending mode gives you fantastic results.
Just remember: History States are not like layers at all.
In my opinion that's a lousy instructor who would make you use the Clipboard to illustrate the use of the History Brush. … but that's just me.

Can you smooth out a brush stroke?

I am using an animated brush stroke to provide the Indiana Jones look on top of a picture of a google map for a trip I took. I can draw the brush stroke and set a key frame on the "end" attribute so that it paints on the stroke, but the stroke is not as smooth as I would like it and I can't find a way to edit the vertices of the brush stroke and can't apply the smoother to it either. Once you draw a brush stroke, can you smooth it out? Also, since I drew the brush stroke on top of my layer, is there a way to put a shadow underneath the brush stroke?
Thanks in advance!

I'd use a shape layer and the Trim Paths path operation rather than a paint stroke.
There's a link to a video tutorial showing how to do this in the
"Alter shapes with path operations" section of After Effects Help on the Web.
But, if you are using a paint stroke, then you can decrease the value of the Spacing property to make the strokes more smooth and continuous. See the
"Brushes and the Brushes panel" section of After Effects Help on the Web.
[Edit: Oh, I just realized that just meant "smooth" as in having fewer and less sharp turns. For this, you should copy the Path property of the paint stroke, paste it into the Position property of a temporary dummy layer, run the Smoother on that motion path, copy the motion path, and then paste that into your paint path. If you just want to edit the path a little bit, then you can copy it into a mask path and use the mask path editing tools and techniques. David Wigforss has a tip about this
on this page. The basic thing to take away from this is that you can copy and paste between the various kinds of paths and use the tools for one to help you with the other. (See
"Create a mask or shape from a motion path".)]
Regarding the shadow: There are many ways to do this. The first that comes to my mind for the paint stroke is to duplicate the stroke, make it a dark grey, reduce its opacity, and offset its position slightly from the other stroke. (Each paint stroke has its own Transform properties, so you can just go into the duplicate stroke's Transform property group and add a little to its Position values.) If you decide to go with the shape layer option, you could do essentially the same thing or you could use a Drop Shadow
layer style.

Bug - PDF export missing brush strokes

Can anyone reproduce this apparent bug in FHMX?
1. Apply a brushstroke to an object.
2. Group with 'Transform As Unit' checked.
3. Duplicate object several times. Scale some of the copies
larger and some
smaller.
4. Export document to PDF.
Open exported PDF in Acrobat, Illustrator or Preview.
Unexpected results:
All of the scaled copies of the object are missing from the
PDF.
Judy Arndt
FHMX 11.0.2, Mac OS 10.4.6

Rich Hudgins wrote:
> Confirmed in FH10 - OSX 10.4.x. I tried opening the PDF
back into FH
> just for kicks... very interesting. There are the exact
number of
> originals and dupes directly on top of the original.
i.e. I made an
> original and two smaller and two larger dupes, offset
from the original.
> In the FH opened PDF there were 5 exact copies of the
original item
> directly on top of each other. There were also 5
nostroke-nofill copies
> of the original shape without the brush stroke.
Wow! Yes! Same here.
Any transforms done to an object after being grouped with
'Transform As
Unit', are being ignored by the PDF Export.
This series of steps will produce the same problem described
by Makate.
1. Apply a brushstroke to an object.
2. Duplicate object and move it to another location on page.
3. Group the duplicate object with 'Transform As Unit' (TAU)
checked. Then
scale it larger.
4. Export document to PDF.
Unexpected results:
The duplicate object will be the same size as the original
object.
This will happen not only with brush strokes but with
ordinary strokes. PDF
Export is missing all transformations made after TAU is
applied. If I
remember correctly, TAU, which has been in FH since very
early versions, is
a kind of Postscript envelope. My theory is that because FH
doesn't have a
Postscript interpreter, it's missing the Postsript
transformations.
This limitation in PDF Export is very unfortunate because the
default
preference setting in a new FH installation is "Groups
transform as unit by
default". It is the logical way to preserve the appearance of
artwork with
strokes, brush strokes and vector effects. New users could
not possibly know
that this is one of the many limitations of PDF export. It's
not listed in
the technote, but it may be the reason for 'missing objects'.
http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_13496
Using Acrobat Pro/Distiller is the only safe way to generate
PDF files from
FreeHand.
Judy Arndt

Stroke options suggestion

1. While it is a welcome addition to be able to select dashed and dotted strokes for vector shapes, this option should also be available for pixel based shapes. I can't tell you the number of times I've had to create dotted "strokes" by using the type tool with large periods and spacing them, turning them, rasterizing them, transforming them--a really convoluted procedure.
2. The "corner" function in the stroke style dialog is a little confusing. The icons are not self-explanatory, and clicking on one or the other seems to make very little difference. It is next to impossible to get all the corners to look the same and trying different numbers in the spacing field seems to affect corner behavior more than the actual corner controls.

Ok, here it is. Scripts have limited access to how strokes work, so it doesn't work in all cases, but hopefully it will help someone.
https://sites.google.com/site/lcdlagtester/dashed_line_nice_corners
Here's a quick sample. Notice how the long strokes center themselves over the corners.

Brushes in PS CS5 paints somewhere else?

Hi, I am using Photoshop CS5 to paint my textures and sometimes when I do a brush stroke, Photoshop is painting that brush stroke somewhere else on the canvas, NOT where I am painting.
This is really weird, I have never heard of any glitch/bug like that before, it also does the same with any other similiar tool like the eraser and clone stamp.
I am not even using custom brushes, just the standard photoshop brush. Has this happened to anyone else? Is it a known bug in CS5?
I am using Photoshop CS5 x64 on a Windows 7 machine. Please respond if you know what may be wrong. Thanks!

This has happened when video card drivers are not up to date.
Check the web site of the card manufacturer (not the computer manufacturer or Windows) for the latest drivers and install them.

Sequential strokes in vector paint

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