Sketching with After Effects

Hi Rob!
What's the title of the song playing at the beginning? I need it for a home movie :)
Thanks in advance!

Hi again , what I mean by the view in my previous post is the view of the very thick lines which covers not only the cartoon lines but the strokes lines around those lines. In my jpeg the drawing of the strokes is so bold it looks terrible. In your video you apply the alpha in the time remap which shows the under lying cartoon instead of the stroke effect. I haven't been able to figure out how to do that. I'm an old guy and things come very slowly, this is all new to me but they say if you find something challenging it will keep you young. This sort of does that for me. I would be glade to show you the files but as of yet haven't figured that out either.

I have enjoyed the lesson but find myself lost for an answer. Time remapping is not available for a still so when it comes to setting remapping to alpha it is also not there. The view you say is not the view we will be working with is my only view. I have tried several adjustments to the cartoon fx but if your not workin in the right spot to begin with your still at a dead end. Hope this makes sense to you.

Hi, Josh...
You can, in deed, do this with a still image, in fact, it has to be a still. You can't do the sketch of rolling video because the masks/strokes would change with every new frame. You'll notice that In the tutorial, the video only rolls after the sketch is complete.
Good Luck.

Rob Mize

Hi, Martin...

Glad you found the effect useful... there's a lot you can do with it... nice use of the sketch.

Rob Mize

Rob,
First, thanks for making this tutorial available. Second, FYI I am a novice to After Effects who looked long and hard to try learn how to do exactly what you are showing in your tutorial..only for a still photo. I have taken the Lynda.com essentials course for this program simply to learn how to do this one effect. I have AE as part of the Adobe CS5 Mater Suite and am running it on a new full boogie iMac so I don't think my issue has anything to do with hardware or software....just dumbware.

To begin I am trying to use your tutorial to simply sketch a single still frame photograph...that's it, not a video. As hard as this might be to believe I probably now have 30 hours over two weeks into watching your video over and over and over, carefully watching and dissecting every single frame of it trying to make it work for me. I have gotten to the point where I have two problems.
Problem One:
When you are through with your sketch effect you say "now let's see how this is actually going to work for us" At this point you go to the video layer and change the Track Matte to "Alpha Matte Strokes". When you do I noticed that your strokes layer automatically turned off. Then you explained that we should now "not see strokes from the strokes effect but as they animate on they are providing the alpha-channel that reveals the edges from our cartoon effect". When YOU do this the broad double stroke animation seems to turn to the thinner "edge only" stroke and it does so on your VIDEO layer with your STROKES layer turned off. When I perform the same task of changing the Track Matte of my Photo Layer in this fashion my broad double stroke effect remains unchanged. The animation works but only on the Strokes Layer with its thick double line type thing remaining. If I turn off the Strokes Layer and turn on the Photo Layer I get flashes of bits of the sketched drawing but not the sketch animation itself. I see only flashes of partial finished sketch images. With both layers on the Sketch Layer seems to over ride the Photo Layer and I see the thicker animation working just fine, but again it doesn't appear to be the edge only animation I supposedly turned the "alpha Matte Strokes" on for. That is I don't think I am switching to reveal only the edges effect you say should be happening. I am seeing the double line cartoon effect made to look like a single line by virtue of the broadness of the brush size....I think, yes?
Problem Two:
When I copy the Photo Layer to use it for the fade in from sketch animation to regular photo it positions itself starting at frame one as the photo. Frame two and all subsequent frames have it doing all sorts of crazy things from blowing up to bits of the photo to stating the image file number, etc. I can't even get to the point where I move it down the time line and put in key frames and alpha channel fades to make it come in near the end of the sketch effect. It just goes crazy. It seems obvious that I need to click some button to make a still picture stay a still picture over a time line I just don't know what button that is and have been unsuccessful through trial and error to find it.
Sorry for the long question. Can you point me in the right direction on these two issues?
Not sure how I see a possible reply from you. I probably have to check back here. My direct email address is: chip353@verizon.net
Thanks again for the tutorial.
Chip Mochel

Hi, Peter...
I'm trying to envision exactly what is happening with your project, but it sounds like the duplicate layer of your footage - the rolling footage with the cartoon effect - is still set to TrkMat Alpha. It should be set to None. Let me know if this helps.
Regards,

Rob Mize

Hi, John...
Since the cartoon effect was introduced with CS4, your CS3 may not handle it well... how did you add it to your effects? The number of masks also impacts render speed. At any rate, that effect is, in fact, a memory hog. While composing, I sometimes lower my comp resolution and quality setting to compensate. Sorry I can't offer a better solution; however, I would recommend checking the Cow's AE Forum regarding the best preference settings for your hardware.

Rob Mize

Hi Rob

Great tutoria, but I would like to opick your brain.

I have been able to reproduce using some .mov footage, but I am having trouble sketching a 2 tone still image



I have tried using a single layer jpeg and multi layer psd, but all I get is a 1 frame transition from empty screen to fully drawn

Is there a special technique for using stills of this type

Thanks

John

Hi Rob,

I was a bit rushed today when I watched your tutorial, so I may have missed something...when my video re-animates back to a live action sketch, the strokes disappear as my subject moves. Almost like it's obeying the original masks and not showing anything outside of them?

Dave

most of the files seem to be missing from the project.