Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 236

The distorted outline that is shown during recording does not take Starch pins into account.
Use Draft Deformation
This can improve performance for a complex mesh.
Note: 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" on page 228.
Select one or more Deform pins.
1
Go to the time at which to begin recording motion.
2
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.
The color of the outline for the mesh for which motion is being sketched is the same as the color of the pin (yellow).
Reference outlines, for other meshes on the same layer, are the color of the layer's label.
The current-time indicator returns to the time at which recording began, so that you can repeat the recording
operation with more Deform pins or redo the recording operation with the same pins.
You can modify the Deform pins' motion paths as you would any other motion paths. A pin's motion path is shown
only if it is the only pin selected.
Try creating several duplicate meshes and sketching motion for each mesh. When you have multiple meshes in the
same instance of the Puppet effect, you can sketch motion for one mesh while seeing the reference outlines of the
others, allowing you to follow their movements, either roughly or precisely.
See also
"Work with pins and the distortion mesh" on page 231
"Creating and modifying motion paths" on page 199
How the Puppet effect creates outlines
When a Puppet mesh is created, its boundaries are determined by an outline, which can be defined by any of the
following types of closed paths:
• An unlocked mask path
• A shape path on a shape layer
• A text character's outline
If a layer has no unlocked masks, shapes, or text characters on it when you apply the Puppet effect, it will use Auto-
trace to create paths from the alpha channel. These paths are only used by the Puppet effect in the determination of
outlines and do not appear as masks on the layer. If the layer is a raster layer with no alpha channel, the result is a
single rectangular path around the layer's bounds. For a complex image, or to configure Auto-trace settings, use
Auto-trace before using the Puppet tools. (See "Create a mask from a channel with Auto-trace" on page 256.)
A text character that consists of multiple disjoint closed paths (such as the letter i) is treated as multiple separate
paths.
A shape or character's stroke is not used in the determination of outlines; only the path is used. To encompass a stroke
within a mesh created from such items, increase the Expansion value. The default value of 3 pixels for Expansion
encompasses a stroke that extends 3 pixels or less from its path.
AFTER EFFECTS CS3 230
User Guide