Click Ok - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 5.5 Help Manual

Adobe After Effects Help
Using Help | Contents
When you select multiple strokes that have different Brush Settings, a question mark [-?-]
appears next to that Brush Setting in the Effect Controls window. If you edit that value, all
of the selected strokes are reset to the new value. For example, if you select strokes with
different Radius values, a question mark appears in place of the Radius setting. If you then
type a new Radius value of 5.0 (for example), all the selected strokes will have a Radius
value of 5.0.
Editing the Radius using Relative Values (PB only)
Use relative values to edit the Radius settings of selected strokes based on their original
values.
If you press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) when clicking the question mark repre-
senting the Radius value, a Set Value dialog box appears. You can then type a Relative
Radius, reducing the radius of each stroke by that percentage. The default value is 100%,
which produces no change in the stroke radii.
For example, if you have selected three strokes with Radius values of 5, 10 and 20, and
type a Relative Radius value of 50%, the value of each stroke is multiplied by that
percentage, resulting in radius values of 2.5, 5, and 10, respectively. Each stroke is half its
original width. To double the widths, type a Relative Radius of 200%.
Smoothing a stroke (PB only)
The Smoother command in the Vector Paint contextual menu removes points from a
selected stroke or strokes. This simplifies stroke paths, smoothing out the curves. By elimi-
nating unneeded points, the Smoother can also dramatically reduce the size of the project
file when you have complex drawings composed of many strokes.
When you select a path and choose Smoother, a dialog box appears in which you can type
a Set Max Error value. This sets the tolerance for the smoothing. Higher values remove
more points on the path, resulting in a smoother stroke. Set values within the range 0–
100. The default value, 1.0, removes only redundant points, maintaining details in the
stroke.
After you click OK in the dialog box, the stroke paths immediately reflect the smoothing in
the Composition window.
Important: Smoothing cannot be undone. Removing these points may alter the shape of
the path. If you want to preview the results before you commit, create a duplicate of the
layer and apply Smoothing to test the result. If these are satisfactory, then apply the
command to the original layer.
Selecting Composite Paint options (PB only)
Various options control the way Vector Paint composites strokes on a layer. Select the
option you want in the Effect Controls window for a layer, in the Composite Paint pop-up
menu under Vector Paint. These options control two things: what you see in the Compo-
sition window as you work and what aspects of the layer the strokes affect, including what
happens when you preview and render the composition.
As you paint and erase, you can either hide or display the footage image. You have similar
viewing options when you paint using matte and alpha-channel options.
Using Help | Contents
| Index
| Index
Using Vector Paint (PB only)
Back 338
Back 338