Stroke Effect; Vegas Effect - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

Stroke effect

The Stroke effect creates a stroke or border around a mask or along a Bezier path. You can also specify stroke color,
opacity, and spacing, as well as brush characteristics. Specify whether the stroke appears on top of the image, on a
transparent image, or if it reveals the original alpha channel. To use a path created in Illustrator, copy the path and
paste it into a layer in After Effects.
This effect works with 8-bpc color.
Original (left), with mask (center), and with Stroke applied (right)
Specifies the edge quality of the stroke, between hard and soft.
Brush Hardness
Specifies the spacing between stroke segments.
Spacing
Specifies whether the stroke is applied to the original layer or to a transparent layer.
Paint Style

Vegas effect

The Vegas effect generates running lights and other path-based pulse animations around an object. You can outline
just about anything, surround it with a number of lights or longer pulses, and then animate it to create the effect of
lights chasing around the object.
This effect works with 8-bpc color.
Image contours of the spaceship are used to create animations on a transparent background (right).
Adjust the following controls for the Vegas effect:
Specifies what you want to use to create a stroke: Image Contours or Mask/Path.
Stroke
Specifies the area where the lights will appear. Vegas sets thresholds for the image and then creates
Image Contours
contours around the edges of the resulting shapes.
•
Specifies where the strokes appear. High-contrast, grayscale layers, and alpha channels work well and
Input Layer
are easy to work with.
•
Inverts the input layer prior to creating the stroke.
Invert Input
•
Determines how to adjust the layers if the size of the input layer differs from that of the layer
If Layer Sizes Differ
to which Vegas is applied. Center centers the input layer in the composition at its original size. Stretch To Fit scales
the input layer to match the layer to which Vegas is applied.
•
Specifies the channel or property of the input layer used to define the contours.
Channel
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