Illustrator and After Effects

reddragon_syndicate · Post by **reddragon_syndicate** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 1:19 pm

I'm trying to follow a tutorial on the creative cow forum. everything goes good until I get to step 8 where it says to paste the previously copied path that was made with the pen tool.The guide says that when you paste into after effects keyframes should just appear I tried pasting into After Effects but... I dont even get the option to paste. Im using Adobe Illustrator CS 11.0 and After Effects 6.5 Pro. My first thought was that the two versions were too different. Any ideas??
Thanks in advance

RedDragon

Minion · Post by **Minion** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 1:27 pm

try saving it as an illustrator 8 EPS, then importing. worth a try?
i don't know aftereffects very well, but illustrator is my thang, so if ya need other help with that, post, i guess :/

reddragon_syndicate · Post by **reddragon_syndicate** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 1:46 pm

Hmm i tried it but it imported the all the paths.. as a part of the image.. from what i understand from the guide .. all that should be pulled over is the points in the path .. hmm I'll keep tinkering with what you suggested but as of yet i havnt gotten it to work.

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 1:57 pm

The version shouldn't be a problem. Have you made sure to select the "brush position" property before pasting? Ctrl+V might work better than trying to do it through the menu.

reddragon_syndicate · Post by **reddragon_syndicate** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:09 pm

Yes the brush position is highlighted with the "I" in the timeline and i've tried ctrl+v but still no progress.

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 9:49 am

There's a lot of warning statements in that CC tutorial and I assume that things will go drastically wrong if it wasn't followed to the "T," so double and triple-check on that aspect of whatever it is you're doing.

In any case...I tested out the tutorial, but didn't get too far once I realized I'd uninstalled AE a few months back to save on HD space.

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Ok, now that AE's back (

) I'm using Illustrator CS2 and AE 7.0 Pro...but that shouldn't really make a difference in this situation. I'm (sorry?) to report that the tutorial worked perfectly for me, so it must be something you're doing wrong.
Aside from rechecking/redoing the tutorial from the start, I'd suggest making darn sure that, when you copy the workpath in Illustrator, that you're using the selection tool (or the "V" tool as one of my fellow graphic design students insists on referring to it as) and that every single anchorpoint on the workpath is selected (meaning they're all black, not white) when you hit copy. From lack of a paste option, I'd say that's where you should concentrate your problem-solving efforts.

reddragon_syndicate · Post by **reddragon_syndicate** » Sun Oct 08, 2006 11:25 pm

Thanks DriftRoot. I had suspected it was something I was causing.. I've ran through AE and found a way to do it (my limited knowledge in all this). but it gave me .. a penciled sort of effect.. I'm going to run back through the tut again in a day or so (strapped for time on some things). But thank you very much

reddragon_syndicate · Post by **reddragon_syndicate** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 12:54 pm

alright got that now.. however it turns out it isnt what i wanted (my own fault for just jumping into the tutorial i suppose). What I want is the full character to be displayed in a sort of writing effect like this guide at ayatoweb. He also gives a screen shot from AI. Would this be done generally the same way as the pen tool was used to make the paths? (im guessing a big nu uh)

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 2:54 pm

For the method used in the ayato tutorial, its fairly simple, but probably a little difficult to set up.

1. You need to create the characters using paths in Illustrator, meaning you cant just use an image of some text.
2. Each character needs to be done seperately.
3. I dunno how to use Illustrator, but the tutorial says to use the "blend tool" to make a gradient along the patch of each character. The way it works, is you want the first part that is drawn to be white, and the last part to be black.
4. Simply use the gradient wipe effect in AE to draw the character. Gradient wipe will first display the white parts, and gradually display the darker parts. This is how the character is drawn.

DriftRoot · Post by **DriftRoot** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 8:18 pm

Zarxrax wrote: 3. I dunno how to use Illustrator, but the tutorial says to use the "blend tool" to make a gradient along the patch of each character. The way it works, is you want the first part that is drawn to be white, and the last part to be black.

The blend tool can be tricky - you have to kind of know what you want ahead of time to make it work. It's rather like the gradient tool in Photoshop, except instead of creating a gradient on one object, you're making a gradient between two different objects - it can be smooth or divided; in your case you want it smooth. (Illustrator's classic way of making something that should be really simple, really annoying.)

This is a pretty advanced technique, btw, just like the tutorial says. You have to deconstruct each letter's shape and then connect them with the blend tool in the appropriate direction. It's an awesome effect, but a bit of a handful if you're not really confident with what you're doing.

I don't think you even need to use Illustrator to do this particular tutorial, actually. Unless you're projecting your AMV on a five-story building, creating the text in Photoshop should be more than acceptable, resolution-wise. It will be easier to handle in terms of creating just the right gradiant on the letters without painstaking work with the blend tool.

There are easier ways to achieve that handwriting-simulated look than the one in this tutorial. But it is awesome...*is getting ideas*