Vector Paint tools in Composition panel

You can use three tools in the Vector Paint toolbar to work with Vector Paint:

Selection tool 

Select a stroke by clicking or dragging across it. You can drag across several strokes to select them simultaneously. You select strokes to edit or delete them.

Paint tool 

Paint directly on the layer, using settings defined in the Effect Controls panel. When you use the Paint tool, the pointer appears as a circle (or square) in the actual size of the brush.

Eraser tool 

Erase areas of the layer, using Brush Type settings defined in the Effect Controls panel. The Eraser pointer appears as a circle with an X through it. If you use an installed tablet with stylus eraser support, Vector Paint automatically switches to eraser mode when you use the stylus eraser.

Clicking the active tool (Selection, Paint, or Brush) in the Vector Paint toolbar deactivates painting and hides the other buttons in the toolbar. You can then drag and scale the layer. To reactivate the toolbar, reselect one of the three Vector Paint tool buttons.

Vector Paint includes three brush types: Paint, Air, and Square. These brush types define the shapes and performance of both the Paintbrush tool and the Eraser tool. All brush types but the Air brush include a Feather setting.

Radius

Controls the size of the brush or eraser.

If you press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) when clicking the question mark representing 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.

Feather

Controls the softness of brush or eraser edges (but doesn’t affect the airbrush).

When you drag to change Radius, Feather, or Opacity values, hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) to reduce the size of the increments. To change the value by larger increments, hold down Shift as you drag.

Opacity

Controls the transparency of the paint or erasures.

Brush Type

Shows the brush type you selected in the Vector Paint toolbar in the Composition panel.

Color

Represents the paint color used to draw strokes. Select a new color by clicking the Color swatch and then using the Color Picker, or by using the eyedropper to sample a color from the desktop.

When one or more strokes of the same color are selected, this swatch displays the color of those strokes. You can change the color of the selected strokes.

Color Clone

When Color Clone is turned on, the brush behaves like a combination eyedropper and brush. The pixels at the position where the stroke begins determine the color of the stroke. The Color swatch in the Brush Settings group in the Effect Controls panel displays the new sampled color. When you begin another stroke, a new group of pixels is sampled and used to color that stroke.

The Color Clone affects strokes only while you draw; it has no effect on an already completed stroke. This brush setting is the only one you can’t apply after drawing. Clicking either the eyedropper or Color swatch turns off the Color Clone feature.

Stylus

The Radius option affects stylus sensitivity. When you select this option, the pressure of the pen on the tablet changes the weight of the stroke as it is drawn. Lighter pressure decreases the radius (creating a thinner stroke), and increased pressure increases the radius (creating a wider one). The Radius value setting indicates the maximum radius amount. Use the tablet settings to adjust the pressure-width sensitivity for the pen.

Note: You can choose Stylus Radius even if no tablet is installed. This option affects strokes when wiggling is enabled.

The pressure variation of the pen on the tablet alters the opacity of the stroke as you draw. Light pressure results in lower opacity values, while increased pressure creates more opaque strokes. The Opacity value defines the maximum of the Opacity range.

When you select a single stroke or strokes with the same Brush Settings, you can edit the enabled Brush Settings in the Effect Controls panel. Your changes to the strokes immediately appear in the Composition panel as you complete them.

When you select multiple strokes that have different Brush Settings, a question mark [‑?‑] appears next to that Brush Setting in the Effect Controls panel. If you edit that value, all of the selected strokes are reset to the new value.

To edit a specific paint stroke, select it using the Selection tool  on the Vector Paint toolbar and click or drag, or choose Select from the Vector Paint options menu. You can select and then move, revise attributes, or delete either a paint stroke or erasure stroke.

Use the following commands from the Select option in the Vector Paint toolbar option menu to select and edit paint strokes:

All

Selects all strokes on a layer.

None

Deselects all strokes on a layer (available only if some strokes are selected).

Visible

Selects all strokes visible at the current frame.

Current Time

Selects all strokes that were drawn at the current time position. (Playback Speed doesn’t affect the original start time of strokes.)

Last Painted

Selects the last-painted brush stroke (or erase stroke). If you painted several strokes with the Shift key held down, this command selects that group of strokes.

Similar

With one or more strokes selected, this command selects additional strokes with similar Brush Settings properties. If strokes with dissimilar properties are initially selected, this command selects a broader range of strokes.

Inverse

Toggles to a selection of all unselected strokes, leaving the previously selected strokes unselected.

After you select one or more strokes, you can transform them, such as by rotating, scaling (vertically, horizontally, or both), or nudging (repositioning one pixel at a time).

Use the following tools in the Vector Paint toolbar in the Composition panel to revise your paint work:

Undo button 

Click the Undo button to cancel your most recent single painting action, if it can be undone. If the action cannot be undone, this tool is dimmed (not available). You can also undo paint actions by using the Undo command on the Vector Paint options menu or by pressing Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Mac OS).

Note: Don’t use the Undo command on the Edit menu to undo Vector Paint actions.

Eyedropper  

Use the eyedropper to select a color to paint with from a sampling anywhere on the desktop. Press the Escape key to cancel the eyedropper.

Note: By default, the eyedropper samples a single pixel. Hold down Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) and click the eyedropper to sample a 3-x-3-pixel average. Hold down Shift and drag to sample a range of multiple pixels.

Color swatch  

Displays the current selection as a solid color. When clicked, it opens the Color Picker dialog box. If the Opacity setting is less than 100%, the Color Swatch icon appears checkered, not solid.

If Color Clone is enabled in the Effect Controls panel, this swatch represents the sampled color. Shift-click the Color Swatch to open the Set Value dialog box for Opacity without turning off Color Clone.

The Smoother command in the Vector Paint options menu removes points from a selected stroke or strokes. This action simplifies stroke paths, smoothing out the curves. By eliminating unneeded points, the Smoother command can also dramatically reduce the size of the project file if 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 Max Error value. This value sets the tolerance for the smoothing. Higher values remove more points on the path, resulting in a smoother stroke. Values can range from 0 through 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 panel.

Smoothing cannot be undone. Removing these points may alter the shape of the path. If you want to preview the results, create a duplicate of the layer and apply Smoothing to test the result. If the results are satisfactory, then apply the command to the original layer.

You can specify preferences for a Wacom or Creation Station tablet in several areas of the After Effects interface.

Use the Playback Mode pop-up menu in the Effect Controls panel to specify when and how quickly your strokes appear in a composition. When you draw strokes, Vector Paint records information for the stroke start time and the drawing time of each stroke (in real time). The playback mode you select determines when a stroke starts and for how long it appears. You can set the speed at which the strokes play back using Playback Speed.

Play back your strokes using standard (spacebar) preview or RAM preview, or by viewing the results of a rendered composition.

While the playback mode chosen affects what you see during playback, it also determines what you see while you are drawing strokes. Onion Skin mode, for example, is used primarily while drawing strokes, and then another mode is selected before rendering.

Adjust the following controls to affect the way that strokes appear in the composition:

All Strokes

Displays all strokes for the full duration of the layer, regardless of the position of the current-time indicator when you drew them.

Past Strokes

Displays strokes from the time at which they were recorded until the end of the layer (the Out point).

Hold Strokes

Displays strokes from the frame on which they were drawn and holds them only until the point at which the next stroke was drawn. This mode treats strokes like Hold keyframes; as a stroke appears, it replaces the next, as in a slide show.

Animate Strokes

Begins drawing the stroke at the current time (that is, at the frame where the current-time indicator is when you draw the stroke). The stroke animates in the same way as it was drawn.

Current Frame

The default Draw Strokes setting. This mode displays the stroke only at the frame at which it was painted.

Onion Skin

Displays strokes drawn on the current frame plus strokes drawn on the surrounding few frames. These additional strokes appear color-coded and at reduced opacity, to distinguish them from the strokes on the current frame. Those strokes actually exist only on the frames in which they are drawn. Onion-skinning is useful for drawing frame-by-frame animations because it gives you reference points for the stroke positions.

Use the Onion Skinning options in the Vector Paint Preferences dialog box to specify how previous and forward strokes appear when Onion Skin is the active playback mode. (To open Vector Paint Preferences, use the Vector Paint options menu and choose Options.) These options include the following:

Frames Backward/Frames Forward

Sets the number of frames backward or forward that are displayed. Both backward and forward frames are displayed unless one or both of these values is set to 0.

Color Backward/Color Forward

Sets the color of the display of backward and forward strokes.

Skin Opacity

Sets the percentage of opacity for onion skin strokes.

The Playback Speed value in the Effect Controls panel can change the timing at which painted strokes appear in previews and rendered compositions. Playback Speed affects the Vector Paint strokes only if you set Playback Mode to Past Strokes, Hold Strokes, or Animate Strokes.

When you create strokes on a layer, the stroke is tied to the location of the current-time indicator in the Timeline panel when you start drawing. Vector Paint also records the amount of time you take to draw the stroke. For example, you might start painting a stroke with the current-time indicator set to 0:00 and use 1.5 seconds to draw the stroke. Then, you might move the current-time indicator to 2:00 and draw a second stroke (leaving 0.5 seconds between the completion of the first stroke and the beginning of the second one). For this example, let’s say you use 1.0 second to draw the second stroke. The entire process covers 3.0 seconds on the timeline.

By changing the playback speed, you can change the timing for stroke appearances in previews and rendered compositions.

Ordinarily, when you draw strokes with Vector Paint, those strokes are associated with the position of the current-time indicator. After you draw a stroke, you can draw more strokes at the same time setting or at different time settings. The results you see when you preview or render the composition depend on your Playback Mode setting. The Shift-Paint Records controls change the way that strokes associate with time settings, called QuickPaint mode. One of the advantages of this feature is that you can create fast continuous recordings of a sequence of strokes without redraw delays after each one.

Enable Wiggling

If selected, all strokes on the layer are set to wiggle using the Wiggle Control values set in the Effect Controls panel.

Wiggles/sec

Determines the number of wiggles per second of composition time. Wiggling is spline-based morphing of paint strokes. Wiggles/sec controls the speed at which the change occurs. For example, in a 30-fps composition, setting the Wiggles/sec value to 30 creates one wiggle per frame. Lower values result in a smooth animation of morphing strokes. Higher values create more rapid wiggling.

Displacement Variation

Determines how far the stroke moves from its original position while wiggling. The greater the value, the greater the deviation in shape.

Displacement Detail

Determines how much the original shape of the path is altered while wiggling. Greater values increase the detail of displacement (or change in shape) in the stroke. Lower values produce less displacement, leaving the path closer to its original shape.

When Displacement Detail values are set high, the stroke may not resemble its original shape at all. This approach is useful in creating randomly animated strokes.

Set the Displacement Detail value by using the slider in the Effect Controls panel (preset to values in the range 0–100) or by clicking the underlined Displacement Detail value and typing a number in the range 0–1000.

Pressure Variation

Determines how much the Radius and Opacity values of the stroke vary while wiggling. For strokes that have Stylus Radius enabled, the Radius wiggles. For strokes that have Stylus Opacity enabled, the Opacity wiggles. The amount of variation in either the Radius or Opacity value while wiggling depends on the value specified for Pressure Variation. The Radius and Opacity settings in the Brush Settings act as maximum amounts, not to be exceeded while wiggling.

Note: Strokes that don’t have either Stylus Radius or Stylus Opacity options selected aren’t affected by the Wiggle Pressure Settings. However, these options can be enabled even if a tablet isn’t installed.

In the Effect Controls panel, set the Pressure Variation value by clicking the underlined Pressure Variation value and typing a number between -30,000 and 30,000, or by dragging the Pressure Variation slider.

Pressure Detail

Determines how tight the pressure variation appears along the stroke. Higher values create more dense variations.

Individual Stroke Seeds

If selected, this option creates a different random wiggle seed for each stroke on a layer.

Because the wiggle controls apply to all strokes on a layer, the wiggle parameters are always the same. To randomize the wiggling of the individual strokes, select the Individual Stroke Seeds option.

If Individual Stroke Seeds isn’t selected, all strokes use the same wiggle seed, so they all have the same spatial wiggle values. For example, two strokes exactly on top of each other wiggle equally. By setting individual seeds for each stroke, you avoid identical strokes wiggling in the same way.

Various options control the way Vector Paint composites strokes on a layer. Select the option you want in the Effect Controls panel for a layer, from the Composite Paint menu under Vector Paint. These options control two things: what you see in the Composition panel 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.

As you work, painting and erasing can block pixels in an original image, such as a footage file or solid. You can also paint on a virtual layer above or below that image (although the virtual layer doesn’t appear as a separate layer in the Timeline panel). You can paint and erase to adjust mattes and alpha channels for the original image. You can restrict Vector Paint strokes to the areas inside or outside the original alpha channel.

Each Composite Paint option specifies a unique combination of work view, layer type (image, matte, or alpha channel), and placement of strokes relative to the original image. You can select strokes later and change the Composite Paint option, but it’s a good idea to understand what results each option produces before you start painting.

The following illustrations use the same basic example of an imported image. A paint stroke has been applied, followed by an erasure stroke. The original image is the green layer, including an alpha channel that reveals the background layer.

Composite Paint options

A. In Original (default setting), before painting

The imported image is visible.

B. In Original, with paint stroke

The paint strokes appear above the original image.

C. In Original, with paint stroke and erasure stroke

An erasure stroke removes underlying portions of both the paint stroke and the original image.

D. Only

The original image on the layer doesn’t appear in the working view; only paint strokes are shown. Erasures remove only paint, not the original image.

E. Over Original

The original image is visible in the working view, similar to the In Original option. Painting and erasing occur as with the Only option: Erasing removes pixels from underlying paint strokes but doesn’t alter the original image.

F. Under Original

The layer image is visible in the working view. Painting doesn’t alter the original image; it affects only areas of the layer that are outside the original image. Erasures remove only paint pixels, not the original image.

G. Track Original Matte

The original image isn’t visible in the working view. Paint strokes are visible. Painting affects only the area within the original image alpha channel (that is, paint applied within the original circle area). Erasures remove only existing paint pixels.

H. Track Original Matte Visible

The original image is visible in the working view. Otherwise, Vector Paint strokes behave exactly as with Track Original Matte, so erasures don’t affect the original image.

I. As Matte

Before you paint, nothing is visible in working view. Paint strokes affect only the matte, revealing the underlying original image. Erasures add back areas of opacity, so that they appear to erase the underlying image again. Both types of strokes are restricted to the area of the original alpha channel.

J. As Inverse Matte

Before you paint, the original image is visible in the working view. Painting affects only areas within the original image alpha channel. Paint strokes block (rather than reveal) the original image, appearing to erase the original image. Erasures remove only painting strokes; that is, they re-reveal the underlying image within the alpha channel.

K. In Original Alpha Only

The original image appears within its alpha channel in working view. Strokes affect the alpha channel itself. Painting adds areas of opacity. Erasures add areas of transparency.

Note: You don’t need to switch colors when you paint in the alpha channel, even if you paint with gray. The changes to the opacity of the painted area are determined by the values shown for Opacity and Feather under Brush Settings in the Effect Controls panel, not by the color of paint.

L. Under Original Alpha Only

The original image appears within its alpha channel in working view. Strokes don’t affect the original image alpha channel, only areas outside it. Painting adds areas of opacity; erasing restores transparency to painted areas only.

Note: The difference between using Under Original and Under Original Alpha Only is that in the latter, strokes affect only the alpha channel; RGB is unchanged.

Use the Vector Paint Preferences dialog box to customize the way you view your work in Vector Paint. Unlike most other effects, the options you select as Vector Paint preferences apply to all your Vector Paint work, both on the current layer and on other layers. Your current preferences are also used for subsequent sessions of Vector Paint.