• Adobe After Effects

  Illustrator Blend Modes in AE?

  Posted by Jimmy Brunger on June 28, 2009 at 11:26 pm

  Hi all,

  I’m currently animating some on-air GFX that someone else created in Illustrator and struggling to match the blend mode/transparency from Illy, in AE. I need to deliver these animations as 32-bit TGAs with alpha, for playout on an on-air live system…my main problem is that even after I’ve painstakingly split each overlaid shape into sep layers in Illy and then jotted down the blend mode/opacity for each and then rebuilt all this in AE I’ve still got a ‘solid’ layer when viewing the alpha.

  Now I understand why this is (it’s annoying but unavoidable I guess) but basically are there any tricks to cheat this look and also give the information I need to the alpha channel?? (Short of keeping all overlapping semi-trans layers set to ‘normal’ blend mode and then re-create the look of the blend by manipulating grads, colours and opacity) ? It’s been a while since I’ve had to create GFX for someone else to comp over video and I remember this alpha/blend problem from then.

  The only way I could get these GFX to look exactly the same as in AE would be to supply each layer that makes up that particular overlaid shape separately and give them notes of what blend mode to use….this would be ALOT of layers and I cannot see this really being an option!

  Has anyone run into this before and got out the other side intact!?

  Cheers,
  Jim.

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  Michael Szalapski replied 17 years, 2 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Michael Szalapski

  June 29, 2009 at 6:14 am

  Real quick (it’s late and I’m tried so this might not be the best idea ever).
  You could always put it over green (or red or blue or whatever color’s not in your design) and key it out.

  – The Great Szalam
  (The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

  No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

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