-
AE5 how to restrain stroke expression within a shape?
I’m working on a banner anim for a TV shop website. Size is 570 x 82. It’s a 10-second anim I plan to reel/repeat.
I have 4 text layers, all the same text, with some basic color, glows, and opacity shifts. All good here.
On text layer 4 I added Generate Radio Waves with a modulating RGB color stroke. This stroke speeds up then cuts off at 5 seconds, for a nice “electron blizzard” type effect. However the stroke fills up the entire 570 x 82 space, and there seems no way to shrink nor constrain its size. Scaling the layer did nothing… I added Mask and tried selecting Mask for the Radio Wave Type, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference, I can’t seem to scale the stroke down.
I tried creating an elliptical shape layer, but I couldn’t get much to happen with it.
I imported a color ellipse psd as layer 5, sent it to the Back, and tried to make it a mask or matte; I thought I could restrain the layer 4 Radio Wave stroke expression, to within the ellipse psd of layer 5. I can get close by using this psd layer as a Track Matte, but I lose the cool RGB of the Layer 4 stroke; the track matte has only 4 choices and all mutilate or invert or just disappear the stroke color from layer 4.
I’m a relative newbie, I’m sure there’s some way to get the stroke effect constrained— I even tried adding a Drop Shadow to the back .psd layer: still no go. So in brief, the Goal: create an elliptical banner animation, w/ several layers, one of which has a Radio Wave stroke effect animated— and which effect, doesn’t go beyond the elliptical boundary of .psd layer 5. Or, find some other way to constrain that crazy stroke. Hoping some wizard out there can help—
Charlton
Houston -
5 Replies
-
Can you make a jpeg of the offending stroke and post it here, i’m having a hard time visualizing the problem.
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb. -
I’m surprised scaling isn’t working. A good rule of thumb: if something basic, such as a scale or mask, isn’t working, try precomposing the layer, then trying again. Some effects are just finicky like that.
Benjamin Ausmith
Post-Production Assistant
Monadnock Media, inc. -
Thank you sir, I’ll gee it a whirl
-
John, here’s a jpg of the composition. You’ll see the radio wave stroke lines go all the way to the comp edge.
All the layer details are shown in my original post.
The blue ellipsoid is layer 5, set currently to Back position. The stroke effect is on layer 4. It’s a text layer, I used Generate Radio Waves to get the effect. I set Wave Type to Image Contours, but it doesn’t seem to matter what Wave Type I use; the stroke is not scalable nor conformable at all to the lettering, I created a mask, set Wave Type to mask— no good.
That’s when I decided to import the ellipsoid and use it as a screen to constrain the stroke— but that doesn’t work either, any further ideas very much appreciated.
Houston TX
-
John, thanks for your consideration, I thought I uploaded the jpg 2 days ago, here we go again… Once again: I have 5 layers, 4 layers text with glows, &c, plus I added the ellipse to try to create a mask or screen to block out the Radio Wave stroke effects on the text layer 4. But it doesn’t work. I can’t constrain the stroke effect at all, it seems.
Thanks—
Houston TX
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up