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Creating a text’s “Mask”
This is giving me a real headache so I am begging for help. Someone left a project on my disk which has a text layer with a seperate mask for each letter. I would call the mask a “stroke”, that is it runs directly down the center of the letter as in the path a pen would follow, NOT an outline. The font looks like sloppy handwriting so the path sometimes crosses itself, but is a single open ended line. I can alter the path by choosing a point, bezier etc.
It’s driving me nuts how he made these masks. Or were they done in PS or AI and copied in? All that I can find in tutorials and help is about making an “outline”, not an inner stroke.
This also got me thinking, what is the difference between a path, a mask, a stroke and an outline? Aren’t they really the same thing in AE?
thanks in advance,
td -
8 Replies
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quick question td, are you trying to make a write on effect?, if so check out jayse tutorials.
hope that helps, it describes how you really don’t need a mask, but a path, about your second question, i really just see it as paths and masks, paths being like lines in the sense that they dont cover areas, rather they make, er, well “paths” and mask being what they are, “masks” areas where things can be covered or uncovered.
and how he made the open ended lines, well with the pen tool, just trace the letter, like a pen would
again, really, check out jayse tutorial.
I’ve been using after effects for three months so don’t be too harsh im just trying to help, never heard about strokes or lines, seems like ilustrator or photoshop stuff
so, don’t know if this would be bad manners but, sorry in andvance, Id like to draw attention to the post, just before yours, its mine, im having trouble scrubbing, i just dont see anything i have to ram preview, check it our, its called scrubbing doesnt wok, maybe you can help.
thankx for everything
Luis Artigas
YANOMAMI FILMS
Caracas, Venezuela -
[tduncan777] “It’s driving me nuts how he made these masks. Or were they done in PS or AI and copied in? All that I can find in tutorials and help is about making an “outline”, not an inner stroke.
This also got me thinking, what is the difference between a path, a mask, a stroke and an outline? Aren’t they really the same thing in AE?”
If it looks sloppy he probably just drew some masks out in AE, if he did it in Illustrator it should have worked a bit better unless the goal was sloppiness.
A path is generally used to refer to a motion path along which layers, lights, or cameras move, these can exist in 3D space.
A mask is similar to custom shapes and paths in Photoshop and can be drawn closed or open ended (you’re dealing with an open ended one).
A stroke is an effect that is applied to a layer, it uses a mask as an input.
The only place I’ve seen ‘outline’ used in AE is the ‘Create Outlines’ function for text, which creates a new layer with masks on it corresponding to the vectors of the font on the text layer.
So as you can see these are all related, but should be thought of differently.
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
By sloppy I mean it is a “handwritten” grunge-like TT font. For example, the stroke-path for a handwritten “T” returns to the top-center and changes direction after a small loop. If he created the mask manually with a pen, he sure put a lot of effort into it. And the stroke is perfectly down the center. I just thought there MUST be a simple automated way to get this mask. No?
thanks,
td -
The real reason I want to know is because it’s making me crazy searching for it. 😉
But yes, it could be a path that a write-on effect would take, though it could be used for many other things too I guess. A Photoshop or AI path in AE is called a mask, no?
thanks,
td -
Correction, I believe he did manually pen the mask because it is not as perfect as I described. Also the same letters have different masks.
That solves it. Thanks,
td -
[tduncan777] “Correction, I believe he did manually pen the mask because it is not as perfect as I described. Also the same letters have different masks.”
Just to expand on this, a technique that people often use is typing text out using a font and then revealing it with a manual Stroke set to ‘Reveal Original.’
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Write-On is more of a pain then Stroke as it requires an extra step of pasting data into the position property.
Masks can definitely be open-ended (similar to your description of paths) and don’t necessarily need to hide or reveal anything (you can change a mask from ‘Add’ to ‘None’).
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA -
Im not sure if this is what you are referring to,
but just give it a try.
https://maltaannon.com/after-effects/signature-custom-brush-tip/Cheers
maltaannon.com – Free After Effects Video Tutorials and more
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