Handwriting to Flash

[Steve Roberts]

Hmm … I’m not sure what the other tutorials can’t do for you. Could you be more specific, regarding what they cover and what they don’t?

I’d scan the sig, then draw an open mask with the pen tool over the signature, then apply render>stroke to the layer, using “all strokes” and “reveal original”.

However, if you try to export an SWF from that, and select “rasterize” for unsupported effects, you’ll get a rasterized SWF which will not be as small as a vector SWF. You can try applying something like Optimaze to get the file size down. Unfortunately however, AE’s stroke & paint effects have to be rasterized.

If you need teeny vector files, I recommend you try the effect in Flash. I haven’t tried it, but you might be able to tween a line in a mask layer over the signature layer to reveal the sig.

Hope that helps,
Steve

[Kelly Johnson]

I agree with doing it all in Flash. You can scan the sig, autotrace it in Illustrator/Freehand whatever and make the necessary adjustments to the vector file then import that into Flash.

You can animate a mask in Flash now so just use a shape tween. Have a blob on a layer above the sig layer. The blob layer is the Mask, while the sig layer is Masked (in layer options)

Then, just set new keyframes and on each one revealing the sig as needed (by adjusting the blob manually). You might end up with enough close enough keyframes that some of them won’t actually be tweened.

Either way, experiment with the fps to get the smoothest look.

[Sally Lewis]

Thank you very much for the suggestions! Sally