how to make whiteboard “scribe” videos

[Andy Galloway]

The scribble effect is also nice for a bit of character… sorry can’t find a good tutorial for this off hand but if you do a bit of googling you’ll find one.

Good luck.

[Andy Galloway]

Hi mate,

Firstly I would recommend recording yourself drawing the pictures like you mentioned as this means you can comp in your hand as a live action element later if you want.

Anyway in terms of software you should probably go for After Effects and use the built in Stroke or Write on effects.

Here is a tutorial.

https://layersmagazine.com/animated-handwriting-in-after-effects.html

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

If your talent is able to draw free-hand style then that’s the way to go – just shoot it as it happens. I however had the unfortunate experience of working with a talent with ‘nice-looking hands’ but poor hand-eye coordination.

My setup involved pre-drawing the whiteboard with a faint replica of what was to be drawn – the drawing has to be faint enough such that the camera doesn’t capture it. A few rehearsals on the movement dynamics and we were good to go.

HTH
RoRK

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[Katie Adam]

We all know the demand of video scribing and the features that they provide which make our business life very easy and it saves our time too the presentation that take a huge time to demonstrate our views now by the help of Scribe Video we can convey our thoughts within no time.

Explainer Video| Animated Video Production

[Jared Nelson]

So I am intrigued by this type of video as well. I understand that one could just film a time lapse of the artist drawing. However I am wondering if anyone knows of another way. Besides the laborious options of creating layered files and masks etc.

Is there any software or filter for After Effects that could essentially have an artist using a Wacom tablet or monitor to draw the illustration. While the software records all the strokes. Then have it play back over a said amount of time. Thoughts?

[Ken Fisher]

I was looking for something similar, but my purpose is text over in “how to” videos. It would occupy an area similar to what is seen on the video below at 2:09. Problem is it doesn’t allow importing custom fonts. Anybody know of other sources for this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wma8yZR9WVQ&feature=youtu.be&t=2m9s

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[Nathan Dean]

I was able to produce this video using a graphic I drew in illustrator and the “Stroke” effect. Essentially this process requires three steps: prepping art in illustrator, revealing the art in AE via stroke effect, and mapping a hand to draw it using a motion path. This does require some advanced knowledge of keyframes and a basic understanding of expressions.

REVEAL PATH

Essential to making this technique work…
In illustrator create an additional “reveal path” for each object you want animated separately: One continuous line that covers the object… drawn in the order I want it revealed. The reveal path serves two purposes…
––A layer mask that drives the stroke effect to reveal art layer
––the hand layer’s motion path

Reveal paths MUST BE CONTINUOUS, but don’t always have to be exact. Depending on your brush size in the stroke effect you don’t always need to draw over every single detail either. Sometimes scribbling over it is good enough.

REVEAL ART LAYER

import your saved artwork into AE
NEVER SCALE THE ART LAYERS IN AFTER EFFECTS (see step “Align the Hand”)
switch back to illustrator, select and copy the reveal path of that object
switch to AE, paste copied reveal path on art layer to create a layer mask
add effect Generate > Stroke, set path options to “All masks” and check “Stroke Sequentially”
under effect options set Paint Style to “Reveal Original Image”

MAP HAND MOVEMENTS

add a picture of a hand holding a marker to your main comp and then precomp it
set anchor point to where the marker tip is
click the position stopwatch and paste previously copied reveal path to create a motion path

 
SYNC KEYFRAME TIMING
The hand position has all roving keyframes except the beginning and end. Select the last keyframe and adjust to line up with the art’s reveal keyframes (@ 3:23 in screencast)

ALIGN THE HAND

The art layer MUST BE 100% scale, otherwise the motion path won’t match the art layer’s mask. After creating the motion path in the hand precomp, you’ll need to reposition the group of keyframes so it aligns with the art layer’s mask. Select the keyframes you just pasted, place your playhead on the first or last keyframe, drag the hand layer into place (3:28). This should reposition the group of keyframes instead of just one.

To add realism I randomized the rotation of the arm by 1-4 degrees. In the precomp I added puppet-warp on the hand layer. Each frame had a slight variation of the warp but kept the markertip in the same position. Then in the main comp I used the time-remapping effect with an expression to choose a random frame from the hand precomp.

For faster sequences you can get away with faking this using manual keyframes. But for detail drawings and separate sequential elements this is the way to go.

Reply and let me know if this helped. I’d love to see your production. Good luck!

[George Nielsen]

I would check out Video Scribe or view tutorials on how to create your own scribing videos/. These have become more and more popular lately and it’s a valuable skill to have if you learn how to do this.

[Shaun Cullen]

dude your sample and the method is awesome! thanks heaps for this. i was going to buy one of the videos for $599 now i’ll just use AE and make it myself. legend thanks.

[Linda Rogers]

Could i predraw the entire whiteboard in Illustrator and “erase” it in reverse order in AE. Then play the video backwards?