make a mask visible-beside 3d stroke…

[Thehardmenpath]

Duplicate the mask an reduce a little bit its extension. Then change it to substract.

[Thehardmenpath]

Nope, sorry, I tested it and it doesn’t work.

Weird, didn’t know swf export doesn’t support subtract masks.

[Jason]

You could try using AE’s bundled effect, ‘Render/Stroke’. Its not as intensive as Trapcodes 3D stroke and might work for you in keeping file sizes down.

[Peter]

do you know any documentation about which ae functions not to use when render to swf?
I heard not to use any effects…

greetz
Peter

[Steve Roberts]

What did you find in the AE help file, after searching for “SWF”?

[Mike Clasby]

AE’s Render>Audio Waveform or Audio Spectrum, are what you’re looking for, they’re seen as vectors when output as SWF. The only restriction being softness (a gradient fade of the line thing) and “Outside Color”, AE ignores those when you check the “Ignore” Unsupported Features, in the AE to SWF dialogue Box.. To keep the line from not jumping to music, just set the Audio layer to a non-audio source (like the default, if applied to a mask on a Solid Layer, the default being… Black Solid 1).

Path: Choose your mask.

To get a clean stroke, crank up the “Displayed Sample” or “Frequency Bands” (in Audio Waveform and Audio Spectrum respectively. Animating these parameters from 0 to a large number gives a different look (it draws itself on), like here (the PK Dick title and outline in the very beginning, note: they get wiggly after that because I added an audio layer to the effect):

https://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=94D38AEAF6B811DABD2F1E30947BEEEA&type=

If you want dots, choose digital or analog dots (and lower the sample numbers) for “Display Options”.

Unfortunately these plugins will only do 1 mask at a time so if you want 2 instances on the same mask or 2 masks on the same layer effected, you must check “Composite on Original”.

When you get your SWF from AE, run it through Flash (re-render), they will come out smaller (sometimes significantly smaller), evidently Flash optimizes these vector files more efficiently.

Audio Waveform and Spectrum are vector gems, enjoy.

[Peter]

thank you a lot for this answers! i’ll try with this. I find it hard to make powerful animations without the possibilitys of now days plug in possibilities, and mostly without the 3d button. back to the roots!!!

thx
peter