Simple border effect

[Justin Productions]

Well, there’s a ton of ways to do this, but it depends on the way you want it, wich I have trouble understanding in your post.

One way would be to use the Stylise > Glow effect and set the glow mode to “Alpha Glow” and play with the settings by reducing the radius, changing the colors, etc.

Hm…hope someone finds a better way,… still, hope that helped!

Justin Productions
Tangerin01@hotmail.com
Adobe After Effects 6.5 Professional

[Jimmy Brunger]

From what I gather, Coyote is after a ‘sharp’ border of a certain size (eg: 3 pixels) which he can apply to any other layer?

As far as I know you don’t need to make a mask to apply a stroke…just apply the stroke to a layer and then copy/paste that effect to any other layers you want and it should remain the same throughout.

If however the problem is what I tend to find with photoshop – when you apply an ‘outer’ stroke it tends to be rounded at the edges (more noticable the bigger the stroke) then not sure about that – it’s something I wish photoshop could do better (ie: you have the letter ‘i’ and when you apply an outer stroke you want the corners to remain sharp, rahter than rounded) Thought I think Illustrator’s stroke efftect does work better.

as far as AFX works – you need to make a path of the shape and duplicate and size up, then join them and fill to make a mask layer. The problem with that is that it won’t size perfectly in unison in the X & Y, so you have to fiddle alot to even it out. Then copying to another layer doesn’t really work.

Adobe should take the best bits of their apps and make them common!! (Illustrator’s stroke in PS/AFX, illustrator’s 3D bevel/extrude in both, afx’s 3D space to move layers in PS, all PS’s layer styles and shape options in AFX, etc, etc…they will all merge soon enough..)

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Annaël Beauchemin]

[jimmybee500] “From what I gather, Coyote is after a ‘sharp’ border of a certain size (eg: 3 pixels) which he can apply to any other layer?”

yes, i’m after the sharp, simple non-cpu intensive border effect which every NLE has.

The Stoke effect needs a mask to work with. You can’t just apply it on the layer and get a border. Plus, like you say, it will have round edges.

[Jimmy Brunger]

Yes it will have round edges (sort it out Adobe!!)….but you can apply it without a mask (at least, if it’s a text layer you can just apply it directly to the layer.) I’m not at my work PC to double check rasterised layers, but I’m pretty sure at least on v7 you can.

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Steve Roberts]

How about effect>render (or generate?)>Vegas?

stroke: image contours
segments: 1
length: 1.000
blend mode: over
color: your choice
width: your choice
start/mid/end opacity: 1.000

-the line has sharp corners on the outside, but rounded on the inside (depending on the stroke width)
-it scales with the layer

Now if you scale it up, it will get soft.

If you like it, save it as a preset.

[Mike Clasby]

Or these two will work, but Vegas is cool.

Efffect>Perspective>Radial Shadow
Shadow Color: Choose your color
Opacity: 100%
Light Source: Center it on layer (there should be an expression possible for this)
Projection Distance: Controls the Thickness of the border
Softness: 0 for a hard edge

Or

Effect>Stylize>Roughen Edges

Edge Type: Roughen Color
Edge Color: Choose your color
Border: 5
Edge Sharpness: 0
Fractal Influence: 0

This is more limited, 5 pixel border is best.

[Mike Clasby]

Here’s the expression to center the Radial Shadow on any layer, apply this expression to the property, Light Source (Alt Click the Light Source Sop Watch and Paste):

[width/2,height/2]

Now if you select the Radial Show Effect and the Light Source expression, then save as a Preset (Animation> Save Animation Preset), you can just apply that preset on any layer (Animation>Apply Animation Preset)and you’ve got your sharp colored border, if that’s what you want.

[Sean Corcoran]

Duplicate the layer you want to stroke, and move it underneath the original layer. Add a Fill effect with whatever color you want to the bottom layer. Then add a Simple Choker effect and give it a negative value. This will expand the edges of the bottom layer, which is already filled with color.

This was one of Aharon’s tutorials a while ago, and it works wonderfully.

[Jimmy Brunger]

Yup, defo an option. But so much of a copy & paste as perhaps you might want if you were applying it to alot of layers. Plus unfortunately that doesn’t work on footage/layers that are not keyed/cut out, as the face needs the extra pixels to use for the spill suppresor. Also doesn’t give a sharp edge or corners.

I can’t believe there’s no easy way to do this in AE!?!

*AE 5.5 Pro – *PS CS1 – *Combustion 3
————————————-
Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / BMD DeckLink Pro / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation

[Annaël Beauchemin]

thanks all for the recomendations. While there’s no easy and fast solution, your techniques will be of help sometime for sure.