[Todd Kopriva]

The order of operations for shape layers is incredibly configurable. If you put a set of shape attributes into a group, then you can transform that group separately and _then_ have the stroke applied to the group as a whole. It’s pretty easy to just drag the shape attributes around to fiddle with the order of operations. It’s the grouping that often eludes people.

So, group, scale with the transforms inside the group, and then apply the stroke below (outside of) the group.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

You could use time-stretching or time-remapping on the master/root composition by nesting it in another composition and manipulating the single precomposition layer.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

The contents of the Source Text property are not saved as human-readable/human-editable strings in the XML project file format.

There are some scripts that people have written to pull in text from external files. I’ve not used them enough to settle on a favorite, so someone else should chime in to say if they’ve like any of these scripts.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

There’s a handy script (Swatch You Want) for using color swatches on the Adobe Exchange. It’s in the “Additional Scripts for After Effects CS4” package.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

The Cartoon effect and the RE:Vision Effects Video Gogh effect are both worth a look for this kind of thing.

One thing to keep in mind: Applying one effect seldom gives the aesthetic results that you want. Play with several effects and their settings and see what building blocks you have available to build out your vision.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

It helps us to isolate problems if you send bug reports, including problematic projects.

To report bugs, send a detailed bug report (including information about the version number of your software, some details about your computer, et cetera) to aebugs@adobe.com.

(You can also use the feature-request/bug-report form.)

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

As Ben says, this sounds like a quirk that some people call “boomerang” motion. It’s the result of using Bezier interpolation when you should be using linear interpolation. The issue and how to address it are described in the “Controlling change with interpolation” section of After Effects Help.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

I just posted a project on my blog that uses a single shape layer to do this in After Effects.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

from “Create an adjustment layer”:

“Use masks on an adjustment layer to apply an effect to only parts of the underlying layers. You can animate masks to follow moving subjects in the underlying layers.”

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

It sounds like you have some rotoscoping ahead of you. In a recent blog post about rotoscoping, I give some pointers about this sort of work, including several that I got from Pete O’Connell’s great Creative COW DVD, which I highly recommend.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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