Learn how to use the Stroke effect in Adobe After Effects to create dynamic write-on text animations by animating masks and customizing brush settings. Understand why copying effects across layers is more efficient than applying and editing individually.
Key Insights
- The Stroke effect found under Generate is applied to a mask path and can be animated by adjusting the “End” property to create a write-on effect over a 10-frame sequence.
- While transform properties and layer styles can be edited across multiple layers simultaneously, visual effects like Stroke must be applied and edited on each layer, making copy-pasting the effect more efficient.
- Noble Desktop’s training advises using a brush size of 25 for visibility and provides tips on customizing brush hardness and spacing to simulate real brush strokes in the animation.
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Now, to actually make the text effects. I'm going to go back to Accuse. Back to Accuse, which already has it, by the way.
And again, when a layer is highlighted, you'll see the mask. It has one on it as an outline. For the record, if you think there's a mask on a layer and you don't see it, check that third button from the left.
When that's off, the mask path is hidden. And every so often, that button gets turned off. I don't know why, but it happens across all the time.
Okay, so you can always adjust it, edit it, add more points, no problem at all. Now, here's the actual write-on effect. I'm going to do it with the Accuse A, I'm going to add keyframes with it, then I'm going to paste the effect onto the other layers.
Because effects, unlike transform properties, can't really be edited at the same time when applied to multiple layers. Layer styles can be edited across multiple layers at once. Transform properties, like position, scale, rotation, can be edited across multiple layers at once.
Effects, however, are edited layer by layer. So, if you need to use the same effect across multiple layers, it's less trouble to make it once and then copy-paste it. Okay, so we're right in the middle of this, so I'm going to use Accuse A for this.
So, the effect that it tells you to use is called Stroke. Okay, it's in the Generate section. Ignore the presets.
Generate Stroke is what it is. Okay, stylized brush strokes, I think it makes it like painted, but Stroke is actually the effect we need for this. Okay, I'll add that to the Accuse A layer, it adds the Stroke effect, and I'm going to change the color.
It's not necessary for the example, I'm going to change the color so you can see it. So, for example, if the color of the Stroke was A, that is what you would see. It is not relevant for the actual example because we're going to change that entirely.
Okay, now the Stroke effect is literally what it seems like. It is a Stroke applied to a path, applied to a mask. If there is no mask on the layer, you'll not see a Stroke.
If there's a single mask, or if there's even more than one mask, it'll apply automatically the first one it finds. Okay, if you have more than one mask, there is an option up here to apply to all masks, but that's the drop-down menu. It attaches to the first one it finds on the list of masks, and this is only one, so here's one.
Now, by default, the paint style is on Original Image, so it adds the Stroke's color, the Stroke, to the Original Image. The other choices on Transparent would hide the Original Image and only give you the Stroke. I'm not exactly sure why I would want to do that.
Okay, oh yeah, I do. I do know why. I'm sorry.
I'm lying. I don't know why. If you applied a path to a solid layer, for example, and then drew a shape, you could have it literally draw itself on.
Okay, or if you copied and pasted a path from Illustrator, it would paste onto a layer as a mask, and you could have this effect literally draw it on. It's pretty cool, by the way. Okay, but I want to reveal the Original Image.
Now, what it does is the size of the Stroke, wherever it is visible, is revealing the A's content, which means if I made the brush size big enough, the instruction said like 25, I think, you'll see that, the actual layer. Okay, so wherever the Stroke physically exists, that's the Stroke originally by now, by the way, the Original Layer is now visible. So it's revealing the Original Layer.
So why is that helpful? Because you can animate where the Stroke exists. The instructions have you animate End. This is a 10 frame animation, actually.
Okay, so I'm going to pull End back to zero. Notice the line has gone back to the beginning. So what we're going to animate is End going from, yeah, it's the beginning of time, okay, zero, I'll press U to reveal it, and a 10 frame animation where End goes to the end of the line.
So the first keyframe for End is zero percent, so it's at the beginning of the line. It's pulled back to the beginning, and as that animates, the line draws itself on, like that, like that, which is pretty cool. Okay, now, by the way, there's other settings you can do.
Brush Hardness will affect how tight that line is. You can make it softer or harder. It's up to you, by the way.
It doesn't affect the outcome. Okay, that's one thing. Spacing, you can actually, like, do that, make a dashed line.
If you raise it high enough, this basically affects, like, how close the brush strokes are applied. So it's kind of like a real paintbrush is the idea behind it. Okay, so once I got that effect, I'm going to copy that effect, by the way.
So in my Effect Controls, I click on Stroke, Copy. You can right-click Copy, by the way, or I did the keyboard shortcut Command-C, Control-C for Windows users. I'm back at the beginning of my timeline.
I'm going to grab my other layers, all the other letter layers, and paste. So now they all get the effect. Okay, copying the effect to the other letters.
Okay, and then, after that, it's a matter of manually sequencing it. So all the layers should start when before and you end, like that, by the way. So I basically decided it would be 116.
