Retaining Flash Vector Line Wieght in AE
by Edmond Hawkins
on
Jan 29, 2008 at 4:56:35 pm
The Pen tool in flash lets you retain the line weight when an image is scaled up or down, but can that great quality be recognized in after effects if I wanted to put it in a 3d environment where a camera is trucking past it?
Here's a little more explanation as to what I mean.
I'm working on a cartoon animated in flash and composited in AE. On long scene involves a 3d camera trucking forward through different animated 2D bg environments (as if you were in a helicopter flying past different landscapes). The entire cartoon has one line weight (to make it look like it was animated with pen and paper) and for this trucking shot I can only think of one painfully long solution to keep this aesthetic consistent.
My solution right now is to use the 3d camera, push past each bg plate, export the video back into flash and retrace and re-color each frame to keep the look i'm shooting for. This process takes forever and the project wont get finished on time if I continue down this path.
I've gotta believe there's another approach.
In flash I tried using the pen tool and simulated a 3d zoom by scaling the backgrounds in succession and the line weight stays the same but it clearly doesn't come close to giving a legit feel like your moving past the scenery in a helicopter. That's really the desired effect I'm after.
If anyone have any suggestions I'd greatly appreciate it.
Re: Retaining Flash Vector Line Wieght in AE by Steve Roberts on Jan 29, 2008 at 5:08:29 pm
To get even line weight, I think you'd have to add the lines after the animation is done, or add them over the completed comp, maybe by applying Find Edges to the comp or part of it. Or trace bitmap in Flash.
Outside of AE, might Swift3D do the job? You'd have to start over, though.
Re: Retaining Flash Vector Line Wieght in AE by Edmond Hawkins on Jan 29, 2008 at 5:32:10 pm
I wanna keep the details tight so tracing bitmap or finding edges may give a destinguishable difference in style
Swift 3d isn't a bad idea, although i dont want to build a 3d world, I want it to look completely tradition. However can Swift import a Swf and project it on a "plane" that I could push past with a 3d camera (like how I have it comped in ae now). If it can do that AND keep it's line weight (so objects far away have same line thickness as the foreground elements that are closer to the camera), this is my answer.
Re: Retaining Flash Vector Line Wieght in AE by Steve Roberts on Jan 29, 2008 at 5:43:31 pm
Hmm. Don't know.
As far as I know, constant line weight on 3D moves is restricted to 3D apps as a "post-processing" function. Otherwise, you'd have to create the lines after or above the whole scene, as I wrote.
