Whiteboard Animation Help

[bobj18447745]

Hi there,

I am trying to follow a tutorial on how to create a whiteboard drawing in after effects. I am following this tutorial here: After Effects - Effect of Drawing Cartoon by Hand - YouTube

I get mid way through, and instead of the brush strokes revealing the original image, all I see are my brush stroke being drawn. I am not sure what I am doing wrong.

Please advise. Thank you.

[Mohammad.Harb]

Did you select ”Alpha” ?

[bobj18447745]

Thanks, I think the reveal effect is working now.

However, it is stuck in grey when I turn it "Alpha" is there a way to make it reveal in the color black like it was originally?

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

That link was to a really awful tutorial.  No explanation and a rather poor workflow, especially animating the hand.

The alpha channel originally was not 100% because the base color of the brush was red. It should have been black or better yet, the brush should have been set to paint only on the alpha. Manually keyframing the hand was also a complete waste of time. If the brush stroke was good you could have had the hand following the the brush stroke by simply changing the anchor point to the tip of the pen, selecting the brush path, set a single keyframe for brush path the cut (Ctrl/Cmnd + x) and then select the hand layer, press Alt/Option + p to set a position keyframe, then paste and then adjust the position of the last keyframe to adjust the timing. Nothing to it.

You need to vet your trainers and make sure they are pros that know what they are talking about. You won't waste nearly as much time and you won't develop bad habits.

If you still can not figure out what is causing your problem then you should select all problem layers, press the U key twice to see what has been modified, then start adjusting the knobs until you can fix the problem. If you can't figure it out then just PrintScreen and paste to this forum so we can see what you are doing.

[bobj18447745]

I appreciate the in-depth explanation. Thank you for taking the time to answer this, especially with criticism that was actually constructive.

[P.M.B]

It's at 3:25 in the video that they switch to alpha.  And it's at 3:48 in the video that they turn their strokes from grey to black.

I'm no genius...I just looked for the spot in the video where their lines went from grey to black and then watched to see it was done.

You could have done the same.

When you watch videos like that and your result is different then you missed something in the video.

In which case you need to watch it again, scan through till the moment where your project deviates and spot what you missed.

You could have easily answered your own questions with some effort.