PANEL ACTIONS

 

TIME STRETCH
Acts on selected footage or comps. Applies a time stretch at the percentage shown.


ADD TRANSPARENCY FX
Acts on selected layers or comps. Adds effects that turn white areas of flat artwork into transparency. Use the Effects panel to adjust or remove applied effects.

 


MATCH POSITION
Acts on the selection of exactly two layers. Transfers position values and 3D state to the first selection from the second selection. When selecting two layers, you are saying, “Match this to this”.

 

WORKFLOW

Creating a whiteboard is easy once you clearly understand the basic steps!

  1. Install the Whiteboard and Marker Remap scripts
  2. Create the drawings
  3. Prepare the Drawing Comps
  4. Prepare the Hand Comps
  5. Lay out the whiteboard
  6. Secure edit lock
  7. Animate the hand positions
  8. Render your final Whiteboard Output

 

INSTALL THE WHITEBOARD and MARKER REMAP SCRIPTS

  • Install scripts to your local copy of After Effect (follow the README FILE). Relaunch AE.
  • Go to Window > Whiteboard.jsx to launch the Whiteboard palette
  • Go to Window > Marker Remap.jsx to launch the Marker Remap palette

CREATE THE DRAWINGS

1) CREATE PENCIL DRAWINGS
2) CREATE A SCREEN RECORDING OF A MARKER DRAWING
  • OPTIONS:
    • Quicktime screen record a Clip Studio / Photoshop document
      • Remember to work at one zoom level only
    • ProCreate
      • Set your prefs to record at 4K
      • Draw inside of a 4K document, or else you won’t get full resolution movie
  • Reduce pencil drawings to a low opacity to use as a tracing guide
    • It’s OK if light pencil drawings appear in screen recording, as these will be removed in compositing

PREPARE THE DRAWING COMPS

3) DUPLICATE THE ENTIRE WHITEBOARD PROJECT FOLDER and rename to your project
  • You can rename the “whiteboard.aep” file, as this does not break anything
4) PREPARE ONE DRAWING COMP PER SCREEN RECORDING DRAWING
  • Import screen recordings into the “03 DRAWING COMPS” folder, creating one folder per screen recording
  • For each screen recording, drag movie into the CREATE A NEW COMPOSITION icon to create a new comp at the dimensions and frame rate of the recording
    • Name these comps consistently with some modifier (e.g. “people DC”, for Drawing Comps) to always be able to identify the source drawing comps
5) ADD TIMELINE MARKERS SPLIT AROUND THE MAIN ACTION FOR EACH DRAWING COMP
  • In each Drawing Comp, use the Marker Remap Palette to add timeline markers by clicking the the “ADD MARKER” button
    • If a layer is selected, markers are added to the layer. If nothing is selected, markers are added to the timeline.
    • Make sure nothing is selected and click “ADD MARKER”
      • When labeling, the default duration of a short marker is one second
      • Optionally, add “:[frame value]” to set the marker to a specific length
        • e.g. “hipster:17” will add a timeline marker named “hipster” and set it to 17 frames
  • Label each marker span uniquely, describing the drawing progression

PREPARE THE HAND COMPS

6) IN THE “04 HAND COMPS” FOLDER, DUPLICATE ONE “—template—“ COMP FOR EACH SCENE YOU ARE CREATING
  • Open your new Hand Comp (now renamed to your scene)
  • Drag a corresponding Drawing Comp under the “Artwork below this line” layer (this allows it to inherit the color correction and extraction effects)
7) ENABLE COMP RETIMING FOR EACH DRAWING COMP
  • Select your Drawing Comp
  • In the Marker Remap palette, click the “Enable Retiming” button
    • This enables time remapping on the layer and copies the retiming script into the expression field
8) IMPORT A VOICE OVER SEGMENT CORRESPONDING THIS THIS SCENE
9) EDIT THE LAYER MARKERS
  • Drag layer markers around to edit and retime the action to the VO
    • Turn off the “HAND” layer to speed up playback
  • You can choose to right click, delete all markers, and add them manually again
    • Use the Whiteboard Palette to add timeline markers by clicking the the “LAYER” buttons
      • The long “LAYER” button creates a timeline markers at the full length of the comp
      • The short “LAYER” button creates a short segment timeline marker
        • When labeling, the default duration of a short marker is one second
        • Optionally, add “:[frame value]” to set the marker to a specific length
          • e.g. “hipster:17” will add a layer marker named “hipster” and set it to 17 frames
  • Add as many Drawing Comps as needed to this scene

NOTE: Do not animate the hand until the end of the process, once there is an edit lock

LAY OUT THE WHITEBOARD

10) OPEN THE ‘WHITEBOARD OUTPUT” Comp
  • This comp can be renamed, as this does not break anything
  • This comp has two cameras
    • The “whiteboard” camera is the active camera used for the final rendering
    • The “overview” camera provides an overview of the entire whiteboard area
      • Turn this on and off for an overview and for laying out the Hand Comp scenes
11) ADD VARIOUS HAND COMP SCENES TO THE WHITEBOARD
  • Sequence the scenes as desired
12) ANIMATE THE “WHITEBOARD” CAMERA POSITION ACCORDING THE SCENE TIMINGS

SECURE EDIT LOCK

It is recommended to not move forward until the edit has been approved. If individual drawing timings change hand positions will need to be reset.

ANIMATE THE HAND POSITIONS

13) IN EACH HAND COMP, ANIMATE THE HAND LAYER POSITION BY SETTING KEYRAMES ON THE “HAND POSITION” layer
  • Advance frame by frame and place the the Hand Position target over the last mark made in the drawing
    • Keep the HAND layer turned off for speedy processing
  • Don’t forget to animate the hand entering and leaving the scene
  • Make sure position keyframe “Spatial Interpolation” remains set to “Bezier” or “Auto Bezier”
    • When set to “linear” there is not motion blur as the hand moves around
    • This should be automatic, as the first keyframe is already set, but just something to be aware of
14) SET THE HAND SHAPES
  • Turn on the “HAND” layer
  • The default hand shape is set to “dS”, which is “Draw Small”
    • Feel free to use as is, or delete it
  • Add new hand shapes using the “HAND” tab in the Whiteboard Palette
    • This will add corresponding layer markers the the now animated hand
      • There is no need to select the HAND comp, as the script will only apply these to the HAND layer
    • Drag and adjust layers markers to match drawing action

RENDER YOUR FINAL WHITEBOARD OUTPUT COMP!