User Guide

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ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 5.0
User Guide
Onion Skin Displays strokes drawn on the current frame plus strokes drawn on the
surrounding few frames. These additional strokes appear color-coded and at reduced
opacity, to distinguish them from the strokes on the current frame. Those strokes actually
exist only on the frames in which they are drawn. Onion-skinning is very useful for
drawing frame-by-frame animations because it gives you reference points for the stroke
positions.
Use the Onion Skinning options in the Vector Paint Preferences dialog box to specify how
previous and forward strokes appear when Onion Skin is the active Playback Mode. (To
open Vector Paint Preferences, use the Vector Paint contextual menu and choose Options.)
These options include:
• Frames Backward/ Frames Forward. Sets the number of frames backward or forward
that are displayed. Both backward and forward frames are displayed unless one or both of
these values is set to 0.
• Color Backward/Color Forward. Sets the color of the display of backward and forward
strokes.
• Skin Opacity. Sets the percentage of opacity for onion-skin strokes.
Drawing a three-frame animation in Onion Skin Playback Mode: As you draw on successive frames, the
strokes you drew on previous (or forward) frames also appear for your reference.
For information about setting Vector Paint Preferences, see “Selecting viewing options” on
page 439.
UG.book Page 431 Wednesday, February 21, 2001 12:05 PM