Vecorising video using auto-trace... some dumb behaviour

[Mylenium]

Here is my question. I have a line animation (rotoscopy of a video actually) which is black on
white. In After Effects I want to vectorize the lines using auto-trace feature. First question
- am I right to choose this way of vectorizing ? Ok.. so - it works, but sort of. The problem
is that masks which correspond to areas that apear let say only on frame 20, are keyed
starting frame 20. But since their first key is on frame 20, they are visible from the very first
frame now. Any ideas ? Or is it just some unpreviewed behaviour ? What is the workaround ?

There is no workaround. While mask shapes can be animated, the always exist across the entire duration of a layer. You may have much more luck by doing your trace externally and using Illustrator automation for this. Aharon Rabinowitz made a pretty comprehensive tutorial about this over at creativeCOW.net.

Mylenium

[SFR75]

There is no workaround. While mask shapes can be animated, the always exist across the entire duration of a layer. You may have much more luck by doing your trace externally and using Illustrator automation for this. Aharon Rabinowitz made a pretty comprehensive tutorial about this over at creativeCOW.net.

Mylenium

Thanks for the link!
Actually I sort of found a workaround. I generated a targa sequenced and imported it as a footage (with sequenced layers). Then I auto-traced everything, and since each layer duration is one frame - it works fine now....

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