This effect works with 8-bpc color.

Other methods of animating paint strokes and text are also available. For example, you can animate text by using the type tools and text animators, and you can animate a paint stroke applied with a paint tool. Paint strokes can have a Write-on Duration setting, which you can use to create similar results as with the Write-on effect. You can also animate shape paths for a similar result with the Trim Paths operation. (See Animating text, Animate paint strokes, and Managing and editing shapes.)

Brush Position

The position of the brush. Animate this property to create a stroke.

Stroke Length (secs)

The duration, in seconds, of each brush mark. If this value is 0, the brush mark has unlimited duration. Use a single, constant, nonzero value to create a snakelike movement of the stroke. Animate this value to make the stroke expand and contract.

Brush Spacing (secs)

The time interval, in seconds, between brush marks. Smaller values produce smoother paint strokes but take more time to render.

Paint Time Properties and Brush Time Properties

Specifies whether paint properties and brush properties are applied to each brush mark or to the entire stroke. Choose None to apply values at each time to all brush marks in the stroke. Choose a property name for each brush mark to retain the value for that property at the time that the brush mark was drawn. For example, if you choose Color, then each brush mark keeps the color specified by the Color value at the time that the mark was drawn.

Paint Style

How the paint stroke interacts with the original image:

On Original Image

Paint stroke appears over original image.

On Transparent

Paint stroke appears over transparency; the original image doesn’t appear.

Reveal Original Image

The original image is revealed by the paint stroke.