The Scribble effect creates the appearance of hand-drawn artwork by filling or stroking a closed mask.

For example, the Scribble effect can simulate fills that look like marker, cross-hatching, or textiles. It fills a mask with a single zigzagging line that crisscrosses the path. Some paths, because of their geometry, cannot be filled with a single line. The Scribble effect breaks these paths into several simpler paths, each of which it then fills with a zigzagged stroke.

Aharon Rabinowitz provides a tutorial that shows how to use Auto-trace with the Scribble effect to create a stylized animated fill from video footage or from Illustrator graphics: www.adobe.com/go/learn_ae_aharonscribble.

This effect works with 8-bpc color.

Masks (top left), Scribble applied to outside edges (bottom left), and Scribble applied to inside edges with Composite on Original (bottom right)

Scribble

Single Mask scribbles a specified mask on the layer; All Masks scribbles all masks on the layer; All Masks Using Modes combines the masks using their modes and then scribbles the resulting shape.

Mask

The mask to use if Scribble is set to Single Mask.

Fill Type

Controls whether the fill is drawn inside the path or creates a scribble along the path. Left Edge draws the fill along the path’s left edge; Right Edge draws the fill along the path’s right edge. The left and right edges of a path are determined by the direction in which the path is drawn. When using the Left Edge or Right Edge fill types on masks that have tight curves, you get best results by making the Edge Width less than the radius of the curve.

Edge Options

Options for the edge of the scribble if Fill Type is set to an edge.

Edge Width

Controls the width of the edge.

End Cap

Controls the ends of scribble lines. Use Round for stroked lines with semicircular ends; use Butt for stroked lines with squared ends; and use Projecting for stroked lines with squared ends that extend half the line width beyond the end of the line, making the weight of the line extend equally in all directions around the line. This option is enabled only if Fill Type is set to Centered Edge.

Join

Specifies how the corners of a scribble line appear. Use Round for stroked lines with rounded corners; use Bevel for stroked lines with squared corners; and use Miter for stroked lines with pointed corners.

Miter Limit

Controls when the effect switches from a miter (pointed) join to a bevel (squared-off) join. Specify a value between 1 and 500. For example, if the value is set to the default of 4, the effect switches from a miter to a bevel join when the length of the point reaches four times the stroke weight. A miter value of 1 results in a bevel join. It’s enabled if Join is set to the Miter option.

Start/End Apply To

Specifies how changes to the effect’s Start and End options in the Timeline panel are applied; Scribble Result affects the scribble in the order in which it is drawn, and Mask Path follows the path of the mask to create more continuous drawing in or out of the scribble.

Angle

Specifies the angle of the scribbled stroke.

Stroke Width

Specifies the width of the stroke. Specify a value from 0.1 to 50.

Stroke Options

Specify the curviness, spacing, and overlap of the scribbled line.

Curviness

Controls the amount of curve at the end of each scribbled stroke. Specify a value between 0° and 100°.

Curviness Variation

Determines the amount of variance the curviness values can have at each end point. Specify a value between 0% and 100%. A value of 0 gives the scribble sharp corners, while a value of 100 makes the scribble loopy.

Spacing and Spacing Variation

The number of pixels between lines and zigzags. Setting a value equal to the stroke width value makes the lines fall next to each other.

Path Overlap

Determines whether the scribble ends at the path, inside the path, or outside the path. Specify 0 to make it end at the path, negative values to make it end inside, and positive values to make it end outside. Path Overlap Variation determines how much each stroke can vary from the value specified for Path Overlap.

Start, End

Where the drawn stroke starts and ends, as a percentage of the distance from the beginning of the total stroke.

Fill Paths Sequentially

Enabled if Scribble is set to All Masks. If this control is selected, the start and end values apply to the combined length of the scribbles for all masks. If it isn’t selected, the start and end values apply independently to the scribble for each mask.

Wiggle Type

Specifies an animation style: Static keeps the scribble constant over time; Jumpy changes from one scribble to the next abruptly; and Smooth changes from one scribble to the next smoothly.

Wiggles/Second

Controls how frequently a new scribble is generated when the Wiggle Type control is set to Smooth or Jumpy.

Composite

On Transparent replaces the original image with the scribble. On Original Image composites the scribble on the original image. Reveal Original Image shows the original image through the scribble.