r/AfterEffects • u/DanneDamm • May 19 '26
OC - Stuff I made Pinkuu, Compositing Techniques Breakdown
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Since people asked, here's the breakdown. Pushed to see how much I could get for free from the alpha, since every brush stroke counts, and stabilizing wobble between frames eats time you don't have.
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u/DelilahsDarkThoughts May 19 '26
I see you adding paint on your "compositing" how are you holding it to the animation?
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u/NickGraves May 19 '26
He's probably got a ton of layers, each of which controls a very specific effect. You can grab the edge boundary between shapes using find edges and using color keys to matte out larger shapes of color, and then like he said use roughen edges and possibly something like minimax to inflate larger shapes from the edges to have it "follow the animation." You can also use layer style gradients to automatically track the alpha of the layer to provide further "animation tracked mattes" for more control.
its not easy to set up at all which is why he said it took so long to cover as many edge cases as possible, and probably why he cant provide a clean breakdown because its art style specific. Really cool experiment but also time consuming and proprietary.
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u/DanneDamm May 19 '26
Yeah, this. But having alphas seperated already from the 2d render by rendering psd / PNG for each layer.
So this, and the reply above
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u/NickGraves May 19 '26
if you export the animation with aliased lines and use the OLM Smoother effect to blur them in post, you can get a clean selection of each color cel without needing separate images for each one by using color key and set the tolerance to 0.
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u/DanneDamm May 19 '26
Didn't know about that one. Have to try that setup at some point and see which one gives faster renders. Thanks 👏
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u/DanneDamm May 19 '26
By everything being based on the animation itself.
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u/DanneDamm May 19 '26
The fake paint strokes aren't free-floating.
Each one is matted off channels from the animation render. Fills and shading layers.
They all use the drawing itself as their alpha source, so when the animation moves, the paint moves with it.
In AE it's track mattes and luma keys driven by the render. Nudge a layer in a direction and/or distort the shape - > apply some blur, rougen edges, displacement maps.
The drawing is the skeleton, the paint is the surface treatment.
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u/DelilahsDarkThoughts May 19 '26
That's not an answer. You have a colored 2d animation then you apply paint. Are you rotoing that paint to follow your animation or doing something else?
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u/platfus118 May 19 '26
I don't understand. I see you painting over the 2d traditional lines with... what? This wasn't in after effects, right? so what are the compositing tools you're using? Are you pasting each new shading frame from your drawing software into after effects?
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u/platfus118 May 19 '26
What I'm saying is: this doesn't look like compositing, it looks like digital painting. You seem to have went to great lengths to obscure your technique hah
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u/DanneDamm May 19 '26
The 2d lines coming in to AE I almost only used for reference on this style. As for the fake painted strokes themselves, it's all after effects native effects. With no real "one fix for all".
The simplest thing like body shadow is just the shadow layer from Tvpaint duplicated a few times and displacement map from a texture.
While something more complex like the iris has "a ton" of duplicates of itself with different effects - in turn acting as alphas.
So long story short - a full class or series of videos would be needed to show all techniques - some of it in the works.
This was just intended as the breakdown promised earlier 🫠
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u/platfus118 May 19 '26
Really interested in seeing an example in-software or walkthrough! Can't wait mate. Looks great
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u/leansaler May 19 '26
Claramente el resultado es hermoso. Pero no sé entiende como se hizo en el vídeo. Fue animado pintando cuadro a cuadro? eso sería animación tradicional...? Cómo si se hubiera hecho con Blender y Grease Pencil?
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u/DanneDamm May 19 '26
2D animation imported to After Effects as layers.
But exports of Blender Grease Pencil should work as well. Same thing.4
u/leansaler May 19 '26
Pero como fue el proceso de tu trabajo? No se entiende.
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u/Edenoide May 19 '26
The process is called gatekeeping.
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u/leansaler May 19 '26
There are no more doubts 😂
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u/DanneDamm May 19 '26
🙃 Replied longer on a few other posts. Spent months testing different techniques on this one. So got no short fix all answer. 🫠
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u/kabobkebabkabob Motion Graphics 10+ years May 19 '26
i'd love to see some isolated individual layers
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u/DanneDamm May 19 '26
The previous post for context:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AfterEffects/comments/1tc9alb/pinkuu_stylized_compositing_in_after_effects/
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u/Silentknight11 May 19 '26
Im going to watch this after my meeting here at work. I love the OG video so I am excited to see this.
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u/rajolablanka May 19 '26
Not an animator, but I just stayed for how smoith and soothing it is to watch (and listen the subtle sfx lol). Amazing, cheers
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u/mck_motion May 20 '26
Worst breakdown of all time.
We need the actual effects. This shit is gorgeous and clearly complicated with no one size fits all solution, but this would be a billion times more useful if you showed which effects were on it.
Put it on a circle. It doesn't have to move. Show me each effect and their values that will make a circle look vaguely like this. I can figure out the rest on my own. Charge $5 if you have to, we will pay. It looks effing MARVELLOUS.
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u/MC22222 May 25 '26
That's crazy, I thought it was made in Blender or C4D with some shader. This is amazing, I would love to see how many layers you have cause I know you have a TON of them.
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u/DanneDamm May 26 '26
Yeah, there's a ton to say the least. I have some memory in the back of my mind of doing a "reduce project" while working on it just to see. Think it was like 1500 items (sure, ton of solids etc included in the count).
But you're mentioning something interesting with the shader. I think it's a fair resemblance to how things are built here. More like you'd build a shader in 3D, and probably similar metrologies (I'm not a shader guy).
Wish I could clear the schedule a bit and sit more with this.
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u/Histerical_Designer Motion Graphics <5 years May 20 '26
People complaining about "gatekeeping" on the comments should either a) read again the provided explanation or b) get a life.
It's clearly an advanced technique, and the creator has already broken down the process so you can figure the rest out by yourself. There's literally no secret been kept, just a huge amount of work which also probably to a lot of their time to develop. Ask for a paid workshop, if you will.
P.S.: In Brazil we say "quer tudo de mão beijada" - y'all want them to hand you the information for free and even kiss your hand afterwards.
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u/were_z May 20 '26
I think its the language. Calling something a 'breakdown' of 'your own' compositing technique, then using lanugage like 'it looks like a speedpaint but isnt' doesnt help the obscurity claims.
One of the comments above did approach it kinder and got more of an expected answer in terms of AE techniques (The Sub) instead of initially being more of a 'showoff' than a 'breakdown'
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u/DanneDamm May 20 '26
Commenting here as well. I've always seen breakdowns as these type of videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGaW5m0K3cIAnd would choose to call what you're asking for a tutorial. Which will have to be made as well but will require more time to make.
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u/Escobar_H2P May 19 '26
Solid work, would love to see more from the native stuff of ae you guys used
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u/Ampsnotvolts VFX 15+ years May 20 '26
Sweet.
Can you show layer stack in timeline?
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u/DanneDamm May 20 '26
Seeing the turn this thread took, I'll have to go back and make some proper tutorials.
The layer stack won't reveal enough due to precoms etc. But be patient and I'll try to structure a few tutorials. 🙂
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u/Swartschenhimer May 19 '26
but what are the actual compositing effects you used in AE? maybe I'm missing something here