Illustrator and After Effects - Textures!

Following Hilary's recent feedback on my interior layouts, and saying how when it comes to viewing the film on thew cinema screen at the end of year degree show, the film will be very harsh to look at it and will put off a lot of the audience members, not only because of the wide variety of colours in the colour palette but how they look together in any shot. Not wanting this to happen, I've gone back through my research and found a useful tutorial on creating assets in Illustrator with textures to make the colours appear less 'in your face'. Textures also improve the aesthetic of Illustrator files and add to the retro feel of artwork, which is the effect I am trying to create in my film.

Fig. 1. Example illustration from the tutorial

Quick Tip - Create a Custom Texture Directly in Illustrator for use With the Texturizer Effect

The test file

(different asset shapes and complexities - keeping in mind some assets in the film that may have textures applied to them will be animated through deformation using meshes and the puppet tool.

GRADIENTS

Setting up the Gradient to be textured 

Fig. 2. Custom Gradient

Make sure just the gradient is selected (once placed in the layer, press G and click on the box)

^ Like this

Fig. 3. Selecting the Gradient

^ NOT this!

Fig. 4. Selecting the shape layer

Now go to Effect > Texture > Grain

Fig. 5. Applying the Grain Effect

Fig. 6. Editing the attributes of the grain effect

Applying a Colour

Can either edit the colour and position of the colour stops in the Gradient panel or create a new object or fill layer underneath and change the blending mode of the grain to Multiply which will 'add' the colour to the gradient with the grain texture.

Fig. 7. Opening the Appearance panel 

Solid Fill Colour

Fig. 8.  Applying a new fill layer underneath the gradient fill layer 

Fig. 9. Applying the grain effect to the gradient fill layer 

Fig. 10. Changing the blending mode of the gradient fill layer to Multiply

GRADIENT MESHES

Use this technique for when the asset is a complex shape like the one below

Fig. 11. Change colour of shape to black

Fig. 12. Create > Gradient Mesh

GRADIENT MESHES

Fig. 13. Object > Path > Offset Path

Fig. 14. Offset Path menu options 

Fig. 15. New layer copy in the layer organiser 

Tests

References

Figure. 1. Example illustration from the tutorial http://vectips.com/tutorials/create-grainy-textures/ [Accessed 15th February 2014]