Adding a Highlight to a Drawing

Using the Highlight effect, you can apply a highlight to a drawing. Contrary to the Glow effect, the Highlight effect does not convert your drawing into a glow, it applies the glow onto your drawing. The resulting render includes both the drawing to its glow.

The Highlight effect uses a matte drawing layer to determine which areas of the drawing to apply the highlight to. The highlight will not be applied outside of the drawing or outside of the matte.

  1. Select a drawing layer.

  1. Click the Add Layers button and select Effects > Highlight.

    The Highlight effect is parented to the selected layer.

  1. In the toolbar above the layer list in Timeline view, click on Add Drawing Layer .

  1. In the Add Drawing Layer dialog, give your new drawing layer a relevant name for a matte layer, such as "Matte-Drawing", then click on Add and Close.

  1. In the new matte drawing layer, draw a matte for your effect. Your matte can be a simple shape, but should be filled with a colour, as only parts of the matte that are opaque will be taken in account.

    NOTE Mattes can also have semi-transparent areas. Areas of the drawing that are covered by semi-transparent areas of the matte are partially affected by the effect.

  1. In the Timeline view, click the Collapse/Expand button at the right the Highlight layer.

  1. Drag and drop the matte layer right of the Matte field, under the Parameters column.

    The value of the Matte parameter will be the name of the matte drawing layer.

  1. Display the Highlight properties and adjust the properties to control the type and amount of blur and the colour of the highlight effect—see Highlight Layer.