Stroke Style

When adding a Stroke Style to the Shapes container, several options will appear in the tree on the same line.

Stroke Color and Colorspace

These parameters define the color that will be used to draw the Stroke. It's important to know that each channel can only be set between 0.0 and 1.0. Any value above 1.0 or below 0.0 will be clamped.

To bring up the Color Selector, click on the colored dot to the right.

Note:

To boost output channel values above 1.0, you can add a Modifier like Grade to the Style and increase the Multiply parameter.

The color is defined according to the Colorspace parameter, located a little further down.

Stroke Width

The Stroke Width value defines the Stroke Width in pixels for all Paths drawn, defined for a Scale of 1.0 in the Layer Transform parameters.

The default behavior is that if the Scale parameter is set to 2.0, a Stroke Width of 15.0 will look like 15.0 x 2.0 = 30 pixels.

Scale Stroke Width

However, you can request that the Stroke Width remain constant regardless of the layer Scale value. Just below this parameter there is a Scale Stroke Width option that is enabled by default.

By unchecking this option, the Stroke Width will always have a visual value of the set value, 15.0 in the previous example.

Start, End, and Offset

Even with a closed Path, a curve always consists of a start point and an end point. These three parameters define whether the Stroke should be drawn on the entire Path or only on a segment.

Note:

The Trim Path Modifier offers the same type of parameter behavior, allowing you to cut a Path into several pieces and create multiple Sub-paths.

Start/End Mode

When a Stroke Style draws several Paths, grouped together in a Path Group you can alter the following parameters to set it to draw them one after the other or at the same time when modifying the Start, End, and Offset parameters:

Start/End Cycling Mode

When a value is defined outside the [0.0 - 1.0] range, it's internally converted to a new value between these limits.
To understand this conversion, we can superimpose two lines representing the following:

As shown, the bottom line is made up of a series of segments between 0.0 and 1.0.
By following this conversion rule:

This can lead to a situation where the Start value is greater than the End value.
The Start/End Cycling Mode parameter can be used to define the following:

Note: The Reverse Points Order tool in the Path Editing tools reverses the definition of the Path points, reversing the Stroke's flow.

Separated Paths Options

Switching Start/End Cycling Mode to Separated Paths will bring up four additional parameters that allow you to time shift the animation of each drawn Path.

Warning:

These parameters are only relevant when at least one of the Start, End, or Offset parameters is animated. This animation can be provided by keyframes, Generators, and Modifiers. The important thing is that at least one of its values evolves over time.

Edge Draw Mode

Edge Draw Mode lets you offset the outline along the normal of the Path:

Cap Style

Cap Style defines the shape of the outline ends:

Join Style

Join Style defines the shape of corners along the Path:

Miter Limit:

When points create a very obtuse angle, you'll notice that the corner gets cut off, and that the point of this angle gets truncated as it becomes more acute.

When increasing the Miter limit parameter value, the point can be reconstructed a little further. Increasing this value will make the drawing more and more precise, and will require more and more calculations when reconstructing these points.

Note: Don't hesitate to increase this value depending on the angles your shape produces.

Pen Style and Dash Pattern

Pen Style defines the drawing mode. Initially it is solid, but it can be switched to Dash to generate dotted lines.

Note: This sequence can contain an unlimited number of patterns. New elements can be added to this list by clicking on the + button.

Dash Start Offset:

Dash Start Offset lets you move dotted lines along a path without having to modify the Start and End parameters. Dash Start Offset doesn't change the trim performed by these two parameters. It is also compatible with Custom Pattern mode.

Options

In the Options section, you'll find parameters that are already accessible in the main Style line, in the Selection Overview:

What's different here is that when accessed in this section, these parameters can be animated, connected to Generators, and have Modifiers added to them.

Affected Path specifies how many Paths will be drawn:

Produce Overbright and Negative Values with Blending Modes

We have already mentioned that channel values for the Stroke Color parameter cannot exceed 1.0. However, if two styles are in the same Shapes Generator and the latter is in Add mode, channels will be added, and the result of this Blending may exceed the value 1.0. The same applies to modes that can produce negative values.

Motion Blur:

Each Style contains a Motion Blur section for calculating Motion Blur individually, according to different parameters.
The way it is computed is similar to the Steps method in the Text Generator.

This method renders several intermediate images between two composition images, defined by the Divisions parameter:
With few divisions, this accumulation produces a kind of echo. The intermediate stages are clearly visible. Increasing these divisions will produce a more accurate Motion Blur effect.

Other parameters, such as Shutter Angle and Shutter Phase are identical to layer Motion Blur described in this section.

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