• Adobe After Effects

  Tracking endpoints

  Posted by Christan David on July 28, 2011 at 9:59 pm

  Hello,

  I was wondering how you could animate two endpoints of a line; where the endpoint is fastened/tracked to a specific point then the other endpoint moves around. I’m sorry if I’m not making myself clear but here is the effect I want:
  

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  The video above is basically consisted of the those lines and text that I would like to achieve.
  The effect I want is especially demonstrated on 00:20 – 00:24.

  Could this be done in after effects alone? Or does it require plugins or anything?

  Thank you very much in advance.

  Christan David replied 14 years, 9 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Greg Burrus

  July 28, 2011 at 11:01 pm

  I’m sure there are number of ways to do this in AE and outside depending on how you want it to look.

  One way might just be to use the beam effect which works 2D space.
  You also may be able to use https://www.yanobox.com/.

  I think after I tracked the shot might try it to do it in C4D for the lines and bring it in to AE to do the text so I can change it easily. I’m sure there more methods that may work in AE alone as well, maybe with expressions.

  hope this help

  Greg

  https://mogra.g2bproductions.com/ – Blog
  https://g2bproductions.com/ – Portfolio
• 

  Walter Soyka

  July 29, 2011 at 1:15 am

  I think both Beam and Yanobox Nodes are great suggestions.

  I’d use the Beam effect [link], and pick whip [link] the end points to the tracked points you want to link.

  Walter Soyka
  Principal & Designer at Keen Live
  Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
  RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
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• 

  Christan David

  July 30, 2011 at 2:21 pm

  Thank you for your replies.
  I downloaded the yanobox nodes as trial version to test it out and I have a few questions. How do you move the lines/nodes individually to certain points one by one?

  I understand that the ‘hightlight’ transition is able to move the nodes/branch one by one to the assigned position in the end form. But what I’d like to do is assign each node to different positions(one at a time) and let them stay in that position for the rest of the clip.

  For example. I would like index 1 to grow and stay at postion XY 800, 500. Next, index 2 should grow and stay at position XY 200, 600. And so on.

  What happens is that all index seem to grow on the same position as index 1. And the preceding index goes back to their original position. I tried assigning keyframes on the endpoints but the animation gets lousy.

  Thank you again in advance.

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