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How to animate dots as if trailing each other connected by elastic?
Hi All,
I have a collection of 5 dots. I want to animate the first dot and have the other four follow along it’s path, but I don’t want the space between each dot to remain static and constant. I want it to be as though each is connectde to the next by a piece of elastic, so as the tension is taken up between two dots the non moving one will accellerate up to the leaders pace, and the reverse when the line of dots comes to a rest.
I hope that makes sense.
I’m thinking I need to parent them somehow, but will this just kepp their positions constant relative to each other? I’m sure i’m overlooking an obvious solution.
Thanks for your time and help everyone. Greatly appreciated.
Jason Allen
Melbourne, Australia -
4 Replies
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If I understand you correctly you might try shifting the position keyframes of the 4 dots back so they’re all staggered, then adjust the easy-ease handles to get the desired effect.
Roving keyframes might also help
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It’s not trivial, but this post by George Polevoy might get you headed in the right direction:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=382878&archive=T
Dan
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At first ,I had the same idea with Ghekkomanic.And while I was trying it in AE,Dan Ebberts pointed out an other way.I think it must be the best way to create such effect.However if you do not think so,Ghekkomanic’s idea can work too.This way is easier especially when you were trying to make a simple animation of the dots.Here is the project file I had just made:
https://www.seaair.com.cn/cow/dots.aep
wish to be helpful. -
I was messing with the code that gerge had posted to create a spring between objects:
// AE expression by George Polevoy
// attaches an object to a “Controller” object with a “spring”
// You need another “Controller” which will drive animation of this one
// parameters
conserveMotion = 0.95; // valid range: 0.5 to 0.995
springResistance = 10; // positive values
prerollTime = 2; // value in seconds. greater values give more precise result
//
fps = 1.0 / this_comp.frame_duration;
if ( prerollTime > time ) prerollTime = time;
dt = this_comp.frame_duration;
frame = time * fps;
integrationTime = time – prerollTime;
s = [0,0];
p = this_comp.layer(“Controller”).position.value_at_time( integrationTime );
i = frame – prerollTime * fps;
for (; i < frame; i++, integrationTime += dt ) { c = this_comp.layer("Controller").position.value_at_time( integrationTime ); d = c - p; s = s + d * springResistance; s = s * conserveMotion; p = p + s * dt; } p; When I do it I keep getting the warning "expression must be of dimension 2, not 1. Anyone know what Im doing wrong? Josh
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