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not trails…but kinda like trails…
I have a small solid moving around on my comp and want it to leave trails (little dots), but unlike most trail effects, I don’t want the trailing objects to move with the path of the leader object, I just want them to stay in position and slowly fade away. It’s a crass analogy, but basically I’d like the leader object to ‘poop’ out pellets. Would anyone know how I could do this efficiently? TIA.
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3 Replies
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for opacity: frequency=8; // dots per second startIndex=1; // layerindex of the first dot-layer time >= ((index-startIndex)/frequency) ? 100 : 0 ; for position: frequency=8; // dots per second startIndex=1; // layerindex of the first dot-layer leader=thisComp.layer("solid"); leader.transform.position.valueAtTime((index-startIndex)/frequency)You could simply use a particle system without gravity or velocity, and tie the emitter’s position to the solid.
If you really need multiple layers, one for each pellet, try the expressions below, apply to one pellet layer, then duplicate the layer as much needed
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wow, that worked really nicely, thanks! Would you know how to do the second part of my problem expression? Where I would like the pellet/dot to fade out over time after it has been dropped?
-Jerry
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frequency=8; // dots per second startIndex=1; // layerindex of the first dot-layer FadeOut= 1.2; birthTime=(index-startIndex)/frequency; birthTime>=time ? 0 : linear(time,birthTime,birthTime+FadeOut,100,0);
This works.
You’re probably best off creating a Null-layer with some expression-control sliders, and linking to them for all the variables like frequency, FadeOut time etc. because that makes it easier to tweak.
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