• Adobe After Effects

  Merging separate shape paths into one

  Posted by Jason Brown on May 20, 2016 at 7:55 pm

  Okay, I have 2 shape layers made up of individual paths forming the whole. The desired effect is to transform shape 1 into shape 2 by keyframing the shape paths.

  However shape 1 has 5 sub shapes and shape 2 has 3 sub shapes.

  All is fine when I copy a single shape path from shape 1 and keyframe into a shape path from shape 2, so I go:

  copy and paste
  path 1 to 1
  2 to 2
  3 to 3
  these all transform fine, but I have 2 leftover shapes.

  4 to ?
  5 to ?

  I’ve tried copying all the shapes paths (3,4,5) and pasting them into a single shape layer but that doesn’t give me a single shape path, they’re still individual and the shape doesn’t appear it just shows the path outline.

  Any help is much appreciated,

  Thanks

  Jason Brown replied 9 years, 11 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Greg Gesch

  May 22, 2016 at 3:58 am

  Hi. The only thought I have is to duplicate (say) paths 2 and 3 in your final shape layer, then when you want the two missing paths to appear keyframe paths 4 and 5 onto the duplicates – it would mean the peel away from the existing shapes though.
• 

  Graham Quince

  May 23, 2016 at 8:57 am

  Are you copying the keyframed paths or just the paths themselves?

  Have you seen Chris Zwar’s tutorial on morphing. It might help a little.

  http://www.YouTube.com/ShiveringCactus – Free FX for amateur films
  https://shiveringcactus.wordpress.com/ – FX blog
• 

  Jason Brown

  May 23, 2016 at 2:13 pm

  Thanks for the replies.

  I kind of found a fix that worked for me. The 2 left over shape paths I had I just keyframed their position and scale and hid them behind the other shapes, so it appears as 2 shapes morphing into one.

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