• Adobe After Effects

  Duplicating instances of a layer on an animated path/mask?

  Posted by Michael Duff on June 11, 2015 at 5:17 pm

  Hi, (sorry this is a double post… but I don’t think the AE techniques forum is frequented so much)

  I’ve been out of AE for a while now and just trying to do an effect that I think should be straightforward but I can’t work it out! I’ve googled around but still can’t find the solution.

  Basically, I have a mask that starts as one shape and then changes to another shape … say, square to circle. This part is OK.

  But I want to a layer duplicated many times along the path so that it is a path made up of little images. Then when the mask is animated the layers all move with it. Something like the vegas effect but instances of a layer instead of the dashes.

  any help most appreciated! thanks!

  Michael Duff –
  Bearcage Productions, Australia
  http://www.bearcage.com.au

  Richard Herd replied 10 years, 10 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Michael Duff

  June 11, 2015 at 8:10 pm

  thanks for the reply dave. Good idea to try motion tracking … my only thought with this is that orient along path would not work. I think that considering it is just a one off animation I might do it manually … I was just thinking there might have been a simple effect or expression that I was missing…

  thanks!
• 

  Richard Herd

  June 15, 2015 at 6:53 pm

  Do you use Expressions? This is a prebuilt Adobe expression in their Expression Sampler project called Follow. Let me know if you need additional help. The expression sampler is easy to find via google.

  

  EDIT: Wanted to include the Effects Panel too.

  
• 

  Richard Herd

  June 15, 2015 at 7:01 pm

  It turns out it is hard to find, so here’s mine:

  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2S2b7kN6I8iWlhIeVBYUS1jTzQ&authuser=0

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