• Adobe After Effects

  Bend It cuts off shape

  Posted by Josh Miller on April 12, 2017 at 4:50 am

  I am trying to use the BEND IT effect to bend a shape which I will use as a character’s arm. This works beautifully until the shape reaches the halfway mark (see fig 1) but after that, the shape hits a border area, and disappears. I have already checked that my arm layer is the same size as my composition, and even made it double the composition size. I have also applied the BEND IT effect directly to the layer, and tried applying it to an adjustment layer. I have applied the GROW BOUNDS effect (as suggested in another post) both above and below the BEND IT effect. Nothing has helped.
  I tried setting the BEND IT start point to the center of the arm and using the “mirror” setting, but that throws off the animation, because the shoulder is no longer the central rotation point.
  I also tried the Puppet Pin Tool, but don’t like how it distorts the shape, even though it’s only a slight distortion.
  Any suggestions would be welcome.
  11233_bendit.jpg.zip
  Thanks.

  Richard Garabedain replied 9 years, 4 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Richard Garabedain

  April 12, 2017 at 3:58 pm

  Well…you could rotate the arm at its point while using the bend tool…if only someone could come up with an expression to tie the end point of the bend to the the rotation so its alwasy smooth..otherwise you have to animate the end point along with the rotation
• 

  Josh Miller

  April 12, 2017 at 11:41 pm

  Thanks, I’ll give it a shot.
  I found this fantastic tutorial about animating with shape layers which will give me the round arm look that I want, (no squished shapes like I got from puppet pin) without having to use the BEND IT effect. This guy has some amazing tutorials.
  https://lesterbanks.com/2017/01/shape-layers-need-animate-arms-legs/
  Thanks again!
• 

  Richard Garabedain

  April 13, 2017 at 3:47 am

  …THat was a good tutorial…

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