• Adobe After Effects

  Trying to get a shape to follow a trim path while camera being used

  Posted by Neal Halverson on March 20, 2025 at 2:04 pm

  I’m making a short video that zooms in on a large .png poster (the bottom layer). To zoom into it, I put a Camera in a layer and then a Null object to control the camera zooming in and down. When the scene settles on the bar graph, I overlapped a vector layer (Line graph) that is a visual copy of the graph on the png.

  I then applied a trim path to vector so that a red stroke builds from left to right while the camera pans across the graph. I want to get the blue dot (Shape layer 1) that I placed at the begining of the graph to anchor itself to the trim path to draw the eye to the path.

  I cannot seem to make this happen, even though I have pick whipped/linked the blue circle to every layer in a bid to make it follow the trim path. Can someone give me some guidance please?

  Screen video:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F65sDtY719U

   

  Neal Halverson replied 1 year, 3 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies

  • Basic
• 2 Replies

• 

  Dan Ebberts

  March 20, 2025 at 6:59 pm

  I think your 2D circle layer (not parented to any other layer and anchor point centered) will need a position expression like this:

  L = thisComp.layer("Line graph");
  path = L.content("Shape 1").content("Path 1").path;
  pct = L.content("Trim Paths 1").start/100;
  L.toComp(path.pointOnPath(pct));
• 

  Neal Halverson

  March 21, 2025 at 12:44 am

  Thanks for your help. I ended up doing a little messy thing where I duplicated the layer of the vector path and added a little “round cap” to the beginning of the line in the duplicated layer, mimicking a circle, and it follows along the lower layer’s journey. Appreciate your response!

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