• Adobe After Effects

  Complex Stroke Path – Trim Path Reveal

  Posted by Will Norman on March 28, 2018 at 5:19 pm

  Hello,

  I have a PNG image of a brain that I would like to reveal, ideally with a a white dot branching out to reveal a white brain icon.

  I first used the generate stroke effect but found that this progressed too quickly as the brush size would have to be massive to reveal the image, which would accidentally reveal other strands of the brain.

  I have now autotraced the PNG and copied all of the paths on to a shape layer. I am using stroke path and trim path to reveal the strands, and employing the paths as masks to contain the stroke within the brain strands.

  There are two main problems that I am encountering, one of them is that the trim paths are again revealing other strands of the brain icon that they overlap.
  The second issue is that the reveal does not start off slow from the centre, but instead goes from 0 to 100 real quick, by revealing all strands pretty instantly.

  Anyone know a better way of doing this that makes it look cleaner?

  Thanks,
  Will

  Blaise Douros replied 8 years, 5 months ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Blaise Douros

  March 28, 2018 at 7:07 pm

  If you want to grow it outward from a central point, you could overlay your brain graphic on a circular gradient, and use a gradient-mapped fade.
• 

  Steve Bentley

  March 28, 2018 at 7:25 pm

  Or effects/transitions/gradientWipe (in the end this may be the same as Blaise’s gradient mapped fade)
  You can also use gradientwipe along a path that has a gradient mapped to it – think: travelling comet with no position keyframes needed.
• 

  Blaise Douros

  March 28, 2018 at 7:32 pm

  Gradient Wipe was what I was thinking of–thanks Steve.

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