• Adobe After Effects

  Creating a 3-D motion path…

  Posted by Mark Pybus on August 9, 2006 at 6:30 pm

  My last question of the day!

  Just wondering if it is possible to create a 3-D motion path ie: a motion path with depth, without a “special plug-in”.

  Thanks as always.

  G5 Dual 1.8, 1.5GB RAM

  Mike Clasby replied 19 years, 12 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Mike Clasby

  August 9, 2006 at 6:50 pm

  Take a look at this tut:

  Using Motion Sketch to build a Spiral Path in 3D Space by Fang Xiang
  Article Type: Tutorial
  In this article, Fang Xiang demonstrates using motion sketch and an expression to build a spiral path in 3D space.

  https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=2&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/fang_xiang/spiral_path/index.html

  It seems like a bit of a bumpy ride to me so making a smooth 3D path… I dunno.
• 

  Mike Clasby

  August 9, 2006 at 7:40 pm

  Ok, a smooth path is definitely possible. The jitter (in the excellent tut) is because he used Motion Sketch to make the paths.

  I drew an Oval mask with (you guessed it) the Oval Mask Tool, and copied the Mask Shape, Pasted it into Position of “White Solid 1” (I’d deleted exsisting keyframes before) and got a smooth path, and I deleted the in-between position keyframes for Null 1, now when you apply the his expression you get a very smooth path.
  Add a camera to get a perspective view of what your doing.

  Note; If you’re having trouble visualizing you 3D path, you can create a trail (from Dan’s Trail page)

  https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/follow-the-leader.html

  By moving the Solid 1 to the top of the stack, then making a new solid, move it to the second down on the stack (just below Solid 1)(say 10×10 and another color) making it 3D, and adding this expression to the position:

  delay = 10; //number of frames to delay

  d = delay*thisComp.frameDuration*(index – 1);
  thisComp.layer(1).position.valueAtTime(time – d)

  then dup the layer say 10 times and you get a trail of solids that show the 3D path nicely.

  Or you can use Dan’s “Follow the Null” method farther down the same page (maybe better).

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up