Create a Curvy Arrow Preset for After Effects

A text and path tutorial.

In this quick tutorial for Adobe After Effects, I demonstrate how you can combine text and mask paths to create a simple curved arrow / pointer you can save as a preset.

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This works for Adobe After Effects CS6 and Creative Cloud users, although in the second part of the tutorial I show how to use JavaScript to draw the mask points and control the angle.  This element is not available for CS6 users unfortunately.

Preset Download: https://bit.ly/3BigaMp

FontAwesome: https://fontawesome.com/

Copy the text from here:

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

to just before here.

Expression used:

var cw = thisComp.width/2;
var ch = thisComp.height/2;
ArrowPoint = [effect(“Arrow head”)(“Point”)[0]-cw,effect(“Arrow head”)(“Point”)[1]-ch];
EndPoint = [effect(“End of the line”)(“Point”)[0]-cw,effect(“End of the line”)(“Point”)[1]-ch];
AnglePoint = [effect(“Angle”)(“Point”)[0]-cw,effect(“Angle”)(“Point”)[1]-ch];
createPath([EndPoint, ArrowPoint], [ArrowPoint,AnglePoint], outTangents = [], isClosed = false)

Just a quick note:This expression does not work with AE’s old ExtendScript, make sure you change Expressions language by going to File – Project Settings

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