Animate Multiple arrows on a line

[Chris Voelz]

Search for tutorials on animating objects along a path.

Once you have that, search for loopout expression.

[Graham Quince]

I think I’d tackle this using an arrow symbol in a text layer. You can add a mask path to a text layer then animate the offset.

I normally shout out about FontAwesome for symbols, but their arrow doesn’t match yours. CopyChar.cc has a closer match.

1. Add mutliple copies of the arrow in a line. I had to use the font Segoe UI Symbol to get them to show up
2. Adjust the spacing and width of the characters.
3. Use the pen tool and draw a mask in the shape you want.
4. Expand the text layer and in Path Options, set the Path to your mask
5. Animate the First Margin property to get the arrows moving.

[John Cuevas]

There are many ways to do this, but one question — do the arrows need to bend, when moving around curves, that will increase the difficulty?

[Joe LeMonnier]

If we use symbols, they don’t need to bend BUT they will need to allow a dramatic zoom ( from a NULL) . When I try to use echo , zooming is a problem.

Many thanks again,

Joe

[Joe LeMonnier]

This works rather well except for two things:

1) I need to have them moving continuously for up to 60 seconds without gaps. I can loop it but then, gaps. Or I can make the string really long and mask it but this makes a mess. And if I use ECHO, I can’t zoom ( Think)

2) this one’s odd , but In AE 2024, it seems that I need to adjust the Last Margin to get it to work, while in earlier versions on another machine it’s the First Margin that does it.

[John Cuevas]

Hi Joe,

Sorry for the delay in response, been a busy last few days. This is a project that could be done in a quite a few ways, such as the text animator approach above. Create a follow the leader expression with the valueAtTime command, a particle system(Particular would work very well) would also be an easy way to achieve that effect.

I think using shape layers would also work well, here are the steps I did to create a flowing arrow project.

1. Create a solid layer and then use the mask tool to trace the path you want for your arrows. The way this is setup, you can adjust this mask later and the arrows will update.
2. Under Window, scroll down and select the Create Nulls from Path tool, select the path you just created and click Trace Path, the press “U” to open up all the properties that have been changed.
3. Using the Polystar tool, create an arrow head. Open the contents, and use pickwhip the position and rotation to the position and rotation your Trace Paths layer.
4. Click in the rotation expression and at the end of the expression type + value, this will allow you to adjust the arrow heads value, if it’s not lined up correctly.
5. From contents, add a new group, then in that group and name it “Arrow Body”, add a Path, Stroke and Trim Paths.
6. Open up trim paths and pickwhip to your path.
7. Open up the Arrow Body’s transform and change the position to 960, 540.
8. Set your stroke width to taste, and change the line cap and line join to “Round”
9. Open the trim paths and pickwhip the Start and End to the Trace Path Progress.
10. Click in the “End” expression and at the end subtract an amount you want for the tail length “- 8”
11. Adjust the trace path keyframes to change the speed of your arrow flow.
12. You can duplicate the Arrow layer and offset it, or like I did, add an echo effect to the layer and adjust to taste to create the follow arrows—I had to just fiddle around until I got evenly spaced arrows.

Take a look at my sample project and feel free to use that as a starting point.

Animated-Arrow.aep 460 KB After Effects Project Files - Click to view

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