animating a line

[Steve Roberts]

Draw a mask on a 3D solid with the pen tool, then apply the stroke effect. Animate the mask shape parameter with keyframes.

You might need to make the solid that holds the mask reeeeeally long. Use different 3D views to keep track of your composing.

[Digikarma]

Trapcode also makes a plug-in that does cool stuff to line masks. Might check that out.

[Sean Kimber]

Thanks for your help. I will try the solid suggestion. (I don’t have the money to buy a plug-in now, but I’ll keep it in mind for the future.) Thanks again!

[Kayla]

how would you animate the keyframes? the line keyframes?i cant seem to get the line to animate….

[Steve Roberts]

Since the line is a mask, check the help under “masks” … there should be something about animating mask shapes.

[Kayla]

ah ok i didnt realize it was a mask….

[Jj00820]

i saw this post and I am trying to do something similar. I’ve been reviewing many of the tutorials but I am hopeless beginner, and I dunno if I can get this AE. So bear with me and if you can be a little specific for me.

I want my line to be be dashed , to look similar to the yellow dashed line on a road. I want it to curve onto the screen, go away from the camera towards the horizon, then turn across the horizon, and then come back towards the camera making a couple of switchback turns. All on a simple black screen.

I’d like parts of the line to fade away to keep attention on the tip of the line racing here and there. The dashed line should also look little wider at the front, compared to the rest of the line.

can someone walk me through how to do this?

[Steve Roberts]

Try this:

1. Make a new solid in your comp.
2. Make that solid 3D.
3. Add a new camera — try 24 mm lens. Don’t worry about the other settings.
4. Usng the pen tool, draw a line on the solid that matches your desired path as viewed from above. This is an open mask.
5. Apply effect>text>path text to the solid. In the dialog, type a bunch of dashes. You can always add more later by selecting “edit text” in the Path text controls.
6. In the effect controls, choose custom>mask 1 under “path controls”, adjust the character size and character tracking until you like the look. Make the fill colour yellow or whatever. Animate (with keyframes) paragraph>left margin to make the dashes snake along the line.
7. with the solid selected in the timeline, hit R then change its X rotation so it is now angled horizontally, like the ground. Hit shift-P to make the position controls visible, then change those values to suit.

You could also use the Text controls by typing the dashes, then drawing the mask onto the text layer and using the text controls within the text layer (in the timeline) to do the same thing.

That should get you started …

[Jj00820]

Booyah–That worked great! Thanks so much

I have a few more questions, though. Is there a way to have the line move up and down (altitude-wise), like its following the contour of a series of hills? The camera would be following slightly overhead and to the side maybe. Following hills seems to be on another plane, and maybe this has to be done in a different method and them married to the first composition?

Is there a way to add effects to the dashes, like gradient, or a texture? maybe lighting? I tried to add some effects, but it didn’t seem to do anything or affect anything.

Lastly, I used ariel font, a yellow fill with a gray stroke around the dashes. When the line comes at or away from the camera, up close, it looks jaggy. Is there a way to make it sharper and remove the jaggies. I played around with colors, size, rendering quality and the works— nothing seems to solve the jaggies. How to make it a little crisper?

[Steve Roberts]

[jj00820] “I have a few more questions, though. Is there a way to have the line move up and down (altitude-wise), like its following the contour of a series of hills? The camera would be following slightly overhead and to the side maybe. Following hills seems to be on another plane, and maybe this has to be done in a different method and them married to the first composition?”

You can’t bend a line or plane in three dimensions in AE unless you use Forge Freeform (not updated in a while, if I recall) or Digital Anarchy’s 3D Layer plugin. They might work for you. Yes, Trapcode’s 3D stroke can bend a line in 3D, but you really only have control over the bends in one plane. The other bends are not as controllable as you’d like, possibly.

However, the way to make a trail that bends in 3 dimensions is to use Trapcode Particular to create particles that follow a path. You could follow the basic instructions on the Particular site (describing the new 1.5 features), or check the recent iPod-effect COW tutorial. That’s how I’d do it.

[jj00820] “Is there a way to add effects to the dashes, like gradient, or a texture? maybe lighting? I tried to add some effects, but it didn’t seem to do anything or affect anything.”

If the dashes were a 3D layer, you could add a light. As for the rest of the effects, I cannot say — it depends on the effect.

[jj00820] “Lastly, I used ariel font, a yellow fill with a gray stroke around the dashes. When the line comes at or away from the camera, up close, it looks jaggy. Is there a way to make it sharper and remove the jaggies. I played around with colors, size, rendering quality and the works— nothing seems to solve the jaggies. How to make it a little crisper?”

The Path Text version will get the jaggies, whereas the Text Tool version (which I also described somewhat) looks fine. I should have recommended the Text Tool version over the other — my apologies. Do you have enough info to try the Text tool version?