Animating a line

[Chris Smith]

Try this:

Create a solid. Use the pen tool. Create a stright line using 3 points evenly spaced. Press ‘mm’ and the mask properties will twirl down. Turn on keyframing on the ‘mask shape’ parameter. Move your time indictor forward in time a little. Now use the arrow tool and grab the middle point of the line and raise it up. Now use the poiny thing as part of the pen tools options so you can reshape the line using bezier handles to make a nice arc. Move the time indicator foward in time a little more. Now put the middle point back to in line with the other two. Reshape till you have a straight line again. Now go to Effects>Render>stroke. A stroke will be painted over your mask. Now hit (num pad enter) to do a RAM preview and see the simple animation. Now go from there.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[Victoria Ellis]

I also have a similar problem – I want to have a ribbon-like line thread/draw it’s way nice and fluidly down the left side of the screen and then about 2/3 of the way down go across and off the right side of the screen. I could just use a masked solid, but the ribbon needs to have texture and anamorphic edges. Any ideas?
Thanks,
Vic

[Paul Hackett]

Thanks Chris, I’ll give it a try.