Animating a tree with expressions and no experience at all

[Mike Clasby]

There is an element of Delay in Dan’s expressions on Trails, here:

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

Maybe you could use the “index -1” part (in line 2) and add in your own multiplying factor and incororate that into your expression.

“index -1” refers to the order in the stack.

Anyway it sounds like you’re off to a flying start.

I followed your instructions and I think I would go about it in a slightly different manner.

Instead of using the position, I tied them all to the Nulls rotation, with Dan’s Expression, on Rotation:

delay = 5; //number of frames to delay

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

The above is for the branches on the left side (2D looking at the screen), for the branches on the right side I added a minus sign in front of the last line, making it:

– thisComp.layer(1).rotation.valueAtTime(time – d)

Then I wiggled the Null, with a wiggle expression on it’s rotation:

wiggle(1,20)

So you end up with a nice fluid waving of the branches, and they’re layer order (index-1) determines who follows who.

I’m glad you asked the question, it looks useful.

[Mike Clasby]

In the expression I used, the Null needs to be the top layer, all those with the expression follow the top layer. To make it refer to the Null specifically, change the last line to:

thisComp.layer(“Null 1”).rotation.valueAtTime(time – d)

[Mike Clasby]

OK, you’ve officially created a Monster… Me… I took your tree to another level.

Overview: I added Bender to each branch, tied that to rotation of that layer to get bending branches. I also tied all the branches to the Trunk (by making it layer 1, the top layer in the expression last post).

Details: Bender

Bender:
Effect>Distort>CC Bender
place the Top at the tip of the branch, the Base at the base of the branch.
Then for Amount I pickwhipped to the layer’s rotation to get the expression (on Amount):

rotation

So the rotation of the branch causes the branch to bend or whip as the branch rotates.

I had to also ad the effect Grow Bounds (at about 50) because my branches were just solids and Bender made then bend off the layer and disappear without the Grow Bounds.

Details: Trunk instead of Null

To tie the branch movement to the Trunk, I put the trunk layer at the top of the stack (I’m using the ” thisComp.layer(1)” in the last line). Then I wiggled it slowly, with this on the trunk’s rotation:

wiggle(1,5)

I then modified the branch expressions a bit, to this (still on rotation of the branch layers):

delay = 5; //number of frames to delay
whip = 3; // whip factor
d = delay*thisComp.frameDuration*(index – 1);
thisComp.layer(1).rotation.valueAtTime(time – d)*whip

The “whip” in line 2 is a stiffness factor, the lower the stiffer.

Or try this to make a random whipfactor:

delay = 5; //number of frames to delay
seedRandom(0,true);
whip= random(2,4); // stiffness factor

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

For random stiffness between 2 to 4.

I saved all three bits for the left branch; Grow Bounds, Rotation expression and Bender, by selecting them and saving as an animation Preset (Animation>Save Animation Preset). I named it LeftBranch, and can now apply it enmass to all left branches at once (Select all left Branches, Animation>Apply Animation preset). I did another preset for all right branches.

Remember: For RightBranches, the last line of any of the rotation variations need a minus sign in front of it, like this:

– thisComp.layer(1).rotation.valueAtTime(time – d)*stiff

Also, if you don’t want the trunk to move, just tie them all back to our Null and rotate that.

Also, if you don’t make Presets you can still apply expressions enmass, by selecting the expression in one layer, Edit>Copy Expression Only, then selecting as many other layers as you want, and then Paste.

The expressions were modified from Dan expressions linked in earlier posts above (Trails and Random).

OK, I’m going to go take my meds now, but for I get too far out on a limb…

[Mike Clasby]

You’ll probably need to make slight adjustments to Bender’s Top and Base for each branch.

I going to take a nap now.

[Ismael De diego]

Thanks a lot my friend !! i just read your reply and i am going to force myself to understand it. I am in a very primitive stage right now and it seems advanced. But MANY MANY THANKS FOR YOUR TIME. I hope your snap was reparing.

[Tyler Egeto]

hey guys, This is an interesting thread. By adding CC bender on there you would get a nice look to the tree. I would love to see s small clip, or even a screen capture of what this looks like. I am going to explore this further as well. This is a great experiment.

[Mike Clasby]

Here’s a render (QT H265 codec):

https://media.putfile.com/TreeWhipWithExpressions

Here’s a screenshot of the timeline window.

https://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=6441499

The branches on the left (looking at the screen) have rotation expressions and CC Bender. The Trunk and the branches on the right are without Bender.

Layer “Left 1” is the topmost left branch, r1, top right.

Warning: Don’t walk in the woods when the wind is blowing this hard… they don’t call them windomakers for nothin’.

[Tyler Egeto]

The bender adds a lot to the movement. I am working on a tree animation as well, my tree has layers of branches that off shoot of each other and get smaller. Unfortunately when applying Bender you run into a problem if it bends the branches too far. This is because it you can then see the gap between the layers where they were normally overlapping.

Over all this is turning out to be an interesting experiment.

[Tyler Egeto]

Here’s a short video of mine. (It’s not very pretty)

https://bigbert.vfs.com/~dd09tyler/experiments/tree.mov

You can see the gaps start to show up between some branches, this is the result of Bender.