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camera to follow arrows in 3D
Hi all,
Newbie question and apologies if it’s already been asked, but I couldn’t find anything directly related in the Search…
Using AE CS3, I want to have a camera follow a line that’s being drawn, the end of the line is an arrowhead. I’ve drawn a path on a solid and applying the Stroke effect and animated the “End Point”, which gives me the “write-on” effect I want. However, I’m not able to terminate the stroke with an arrowhead. The stroke needs to be vector-based, since the camera is tracking the line very closely and currently I’m getting a pixellated line.
To follow the point at which the stroke affects the path, I’m currently manually keyframing a null object to it, for the camera to subsequently follow, but the result is pretty flaky.
I’ve seen the effect a million times, so there must be an easier way, right? Is there a “here’s where the stroke becomes visible on the path” point, that I can simply have the camera follow and I’m done?
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4 Replies
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z particle view depth plane or something…sets depth objects to come into view.
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Thanks for the reply, Chris, but I’m not sure what you mean (!)
Can you please explain to an AE ignoramus like me ?
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I would suggest drawing out your line and arrow on one solid and then create another solid above the first (call it arrow_reveal or some such), on this second layer draw the path you will use as a stroke (make sure when you apply the stroke that it is wide enough to cover the line and arrow). Then set the trackmatte of the arrow layer to Luma Matte of the “arrow_reveal” layer.As the stroke is applied it should reveal that line and arrow beneath as if it is being drawn on. You can always precompose these two layer together so that you can use them in a 3d space.
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Thank you very much for the reply, Hans-Eirik. I’ll try that and see how it goes.
Quite surprised that AE doesn’t allow for an easier solution, but there you go.
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