Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums Apple Motion Can I stagger animation using a replicator?

  • Can I stagger animation using a replicator?

    Posted by Gareth Randall on July 16, 2012 at 12:21 pm

    I’m trying to create a grid where every line draws on individually, with a slight delay between each one. First the horizontal lines will draw on, starting at the top of the screen and working down, then the vertical lines from left to right, you know the sort of thing.

    My immediate thought was that I could do this with one horizontal line, one vertical line and a Write On and replicator for each but I can’t find a way to stagger the timing between individual lines – they all want to appear at the same time, and Sequence Replicator doesn’t seem to have any timing parameters. The best I’ve achieved is to use the opacity parameter to have each line appear one after the other, but of course the lines are all still animating simultaneously so as each line appears it’s keeping pace with all the ones above it, which isn’t the effect I want.

    Is it even possible to do this with a replicator, or would I essentially have to do it “manually”, duplicating the lines and offsetting them in the timeline?

    Simon Ubsdell replied 14 years ago 2 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • Simon Ubsdell

    July 16, 2012 at 1:54 pm

    Here’s one way to do it with a couple of replicators:

    4407_gridreplicatortest.motn.zip

    The horizontal and vertical lines are in separate groups so to offset the timings as you want them simply drag the entire group to where you want it to start.

    https://reels.creativecow.net/film/grid-replicator-demo

    As I’m sure you know, to increase the density of the lines in the grid increase the Points value in the replicator controls.

    Simon Ubsdell
    http://www.tokyo-uk.com

  • Gareth Randall

    July 16, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    Many thanks for that Simon, but I’m still on Motion 4, so unfortunately it won’t open.

    Can you explain how you’re getting each individual line in each group to draw on with different timings? Is it a replicator parameter that doesn’t exist in Motion 4?

  • Simon Ubsdell

    July 16, 2012 at 2:32 pm

    That’s a shame – it’s faster to do than to explain but here goes.

    Make a horizontal line with a start point at -960 and an end point at 960. (Assuming you’re working in 1920×1080!)

    Hit “L” to make a replicator.

    Add a sequence replicator behavior.

    In the replicator controls select Line from the Shape menu.

    Set the Y Start Point at 540 and the Y end point at -540, and set the X values to zero.

    Select the number of points you want (i.e the number of grid lines).

    In the Replicator Behavior tab, add the Position parameter and make sure the Sequencing is set to From. Twirl open the Position parameters and enter -1920 for the X value.

    If I haven’t forgotten any steps you should now have your basic animation for the lines going left to right.

    Hope that works for you!

    Simon Ubsdell
    http://www.tokyo-uk.com

  • Gareth Randall

    July 16, 2012 at 3:09 pm

    Aha, I see what you’re doing. I’m animating the line with a write-on, you’re animating it by moving it from out of frame. I didn’t think to use the Position parameter! Cheers for that 🙂

  • Simon Ubsdell

    July 16, 2012 at 3:16 pm

    It seemed like an easier way to do it 😉

    Don’t forget that you can add all sorts of other parameters to make the animation more interesting, changing the width of the line, the color, the opacity, etc.

    Simon Ubsdell
    http://www.tokyo-uk.com

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy