Disable Perspective on Shape Contours

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

You can copy the path to a solid layer and use the stroke effect, with Paint Style “On Transparent”. If you now turn “Continuously Rasterize” on, the line thickness won’t be affected by perspective.

[Thomas Frenkel]

The script “Connect Layers” creates an expression on a rectangle shape that dynamically connects two 3D points. However, I can’t copy and paste or link this rectangle to a solid as mask, since it is a specific form shape, defined by width and height.

I used Rowbyte Plexus with decent results, but I can’t animate/trim the path that way, which is neccessary.

Let me clarify the perspective issue:
The stroke width should be affected by the distance to the camera, but not by the rotation towards it. The strokes look like flat 2D images in 3D space, which is not the look I want.

And I can’t convert the conneceting 3D Nulls to 2D Space using the .toComp([0,0,0]) – expression with the “Beam” effect, because it will get rid of the perspective.

Comparison attached:

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Edit: Ok, so the “lines” between the layers themselves are long rectangle shapes in 3D, and you’d want to rotate them so that they always have the face of the rectangle facing the camera instead of being affected by the camera angle.

This is probably some variation of Dan’s “face camera” script, but as I don’t have the “Connect Layers” script I’m afraid I would be just guessing at which rotation would need to be fixed. Probably just one rotation value needs to be based on the angle created by the two end points (in relation to the camera).

Well, guessing at it, that rotation angle is currently 0 and the rectangles are vertical, so the rotation angle would need to be 90 when the points are exactly vertical (creating a vertical line) and then they would rotate 90 degrees + the same amount as the 2D projection seen by the camera rotates from that vertical position.

(That’s likely impossible to understand without a diagram. And it might be wrong anyways…)

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Maybe if you explain what kind of animation you want to achieve there might be a different solution altogether.

Do you want an animation where the connecting lines between the points (layers) are drawn on during the animation, and you’re currently doing that with trim paths (on the “Connect Layers” rectangles)?

[Thomas Frenkel]

“Connect Layers” will create a rectangle that is 1px high, which makes it appear as a single line, but technically its a “primitive” rectangle shape. But this is not very relevant here, since I also encounter the same problem with simple handdrawn paths.

Sorry, I failed at attaching the image before. Here it is:

And here the script expression on the shape layer, dynamically connecting 2 Nulls in 3D space:

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

This may or may not work, but I would try adding

+ 90 + angle

to the three lines that define the variable “bank”, keeping what is already there, just adding that to the end of the lines.

[Thomas Frenkel]

Thanks for the replies, Kalle.
I found a workaround for my problem with Plexus and Linear Wipe to trim the paths. It’s not very elegant, but it’s doing the job.
In Plexus, the contours are not polygon-like shapes, but similar to the Trapcode 3D stroke plugin – and thats what I needed.