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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects Dot leaving solid trail

  • Dot leaving solid trail

    Posted by Tim Silva on January 11, 2007 at 8:32 pm

    I’m working on a project that shows a bunch of yellow dots leaving a trail behind them indicating the path they have followed. For the trails I’ve used paths with Trapcode’s 3DStroke plugin. I’m having trouble with the timing where the trails shoot ahead or fall behind the dots. I’m thinking there’s probably an easier way to do this. Any thoughts?

    Thanks,

    Tim

    Tim Silva replied 19 years, 4 months ago 4 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Iancorey

    January 11, 2007 at 10:02 pm

    Andrew Friggin’ Kramer did this

    If you have particular, use the technique up there. It wouldn’t be a “line” it’d be so many circles so close together that it would look like a line.

    If you don’t have Particular, peep this:

    1. Draw a mask on Layer 1, click on the Mask Shape property, copy to the clipboard.

    2. Make a Layer 2. Create a new solid the size of your dot (30×30). Double click the Eliptical mask tool (this masks out a circle).

    3. Press P. SELECT the position property (by clicking on it). Paste the mask to the position property. You should see two keyframes and a bunch of roving keys in between them. Your dot should now animate along the mask shape. Hold down option while you drag the later keyframe to expand the animation (to make it slower or faster).

    4. Go back to Layer 1, apply 3D Stroke. Animate the end from 0 to 100 at the same keyframes as the position for your ball.
    see the demo

  • Aharon Rabinowitz

    January 12, 2007 at 2:52 am

    and if you use the stroke effect which can leave a solid line, it can also leave a trail of dots because you can play with the spacing of the stroke to create dots instead of a line. Just in cast that’s what you mean.

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  • Mylenium

    January 12, 2007 at 6:39 am

    Like Ian said, sync up the timing by simple copy&paste. Another way to go about this is to use text layers with Dingbat fonts. By combining a few of those and syncing up the timing of their animators, you can get just as much control.

    Mylenium

    [Pour Myl

  • Tim Silva

    January 12, 2007 at 1:20 pm

    Ian, that’s exactly what I’m looking for. You touched on something here that may help with the timing issue I’m having. Thanks!

    Tim

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