Dots to assemble a map

[Chris Voelz]

I did something similar using a gradient to control the size of the dots. The size of the dot was looking at the value of the gradient (white to black). I kept the gradient in a pre-comp so that I could change the shape easily and or have multiple gradients. My computer did not enjoy the shear number of layers that were mapped to expressions. I think I had around 800 dots, lots of head pounding on that project. But I would look into a combo of expressions and hand animating. I attached an example of what I did in action.

Here is something to kick start your exploration if you want to go down this route. The expression isn’t exactly what I used for the video below, but it should put on the right path.

https://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/sample-image.html

x=thisComp.layer("Gradient").sampleImage(transform.position, [.5,.5]/2, true, time)[0];
110*[x,x]

Not sure if embedding works, so here is a link.

https://vimeo.com/526178499

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[John Sappo]

Chris-

Thanks so much for your reply! This is a good start for me to to explore. I think you’re right this project is going to require that combo of expressions and hand animating.

Stay 100

[Filip Vandueren]

Definitely take a look at Pastiche, it’s a very handy plugin to automatically place hundreds of layers within a shape.