How to create radial stripes in AE ?

[Kevin Camp]

the radio waves effect will create the radiating circles fairly easily. a few different layers with different rate of expansion and line thicknesses may get you close. it also looks like a distortion effect like bulge or spherize may have been used to create the distortion at the edges.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Kevin Camp]

cc sphere would do a nicer job, but you could fake that and do it all on one layer….

add the radio waves effect (for starters, increase the start and end widths for the stroke). add the spherize effect, then add the circle effect. set the circle effect’s blending mode property to ‘stencil alpha’ to use the circle as a mask.

enable expressions for the radius and center of the circle effect and use the expression pickwhip to link those properties to the same properties of the spherize effect.

now as you manipulate the center and radius of the spherize effect, you’ll create something that looks fairly similar to circles radiating around a sphere… though it won’t be as real looking as cc sphere, it should be a bit easier to manipulate.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Diego Massanti]

Hey Kevin, thanks a lot for the radio waves tip!, thats the kind of plugin that I always see but never took the time to try…
I did some simple tests and it seems to be what i was looking for so far.

Regarding the CC Sphere one, i cant really figure out how to make the striped looking with it…. maybe i am missing something ? or where you suggesting to use the CC Sphere for a different thing ?

Thanks again, Diego.

Cheers.
Diego Massanti.

[Kevin Camp]

to use cc sphere, you’ll first want to create you animated texture in another comp.

make that comp 2x’s as wides as tall (maybe 1000×500). add a solid that is that comp’s width, but only 50 or so pixels high (this will be the thickness on the radiating circle) and animate the position top to bottom.

bring that comp into a new (normal sized) comp and add the cc sphere effect to it. rotate the sphere around a bit and do a ram preview and the line should animate like a radiating circle from the top pole of the sphere to the bottom pole.

you can further adjust the sphere render from ‘full’ to ‘outside’ surface and set shading ambient light to 100 to make it ‘flat’ rather than shaded like a sphere.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Diego Massanti]

Ok Kevin, thanks again for your really helpful answer. I see now why i wasn’t understanding the sphere thing :p

The reason is that i wasn’t trying to recreate the globes (planets) things on that video, i was only interested in the animated curved stripes, but in any case your tip is more than welcome and yes, using spherize and circle as you suggested allows you to create a really nice striped globe!

Thanks again, Diego.

Cheers.
Diego Massanti.