How to make the red line in the Indiana Jones title

[Robin Lewis]

Right really silly question here but i have made my new comp, added the Map, made a solid layer and drew the pen line.

I then added Effect> Stroke to the solid layer but i can not get it to stroke yet i can make it reveal the line

The Stroke effect options are currently set to..

Path: Mask1
Brush size: 7.7
Brush hardness: 76
Opacity: 100%
Start: 0%
End: 100%
Spacing: 15%
Paint Style: Reveal Original

One of these must be wrong at the moment I just have a red line on a map.

thanks

[Robin Lewis]

Figured it out thank you!

Is there a easy way to motion track that line in the new comp so that it is always central, so the camera seems to follow the line around the map?

[Angie Taylor]

Hi there,

There’s definitely a trick to getting this right but once you know the trick, it’s easy, so, here goes. BTW, a movie demonstrating this technique is available in my After Effects CS5 Learn by Video DVD if you are interested in that, let me know and I’ll send you a link. 🙂

1. Place the map in a new comp, it’s best if the Map is bigger than the comp if you want to pan around it.
In the Timeline, set a keyframe for the Anchor Point property as it’s this property you will animate to pan around the map. Don’t animate the Position property as you’ll just run into problems.

2. Alt-double-click the layer to open up the Layer panel, this is where you’ll do the animation. It’s great as you’ll be able to see an overview of the whole image without having to faff around in the Comp panel. Make sure that the Target menu is set to Anchor Point Path.

3. In the timeline, move to where you want the next change in direction of the path to happen, and in the Layer panel, click and drag the anchor point to the landmark that you want to be central in the comp panel at that time. You’ll notice that, in the Comp panel, the point that the anchor point is on (in the Layer panel) is always central in the Comp panel, which is what we want exactly!

4. Keep repeating this till you have completed the journey you want the ‘camera’ to follow and so have completed the positional aspect of the animation.

5. If you want to smooth out the timing of the animation so that it maintains and even speed throughout, select all the keyframes except the first and last one, right-click on them and choose Rove Across Time. Once you’ve done that you can pull or push the first or last keyframes to speed up, or slow down the whole animation.

6. Now apply the Write On effect to the layer. Choose a color and style by adjusting the settings.

7. To make the Write on effect follow the path you can either use and expression to link the Brush Position property to the Anchor Point property of the layer (my preferred option) or, if you’re not keen on using expressions you can simply select all the keyframes from the Anchor Point property, copy them, then paste them into the Brush Position property.

8. In the Write On effect, make sure that the Paint Style property is set to On Original Image.

The nice thing about this technique is that it’s now easy to make it into a 3D map pan. All you need to do is add a camera and some lights, adjust the camera angle and animate the zoom property and that’s it! The camera and lights will automatically follow the anchor point so no further animation will be necessary unless you want to animate the angle, zoom, or depth of field.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you need any more detail on any of this.

cheers,

Angie

Angie Taylor animation & illustration for television, film, web and devices

https://www.angietaylor.co.uk
Twitter: theangietaylor
Linkedin: theangietaylor
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Angie-Taylor/118378194869002

[Robin Lewis]

Thank you for being so detailed i think both ways work but im going to give yours a shot this eve if i can!

sounds great

much apreciated

Robin