Looping Animated dotted line

[Kevin Camp]

there are a few ways…

an easy way, if the dots don’t need to move is to use the write-on effect, animate the brush position as needed and then play with the brush size and spacing properties to get a dotted line that ‘writes-on’.

if the dots don’t need to be round, but could be more like a dashed line, then you could create a shape layer and use the pen tool to create the path. turn off the fill property, turn up the stroke width property and turn dashes on (set as needed). you can have the dashes moving by animating the dash offset. and you can add a ‘trim paths’ property to have the line itself draw on.

you could also use the circle effect, animating the circle center property and then adding the echo effect. set the echo time (time offset) to get the dot spacing and the number of echoes to create the line… you may also want to set the operator to composite in back or front rather than add.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Raju Sachania]

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for your help and wonderful tutorials. It certainly works for me. However I did not understand what circle effect is? If you could elaborate it for me.

[Kevin Camp]

the circle effect is just and effect called ‘circle’. and it generates a circle on a layer, with several controls like position, radius, feather, color blending mode, etc..

the reason i suggested the circle effect over just creating a circular mask and animating that layers position property, is that to replicate it out with the echo effect, you’ll need to either pre-comp the animated circle layer, or put echo on an adjustment layer above the animated circle layer. the first option would move you animation into another comp, making adjusting the timing a little more difficult, the later would also cause echo to effect all layers below it, which can be problematic.

by using the circle effect and echo on the same layer, it just makes it a little easier.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Jonathan Ames]

About the continuing looping, though. I’ve created a dashed line from point “A” on a map to point “B” and animated it to march from A to B. How can you make it “loop” or continue in “marching ant” fashion.

[Mohamed Hafeez]

Hello! Old post but still thought I will post my method.

1. Create a shape layer with Circle
2. Add repeater, make Position (0,0)
3. Adjust the number of copies/rotation (under repeater transformation)
4. Fine tuning point 3 will give you a nice circle with dots

Hope this helps.