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Showing a river change course… via “unzipping”?
So I’m trying to show a river’s path changing over time.
– The width of the river is not even, so it can’t just be a stroke on a path
– The water “flows” from top to bottom, widening or narrowing as it goes
– The widening/narrowing happens gradually, like a zipper
– The zipper generally “auto-orients” to the direction of the river.
– The river may change course completelyHere’s a visual:
What is the best way to do this?
Thank you ahead of time!
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4 Replies
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Animated masks.
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I agree. You want to create a blue solid, and mask it out so it fits your first river. Then keyframe that mask path, create your other shapes and animate accordingly.
Another, more flexible way would be to use the boa plug-in. you could then pull it off with a stroke.Michael
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set first vertex and look up animating masks
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Here’s a fun idea. Use text!
Seriously, it’ll work. Use text on a path and use a bunch of circles really close together. Use a text animator to change the fill color from white to black. That way, you get a line that will follow a path that gradually changes from white to black along the length of the line.
Then, you can use that gradient path to drive a time displacement effect. So, you can simply animate the river growing in size, in a precomp and then use time displacement to make it happen along the length of the river.
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