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Trouble making a layer (airplane) follow 3D path
I thought 10 years exp of Ae would be enough to solve this without help. I guess not! I got a camera from cinema 4d imported. I’ve created a path with a stroke in “3D” space with a trim paths animated. Working perfectly. I want the plane layer to follow path. The normal 2D way of doing this by copying the path into position does not work cause of the xyz pos. Tried to use a null and hook the plane on to that as a 3D layer, but cant get it to work.
This is the typical stippled line on a map with a plane following it.
Any help would be super
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1 Reply
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Seems to me that you are trying to use a camera layer in After Effects to create a 3D Path that a plane layer can follow, am I correct? If so, here is one possible approach you can try by implementing these following steps:
- Create a camera layer in After Effects and set its position to the center of the path you want to follow.
- Add a plane layer and move it to the center of the path.
- Animate the plane layer’s “X” and “Z” properties to follow the path.
- Add a “Stroke” effect to the plane layer and set it to the desired look and width of the stroke.
- To create the dotted line look, you can add an “Effect Controls” layer above the plane layer and use an “Echo” effect on it. Set the “Echo” effect to repeat the last X frames (e.g. if the frame rate is 24 fps, set the number of echoes to 2). Adjust the duration of the echo so that it produces the desired number of dots.
- Set the X and Z properties of the camera layer to match the keyframes of the “X” and “Z” properties of the plain layer, respectively. This will make the camera follow the plane layer along the path you’ve created.
Hopefully this can be of help to you, any additional questions, you can let me know and I will see what I can do!
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