Using Expressions to generate wavy lines

[Filip Vandueren]

I think something like Processing would be a better environment for this than After Effects.

They’re obviously not simple particles (they end up in a very deliberate place: at an integer degree position along the outer circle for example, and don’t die there but stick a while.) The meandering also seems very rule-like, and not just wiggle or noise().
So they would need an object oriented approach.
Doing that in After Effects would require each of them to be a layer or a shape-group: very unwieldy and hard to maintain.

It’s possible that something like this is do-able in the stardust particle system ?
I’m not familiar with it but I know it’s supposed to be modular, but I don’t know if that means you can inject actual expressions code into it.

[Robert Müller]

Well you can achieve something going in the same direction, using regular old particle System II, Echo and Polar Coordinates (to turn the whole thing into a sphere). But If you want more details, like seeing dots, undistorted by Polar Coordinates, leaving a trail, you woul'd have to go with an advanced particle system