[Gene Gemperline]

If you have Trapcode Particular, this might be workable – at least the helix part.

Off the top of my head (I don’t have AE in front of me right now) I would create two light emitters for particular, parent them to a 3D null, make sure they’re polar from each other, then rotate the null as you move it up or down. If you set Particular to emit a whole ton of particles (circles, probably) and then put the velocity of emission on zero, you might come out with a 3D spiral. Then you should be able to move the camera around it.

As for spheres and icons – gee I don’t know. You might be able to fake a “ladder” with just a 2.5D black bar, but icons? Hmmm…

You can sometimes get away with creating “fake” 3D objects in AE (at least “fake” extrusion) by duplicating layers and placing them behind each other, so that you essentially have a bunch copies of one layer REALLY close together. This kind of gives the illusion of depth, just don’t look at the sides head on, because then it’ll become translucent.

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https://www.youtube.com/user/Baccus83

[Gene Gemperline]

Thank you.

Yeah – it probably is YouTube being YouTube. It’s hard to see, but if you look at the red butterfly on the bottom (it’s bigger) between 5 and 7 seconds, you can see the luma kind of drop out for a frame or two. It’s very frustrating.

But I’m glad you liked my work.

[Gene Gemperline]

There could be other ways to do it, but I’m thinking it’s probably a job for stroke set to “reveal original image.”

Just draw an open mask on the “vines” that you want to grow, apply sroke, set to “reveal original image,” make sure you’ve got a big enough brush to cover the reveal the entire graphic, set your start and end points, and go to town.

[Gene Gemperline]

Thank you very much for your help.

[Gene Gemperline]

More specifically.

1) Import your text.
2) On the same layer, draw an open mask in the center of the text.
3) Apply stroke.
4) Set Paint style to “Reveal Original Image”
5) Make sure brush size is big enough to reveal the whole image.
6) Set path to “all masks” and to “stroke sequentially”
7) Set start and end points.

That should get the job done.

[Gene Gemperline]

What you could do, I think, is trace a mask over the font, apply stroke, and then set it to “reveal original image.” That should work. It’s probably more work than you’d like – but I can’t think of anything better off the top of my head.

[Gene Gemperline]

Bezier warp is a bit too harsh for what I’m trying to do.

Sorry for ruining your day. I guess I thought they had their reel online. They do these hyper-realistic animatics. I’ve got the DVD on my desk here, so it doesn’t really matter.

Back to work…

[Gene Gemperline]

Well look at that. Nice. Thanks. I had some trouble loading this page for some reason, but now it’s working.