[Mike Clasby]

Have you seen Dan Ebbert’s page on Trails?

https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/follow-the-leader.html

At the bottom of the page the are Orientation issues covered, in the sections titled, Follow the Null and Auto-orient.

Maybe it will help some.

[Mike Clasby]

Have you seen Dan Ebbert’s page on Trails?

https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/follow-the-leader.html

At the bottom of the page the are Orientation issues covered, in the sections titled, Follow the Null and Auto-orient.

Maybe it will help some.

[Mike Clasby]

From the look of your second example (I’m seeing your download avi’s fine) you might want to see Ayato’s #29, 3D space:

https://www.ayatoweb.com/ae_tips_e/ae29_e.html

But to answer you question on positioning your text in 3D space, try:

Window>Cylinder Creator Lite (the layers must have the 3D box checked or it’s grayed out).

If your version of AE doesn’t have Cylinder Creator Lite (I think most do) go to Digital Anarchy.
This throws lots of layers up in 3D with lots of control.
The whole text layer will be flat, not curved, but arranged in a clyinder around the statue, so it might be better to keep your text layers smaller. If you’re having trouble seeing you cylinder of text go to Window>Workspace>Two Comp Views, with one on Custom View One. Good luck.

[Mike Clasby]

I think Simulation>Card Dance will do what you want.

Search AE Help for “Card Dance”, be sure an look at the “Understanding Card Dance” page as it explains how a grayscale layer controls the cards.

I think you should create the Dot Text you want then animate it with card Dance, then time reverse the layer to get you text to assemble from
a series of flying dots. Card Dance has a 3D camera in the plugin so you can fly around and through your dots.

[Mike Clasby]

I think Simulation>Card Dance will do what you want.

Search AE Help for “Card Dance”, be sure an look at the “Understanding Card Dance” page as it explains how a grayscale layer controls the cards.

I think you should create the Dot Text you want then animate it with card Dance, then time reverse the layer to get you text to assemble from
a series of flying dots. Card Dance has a 3D camera in the plugin so you can fly around and through your dots.

[Mike Clasby]

You can put the Stroke Effect on a mask twice, just dup the effect in the Effect Control window, then change the color the second time, you get one color stroke bordered on both inside and outside with the other color.

Or you can dup the mask, double click on one of them (say Mask 2) to get that transform box like in Photoshop, then drag the the mask bigger, then dup the Stroke again, and change it’s color, and choose Path = Mask 2.

Both ways are all on the same layer, one method with one mask, the other method with two masks (one expanded).

Is that what you want to do.

[Mike Clasby]

They are a seperate install off the CD, but if you have the Educational version, they are not included.

[Mike Clasby]

With the Selection Toll (V), select the vertex you want to become the first vertex, by clicking on it or drawing a little marquee around it. It’s selected when it beocomes a solid square and the little handles appear. Right click and choose “Set First Vertex”.
Fini.

[Mike Clasby]

There are probably other ways but I know you can do what you want with Dan Ebbert’s Tut, “Building a 3D Particle Generator”.

https://www.creativecow.net/show.php?page=/articles/ebberts_dan/particle_gen/index.html

The particles are psd files (Photoshop) so you can put in whatever you want. Just go to the end of the tut, Moving Emitter.

I’m sure you can do this with Trapcodes PArticular, and Particle Illusion (SE version if fully functional 30 day trial, also soon to be an AE plugin), since you canuse images as particles. I don’t know AE’s PArticle Playground well enough to coment.

Anyways, Dan’s 3D Particle Generator is great for small quick jobs, just swap ypu “musical note” file for one in his comp, then dup until you get as many particles as you want, pretty straight forward.

[Mike Clasby]

Try hitting the “reset” for Shatter, at the top of the Effect Palette.

The Effect Shatter effect is coovered in detail in this pdf, After Effects 5.5 Effects Documentation (ZIP: 3.2M) at:

https://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/indepth.html

Shatter is in pdf 4, pgs 17-26.

Lots of reading but lots of control.