[Mike Clasby]

Do you mean like this?

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/animating_signature.php

There is also a part 2, just click on Aharon’s head and scroll down.

[Mike Clasby]

For the circular path: Create a Null, create the square shape, offset it from the Null equal to the radius of the circle, parent the Square to the Null, then rotate the Null. If both are 3D, you have three options for rotation.

Then add Dan’s expression for Trails to the Square. Duplicate the Square as many time as you want followers. That should do it.

Dan’s expression, here:

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

To apply an expression, Copy the expression, Alt-Click the Position Stopwatch, and Paste.

[Mike Clasby]

Not really sure of the look you want, but maybe these will help (or not).

Trapcode’s Lux even though it looks like a 3D light is a flat 2D layer in AE’s 3D space. So I don’t know how you’d fly through the light… and what that would look like. Do you want brighter in the middle, or are you thinking Volumetric light like maltaannon does, here?:

https://library.creativecow.net/articles/drozda_jerzy/VolumeLight.php

That might be what you want, maybe after you approached a Luxlight, then switch to the tut above after you’ve entered.

Lux is the slick way to go, but if you

[Mike Clasby]

To “swap in your layers for the blue oval layers”,

Drag your footage from the Project window onto a Selected layer in the timeline. Just in case you hadn’t done that before.

[Mike Clasby]

The quickest way to do,what you want is with this French Expression, “sphereoscarus”, here:

https://www.aenhancers.com/viewtopic.php?t=160&highlight=sphere

Download, unzip, click on the aep. Then just swap in your layers for the blue oval layers surrounding the sphere. Then delete the blue layers you don’t need.

Rotate the Sphere by rotating the Null.

Change the “rayon” in the slider to change the Radius.

The “angle” slider change how far apart the layers are and how many fit around the circumference of the sphere. Decrease the angle for less layers around the outside, Increase for more, you’ll see, it adjusts automatically.

Deactivate the Orientation expression, if you don’t want the layer facing the center of the sphere. You can then Layer>Transform>Auto-Orient>Orient Towards Camera, if you want the layers to all look at the camera.

Viva le France! OK, a little carried away, but this setup is so cool the writer needed an accolade.

[Mike Clasby]

Click on Aharon’s head (main AE page), scroll down to:

Creating a Cartoon from Video

Aharon’s has the advantage of being the only one I know of that reSizable upward (Up, up and away!) as it/s been converted to vector art. (So Imax is no problem).

It’s three parts and use Illustrator and AE. No one has come up with a bullet proof, easy way to do this. Waking Life and Through a Scanner Darkly take many animators, many months to create them.

Tyler Paul had a setup he used called Toonificator, here:

Tyler Paul’s Toonificator V3.0 The Update To End All Major Updates!
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/2/891968

The Project File (aep) is still available and I’d grab it because his earlier versions are gone. It’s for AE7.0, so I can’t see it, but I think it looks like what I’ve seen done in PhotoShop.

Speaking of PhotoShop, go to Adobe Exchange and search for “cartoon”, here:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/

I liked the Photoshop Action named “Lawtoon”. I jazzed it up a little by cranking up the Saturation. It is Great for scenic backgrounds. But, all of the above treatments have trouble with faces. I hear the new PhotoShop Extended can impost and put effects on video, so just running the Lawtoon Action (or a variety you concoct) is simple. Alternatively, in AE’s Render Queue, you can convert your clip to an Image Sequence or Filmstrip (my fav), import that render to PhotoShop, run filters/Actions (Lawton), then re-Import that back to AE to finish up. Not as bad as it sounds.

Since AE7 added Smart Blur, you can make a decent Lawtoon replication in AE. Lawtoon was a combo of the following effects: Diffuse:anisotropic (still no AE equalivant, try Gaussian Blur), Paint Daubs, Accent Edges, Smart Blur. Down load the Action and open it the Action Panel, details there.

There is another action there named Cartoon worth checking out. Also there are many “Sketch” actions that might help.

Like I said, scenic shots are beautiful, faces are problematic.

[Mike Clasby]

This tut by Lee Brimlow, creates text in AE, then he imports it into Flash. That probably what you need to do, especially for the interactive part.

https://www.creativecow.net/articles/brimelow_lee/ae4flash1/ae4flash1.html

He uses the text preset, wobble”, then shortens the comp duration and comp size, to create an all vector swf. He then imports that into Flash as a movie clip, does a little action script on it, animates the movie clip inside Flash, scaling it up (all vector), motion tweens it, rotates it, stops it with action script.

The final text is very lightweight, only 5k, yes 5k!

So I think you need both, AE to create the text, Flash to finish it off and add interactivity.

Also, I don’t know if it’s still so, but back here in AE6.5, if you imported an all vector AE swf into Flash and the Publish it out of Flash it will be optimized to a smaller swf, sometimes dramatically smaller.

Getting all vector stuff is limiting in AE, but Audio waveform and Audio Spectrum produce vectors, with audio (jumps to music) or without audio (looks like stroke) on text if you put them onto a mask I like it a lot.

This was suppose to be the first in a series of taking AE stuff to Flash, but I see he now working at Lydia.com as a demonstrator, so I think she snatched him up before he finished, too bad.

Lee’s other Flash tuts are here:
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/brimelow_lee/

[Mike Clasby]

I guess I can’t read very well, thanks for the expression, Dan.

[Mike Clasby]

This expression will make the text in the layer say… A through Z, with A being the top layer and Z being the 26th letter down.

After 26 letters you get an “undefined”, get back to me if I’m in the Ball Park and you need it to keep cycling. Go go walk on the beach… low tide.

On source text:

s = “abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz”;
n = index-1;
s[n]

Am I close or way out there?

[Mike Clasby]

Here’s a render (QT H265 codec):

https://media.putfile.com/TreeWhipWithExpressions

Here’s a screenshot of the timeline window.

https://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=6441499

The branches on the left (looking at the screen) have rotation expressions and CC Bender. The Trunk and the branches on the right are without Bender.

Layer “Left 1” is the topmost left branch, r1, top right.

Warning: Don’t walk in the woods when the wind is blowing this hard… they don’t call them windomakers for nothin’.