[Roei Tzoref]

so after going about this for a long time and producing semi good results, I asked long time Ae contributor Rick Gerard to have a look and I will write down his recipe that took him ten minutes to accomplish.

here’s the project file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5wyUt17-tu2QzBOYk5wejEwTTg/view?usp=drivesdk

here is the recipe:

The trick is using a stroke for the path, loopOut() and then a little track matte from a pre-comp.

Start by double clicking the Polygon tool, expose the properties, delete the fill if there is one, set the stroke to about 36, set the number of sides to 8 then the outer roundness to about 220%.

Now you have your basic shape. To preserve that for future tweaks duplicate it and then convert the Polygon to a Bezier path in the duplicate, reveal the path and set a keyframe and copy it.

Now it’s time for the arrowhead. Enable the Grid so you can draw a > shaped path with the apex right on the anchor point. Set the stroke width to about 36 and delete the fill Make it plenty big to cover the entire stroke, press Alt/Option + p to create a position keyframe and paste, then drag out the keyframes to give the movement a little time and add a loopOut() expression to the arrow. The arrowhead should now continuously loop around the path.

Duplicate the converted octagon layer and name it matte. Apply Set Matte to the arrowhead and choose the matte layer. Duplicate the arrowhead 7 times so you have eight in total then select them all and press P to reveal the position keyframes.

Starting at the top select all of the position keyframes and then grab them and hold down the shift key as you drag to the left until you line up the second keyframe on the layer below with the last keyframe on the layer you are moving. Repeat until all of the arrowheads are distributed around the octagon and then precompose all of the arrowheads and the Matte layer.

Use the pre-comp as a track matte for the converted octagon. You should have 8 lines with pointy ends moving around the outside of the octagon.

To create the different colors reveal the stroke properties and add dashes until you have 4 dashed lines distributed around the octagon then set a keyframe for offset, move to the last frame of the completed arrowhead cycle and adjust the offset until the dashes make one complete loop around the octagon and check the timing. Add a loopOut() expression to the offset. If everything is good duplicate the stroke, change the color of the duplicate, then select all of the offset keyframes in the duplicate and move them to the left until you have two colored lines with pointy ends.

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Roei Tzoref]

come back if you figure it out ☺

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Roei Tzoref]

I have not heard of this type of bug in 2017. try to isolate the problem to the most basic setup. see if you can reproduce it and specify the steps, even upload a project if necessary so we can test it in our systems.

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Roei Tzoref]

this should work. check that you are copying at the first frame of the video, check the frame rates. other than that we need more information but the best thing is if you can upload a few seconds of the footage so we test it and hopefully show you a step by step.

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Roei Tzoref]

[Greg Jones] “the first thing I noticed is that all of my precomps and layers with video clips were way off. The in and out points were totally differernt.”

are these Jpg sequences by any chance and you did not update to the latest 14.1? (there was a jpg sequence bug in 14.0)

provide more information on how exactly is the project different from the previous release

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Roei Tzoref]

you might find these video series handy:
https://www.eyedesyn.com/tutorials/bend-2d-layers-along-paths-using-after-effects-cinema-4d/

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Roei Tzoref]

1. scale the video a tiny bit until it’s covering all the frame completely
2. precomp the footage -> move all attributes
3. now use the motion tile effect

you could also
1. precomp the footage – leave all attributes
2. activate the collapse switch
3. now you can scale the layer a bit and the gap will go away

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Roei Tzoref]

see if this thread can help you establish this is indeed a bug : https://forums.adobe.com/message/9242343

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Roei Tzoref]

what kind of files are these? I happen to ran across a problem with Jpegs. does this happen in previous versions as well? can you try to recreate this problem to see when exactly does it break and share the steps?

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials

[Roei Tzoref]

auto trace is for converting RGBA channels to masks. if it’s a photoshop files, you might as well trace it and prepare it in photoshop and import it to Ae as already cutout.

more about preparing photoshop files to Ae in here: https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/preparing-importing-still-images.html#preparing_and_importing_photoshop_files

you should probably spend a decent time in here before you try to work with this software because it’s not intuitive:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/tutorials.html

Roei Tzoref
After Effects Artist & Instructor
♫ Ae Blues Tutorials