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Elyse Da Silva
Inspiring
Mar 5, 2026 4:34 PM UTC
Answered

Animated Trim Path Help with Null

I’m working on animating a chart to go on my company’s homepage and followed this tutorial

to help me achieve the look I want. 


The red line (trim path) is moving left, which is the direction I want it to go, but for some reason the null is moving the opposite direction when I adjust the slider control. I’ve attached a screenshot of my work so you can see the expression I used to achieve this. 

I need the null object to be aligned to the right side of the trim path line so I can eventually add a gradient color that would be track matted over the red line. 

Happy to provide more insight if needed, but am hoping for an answer! This is definitely user error :) 

Red Trim Path moves from left to right, but null object moves from right to left

 

Elyse Da Silva
Elyse Da SilvaCorrect answer
Inspiring
Mar 5, 2026 7:27 PM UTC

For anyone who may come looking for answers on this or a similar problem -- I will say this: I use the Overlord extension so I can easily push my vectors from AI into AE. I highly recommend this tool. 

Now, when you are creating your art, be cognizant of the direction you want this animation to happen. I had initially drawn the line in illustrator from right to left, which was causing the issues for me when I wanted to animate my trim path from left to right 

I redrew the line in illustrator from left to right, re-pushed to AE, and now my animation is working perfectly. 

I’m sure there are many ways to fix this problem, but for me this was the easiest. I hope it’s helpful to others running into a similar issue.

1 reply

Elyse Da Silva
Elyse Da SilvaAuthorCorrect answer
Inspiring
Mar 5, 2026 7:27 PM UTC

For anyone who may come looking for answers on this or a similar problem -- I will say this: I use the Overlord extension so I can easily push my vectors from AI into AE. I highly recommend this tool. 

Now, when you are creating your art, be cognizant of the direction you want this animation to happen. I had initially drawn the line in illustrator from right to left, which was causing the issues for me when I wanted to animate my trim path from left to right 

I redrew the line in illustrator from left to right, re-pushed to AE, and now my animation is working perfectly. 

I’m sure there are many ways to fix this problem, but for me this was the easiest. I hope it’s helpful to others running into a similar issue.

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