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PS Motion
Inspiring
August 11, 2021
Question

Double strokes

  • August 11, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 1032 views

Hello!

I'm trying to create the effect show in the video below, with two trim paths, each with different colors, in an easier way.
Right now i'm doing it like this: create a group with the sapes, add a trim path, duplicate this group, change the color and offset the keyframes. This method works, however with more complex shpaes it gets very tiresome and complicated.
Is there a better way to do that? I downloaded the ouroboros plugin but I can't make the second path fill the entire shape, so the end result is a dual colored path, which is not what I want.
Thank you

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2 replies

Kyle Hamrick
Community Expert
Community Expert
August 12, 2021

You've got a couple possible approaches here. 

- Duplicating and manually offseting the timing is indeed the most straightforward one. 


- As Mylenium suggested, the valueAtTime() expression is perfect for this, though it would still involve duplicating your shape group. If this is something you're doing often, you could take the time to build a little reusable rig for yourself, which you could then save as a preset. Paths can be pickwhipped so you'd only need to update one of them. Your second stroke would be pickwhipped to the first, but offset via valueAtTime (we can provide guidance if you can't find some on your own). I'd personally recommend connecting the offset amount to a slider control for easy access. In the future, you'd simply call up the preset, then either manually adjust the path, or copy/paste a new path onto the Path property within the preset. 

 

- You can create a procedural effects stack using Echo, you just have to work out the compositing. This is a quickie version that actually uses Echo "in reverse," so the leading (white) version is actually happening before the Trim Path keyframes in this example. The Simple Choker cleans up any rough edges and the Tint gives you color control AFTER the compositing happens. Again, this could be saved as a preset and easily called up in the future. If your shape is otherwise moving, this solution might not be as good, as Echo will also apply itself to layer transforms, etc. unless you precompose this. 

PS Motion
PS MotionAuthor
Inspiring
August 12, 2021

Thank you so much for the very detailed explanation and different approaches. I'll try them and see what works best in this case, but creating a preset is a very good idea, as this will be used often

Mylenium
Legend
August 12, 2021

You could write some expression using valueAtTime() to be applied to the second stroke to eliminate having to fix the keyframe timing, but due to the limitations of how this works you'd still have to work with duplicate groups and adhere to a specific structure. Otherwise your example looks like a typical case for a particle plug-in drawing the stroke as a trail, so if you have particular it may be worth giving that a whirl.

 

Mylenium

PS Motion
PS MotionAuthor
Inspiring
August 12, 2021

Thank you! I'll give it a try!