Line tracing, animation

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
May 7, 2017
3 replies
5335 views

Hello AE Forum,

I have a logo of three loops that are cut off in the middle with arrows and that have frayed edges, and I am wondering what the best way to have this appear as if it were drawn on the screen so that it is exact. Is Live Tracing in Illustrator this best way, or is there a better function in AE?

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Correct answer Kyle Hamrick

If the arrowheads need to move with it, something like this would be infinitely easier than messing with Particular. Since we're making assumptions here, I'm also going to make the educated guess that someone who doesn't know how to do this technique probably doesn't have a need to own Particular.

Particular is great for this when you've got a path of varying width, or when it needs an organic, ink-spready feel, but that doesn't seem to be what's at play here.

brian704

Inspiring

I was assuming he wanted the arrows to draw on with the line - that's why I suggested Particular

R

Rick Gerard

Community Expert

I would use trim paths on shape layer with stroke only as a track matte to reveal the drawing underneath. Depending on the speed of the animation you may be able to get away without doing a bunch of masking. This is pretty straight forward stuff if you understand trim paths and track mattes. Particular can be used as a track matte to reveal lines but it's way more complicated than is needed for a project like this.

Kyle Hamrick

Community Expert

There are many tutorials online detailing approaches to what you're after. It's often referred to as "write-on," though this may not always involve the AE effect of the same name.

If the logo is already a vector, that may make step 1 below easier. If it's not, Live Trace in Illustrator may create more problems than it solves. As Roei said, it'll 100% depend on what the logo actually looks like.

The basic steps are:
1. Cut up the logo into pieces, so you can isolate each "stroke" that makes up the logo.
2. Pick the appropriate technique to reveal each piece.*
3. Play with the timing until it feels right.

*The most common solutions will probably involve some combination of the following: masking, mattes, Stroke effect, Write-On effect, shape layers w/ Trim Path.

Roei Tzoref

Legend

show us the logo, show as a reference how you want it to move. making vectors from pixels using image trace (recently called "live trace") won't help you in Ae for revealing elements.

M

monicaw73787342Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks Kyle and Roel,

Here are the loops. I am trying to figure out how to recreate each of the arrows that make up the loops so they appear on the screen as if they were drawn on, and the one with frayed edges to be drawn emerging out once the frayed edges appear on the screen in some fashion. This is not a vector image yet. Appreciate the personal help, have gone through tutorials and can't find the right one!

brian704

Inspiring

You may be able to use Particular if you have it. You can get the particles to follow a path made by animating a light used as an emitter. If memory serves there is a tutorial on the Red Giant site that lays out how to do this and add the arrow heads. You could also create the "frayed" pieces the same way.

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