Animate illustrations

[bryanoooo2]

Hi All

I've been looking for a tutorial or preset if one exists to animate 2d illustrations so that they seem to draw on to the screen. Something similar to the really beautiful ad for the Irish blasphemy referendum which was held last week (don't ask, we're all very embarrassed about it....and it passed by the way, blasphemy is no longer a criminal offence in Ireland ).

Any help would be much appreciated.

Best Regards

Bryan

[David Arbor · Accepted solution]

This is very easy to achieve with a stroke and the Trim Paths Shape Layer effect. If you create your art in Illustrator, make sure your lines never get expanded and that they stay native stroke layers, which is critical for the Trim Paths effect to work. The animation in the video was created by animating the Start or End properties, but also the Offset property, to make it look like both unconnected ends were moving at the same time.

[bryanoooo2]

Hi David. I have a follow up question. Is there some way to use the trim paths to animate illustrations that have been expanded. See below image. - Because the drawings are not just simple lines with a stroke width I cannot seem to use trim paths on them. I have a big library of drawings like this and it would take forever to trace them out with the pen tool.

[David Arbor]

Nope, sorry, you have to go back into Illustrator and use some tricks to make those strokes again. It looks like this art might be a good candidate for the blend trick: Convert shape to line with a stroke in Illustrator - Graphic Design Stack Exchange

[bryanoooo2]

Thank you sir. I had come across that technique, but it's not so straight forward on more complex illustrations.

Appreciate your help though and will post again if I find a solution.

Best Regards

Bryan

[David Arbor]

Agreed, it's not so straightforward, especially when rounded corners are involved. Unfortunately, when I come across this I either ask my designers to redraw the artwork (at this point they know not to expand strokes if I'm going to animate the art) or I have to redraw it myself. It's a pain.

[bryanoooo2]

Thanks David that's fantastic. Trim Paths are super, and I do find animating Start, End and Offset gets the best result.

Thanks again, I'll have lots of fun with this!

bryan