Animate multiple objects along path

[Anoeek]

Hi,

I am looking for a way to animate multiple objects along a single path. Like a trail of objects following the same path in a "train".

Same thing that is happening in the second half of this tutorial with text: After Effects Tutorial: Get an object to follow a mask path - YouTube 

But then with objects.

Seems simple enough, but can't find a way.

Thanks in advance,

Anoek

[imeilfx · Accepted solution]

Depends on what exactly you wish to animate if you wish to animate multiplication of the first layer i think easiest way would be to just animate first object and use Echo effect.
Or you can use simple expression for more than one layer (or for multiplication also):

delay = 2;

d = delay*thisComp.frameDuration*(index - 1);

thisComp.layer(1).position.valueAtTime(time - d)

You have to put that into position value of second and each subsequent one layer. delay =2 that number is number of frames that your layer will be delayed with.

[DigitalSpatula]

Hi Anoeek

You can just create the path with the pen tool on a new layer then drill down to the pth parameter, click on the word 'path" and then copy that and paste it into the position parameter of multiple layers. Then just offset the start times of the layers.

Hope this helps,

Steve

[Anoeek]

Thanks for your reply!

And sorry that I wasn't very clear with my question, but I was looking for a way to do this without creating a lot of layers, since I have to do this for a lot of layers.

The echo effect as suggested above works wonders though! Exactly what I was looking for: a simple but effective way.