Animate several objects along a path

Question

I want to animate sevaral snowflakes of different sizes along a path, just like in the image below. I want the snowflakes to move from left to right (1) and stop moving to form a still wave (2) that will eventually turn to a full color wave (3), which is part of a logo. I could animate all these snowflakes on individual layers, but there must be a quicker way. Any idea?

Mylenium · Accepted Answer

Import one snowflake and use it as a prototype for shape layer repeaters and particle systems. If the flake is part of a font you could even use text layers. Otherwise what Towerguy already suggested would be a quick & dirty way - move the layer in a pre-comp, deform it in the parent comp.

Mylenium

Towerguy · Answer

Hi. There are several ways of doing it. The first I would try is to make your snowflakes in a straight line with an alpha background (using a graphics program like Illustrator). Then in After Effects place an adjustment layer on top of it and add the Bezier Warp effect. At the time when all the flakes are in their final position (at the end of 1) select the stopwatch for all the effect's parameters then move the necessary points to get the wave shape you want. Move along to the time you want to be in position 2 and move the neccessary points to create the new shape. Then keyframe the position of the Snowflake layer so that it slides in from the left to its final position. (I am presuming that you want the flakes to bunch up as they come into position 2.)

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