Merge Paths Causing Ellipses to Disappear in Shape Layer

[Max8132]

Hey there,

I'm attempting to follow this tutorial for the "Circle Splode" section starting at 4:54. I've created two elipses that have their scale keyframed to increase from 0 -> 100 with "Elipse 2" set to occur slightly later than "Elipse 1". According to the tutorial, I should add a merge paths to below the two elipsis and above the stroke/ fill (the stroke is disabled) and set the merge paths to "Subtract". Doing so however causes my shapes to completely dissapear.

I'm trying to create a bubble pop effect where a filled elipse expands, and then dissapears from the center outwards - like the hole of a donut expanding until the donut dissapears. 

With Merge Path's subtract enabled:

Disabled:

Let me know what you think!

Thank you.

[Mylenium]

Could be as trivial as a display problem. The structure looks just fine. check your hardware acceleration settings and the comp renderer settings. Revert to software-only rendering as a test.

Mylenium

[Max8132]

Hey Mylenium,

Thank you for the response!

I've tried purging my memory and cache, setting the hardware acceleration to Mercury only instead of GPU acceleration, and changing the composition 3D renderer to Cinema 4D instead of Classic 3D with no change in the error. 

Any other reccomendations?

Thank you.

[Max8132]

Alternatively, another way to generate the desired effect would work well, too!

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

You are not showing the modified properties of the shape layer, but I think you have the layer order fouled up. The larger ellipse must be above the smaller one if you want to poke a hole in it.

[Max8132]

Hey Rick, 

This worked! As long as the circle that is the larger at a given keyframe is on top, the merge paths subtract function works.

Thank you! 

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

If youi really just need a ring, you can always try the legacy Circle or the Ellipse effect, which in fact would even be more elegant than building stuff with shape layers.

Mylenium

[Max8132]

Hey Mylenium,

I actually didn't know either of these effects existed, and they're way simpler to work with than what I was trying to attempt. I was looking for the shape to start out as a ring, where the hole got larger until the entire shape dissapeared, and I can achieve that with these effects too way easier.

Thank you!