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peteperception
peteperception
Inspiring
October 4, 2022
질문

Plant animation with individual vector shapes imported from illustrator

  • October 4, 2022
  • 3 답변들
  • 611 조회

Hi, I need some help with a plant animation. I have a stem, leaves, petioles (these attach the leaf to the stem). I want to animate wind blowing through the plant. I've seen tutorials with the stem, leaf, petiole combined and animated as one image, but I want to animate each element individually. When I animate the stem slowly swaying back and forth using the puppet pin tool or the bend effect, I cannot get the petioles or leaves to move with it. My intention is to have the petioles and leaves move with the stem and at the same time each leaf and petiole will have a individual animation/effect from the wind. Any suggestions how I do this?


Thank you

이 주제는 답변이 닫혔습니다.

3 답변

Mylenium
Mylenium
Legend
October 5, 2022

Show us a screenshot of your setup and we can advise. Of course there may be other steps required to convert coordinates since effects inevitably will be relative to the layer dimensions, not the comp plus you may have to change the order in which they are treated. Calculating an arbitrary bend after the fact would not be trivial, so it may require soem pre-composing or similar to isolate the individual steps.

 

Mylenium

    R
    Community Expert
    Rick GerardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 5, 2022

    If you are using Puppet Pin, everything that moves together must be on the same layer, and the layer cannot have any other Transform animations or be moving. 

     

    Other options include displacement maps and warp effects. 

      Mylenium
      Mylenium
      Legend
      October 5, 2022

      Simple pickwhipping the position values of your leaves and so on can get you halfway there:

       

      https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/expression-basics.html

       

      You just need to ensure the coordinates and anchor points are sensible as already mentioned by Rick. Otherwise this is indeed a good opportunity to check AEScripts.com and find some utility scripts such as Pins & Boxes to facilitate the process. If you need to do this often, buying a script can pay for itself with only a handful of projects.

       

      Mylenium

        peteperception
        peteperception작성자
        Inspiring
        October 5, 2022

        Thanks for the response @Mylenium , pick whip/parenting only seems to work with simple transofrmations like rotate, scale, move. When I use the bend effect, or puppet pin to get a natural "swaying" motion on the stem, the leaves do not track or they get distorted and move incorrectly relative to the stem.

        R
        Community Expert
        Rick GerardCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        October 5, 2022

        Put every individual object you want to animate on a separate named layer in Illustrator. The Stem is on one layer; each leaf gets its own layer, and so on. Import the  AI file as a composition retaining layer size and then open the composition that After Effects created in the Project file. 

         

        You will probably have to adjust the duration and maybe the frame rate of the composition by opening the Composition Settings.

         

        Now use the Anchor Point (shift behind) tool "Y" to move the anchor point of each layer from the center to where you want the layer to rotate. 

         

        When that is done, parent every leaf and flower to the appropriate stem. Then when all the parenting is done you can now animate the stem or stems and adjust their scale and rotation. Everything will move together. You can then add more keyframes for scale and rotation to each leaf.

         

        If you are good with expressions or have the budget to purchase some tools you can automate the process a bit. 

         

        Those are the basics.

          peteperception
          peteperception작성자
          Inspiring
          October 5, 2022

          Thank you @Rick Gerard , appreciate the response. I think this process will be the one I will use. However, a problem I'm having is that if I animate the stem with the bend effect or use puppet pins to give it a more natural feel (the top of the stem sways more than the bottom for example), the leaves do not follow or they get distorted. I'm guessing parenting only works with simple things like rotate, scale, move?

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