Seeking Help on Recreating a Simple Line Effect

[johnfdooley]

I have a contract working for Skuid, and I am looking for advice on recreating this line effect in AE. It's used in the thirds as well as to make otherwise static b roll more engaging. Would love any pointers. Thanks!

OpenGate Consulting elevates customer experience using Skuid and Salesforce. - YouTube

[P.M.B]

How would you describe your level of expertise in After EFfects?

[johnfdooley]

I'm proficient enough to create and manipulate simple lower thirds. No expert by any measure but not a beginner either.

[P.M.B]

I see.  I was asking because i wasn't sure if you would know what path operators were or how to apply them.  I went ahead and gave my solution anyway.  Also if your looking to recreate exactly what's in the video the wiggle paths is the solution.  I'm not trying to call out Digital Spatula  but roughen edges scales weirdly and will only roughen the edges as opposed to creating the wiggly path like in the video.  Also when using the trim paths operator to draw the path on, only the wiggle paths operator will have it draw on following the wiggle of the path.  With roughen edges it will draw on like a perfect square with rough edges.  If you need help with how to do it just ask. It's very simple.

[johnfdooley]

Thanks a ton! You've pointed me in the right direction for sure. I wasn't really sure where to start researching on this.

[P.M.B · Accepted solution]

To get the choppy changes where it changes shape every half second or so set the wiggle speed to 0 and animate the random seed property over time.

[johnfdooley]

Hey Gutterfish​, got time for a follow up question?

I have had great luck using a combination of trim paths, wiggle, and roughen edges to get very close to the original produce, but I wonder if you would have any insight into how the original is, for lack of a better word, warping or bending? Wiggle seems to create an appealing jitter, but their original almost seems as if it is changing paths altogether. Any idea?

I really appreciate all your help.

[P.M.B]

Glad it's coming along.  It seems to me that their cycling through maybe 3 or 4 images. If you pay attention you can see it's looping. Walk through the video frame by frame and you'll see there's only a few different images.  This is why I suggested setting wiggle speed to zero and animating random seed.  If it's not changing shape enough it's probably a settings issue with the effects.   Another option is to just draw out a few boxes with the pen tool and save them out as single frames with alpha channel and then just loop through them.

[P.M.B]

A simple shape layer with a stroke and no fill to creat the "box"  Apply a trim path operator to animate it "drawing" on and off and a wiggle path operator to make it wiggle.

[DigitalSpatula]

You can make a rectangle shape with no fill and a stroke. Add the trim path, animate the end value. Then use roughen edges to wiggle the straight lines. Animate the values or apply a wiggle expression to the roughen edges.

Here's a simple tutorial on roughen edges

Roughen Edges for paths and shape layers in After Effects - YouTube

Hope this helps,

Steve