Participant

Question

Variable stroke width after effects

Forum|Forum|11 years ago
August 21, 2014
7 replies
65591 views

Hey there,

I've been doing a lot of growing dotted lines in after effects with shape layers and by using 'trim paths'. What I wanted to do, was have a varying stroke width on that shape layer. For example, have one end thicker than the other (Like the image below). This is easy to do in Adobe Illustrator, since you just use the 'width tool', so I was wondering if AE has something similar?

I already know about the 'write on' and 'stroke' effects, but I'd like to avoid using those since I'm already using the awesome 'trim paths' effect. Are there any other presets I could look at? Maybe even one that fakes it?

Cheers,

Shannon

How to

chappz180

Inspiring

This is also new(ish), free and worth a look.

Does exactly what you need it to do (very late to the party here but I thought i'd offer it up as it helped me with what I needed to do!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYNfUS871dg

angie_taylor

Legend

You can fake it by using repeaters

to create a stroke effect. Adjust The scale to create the taper and adjust the number of instances to trim the start and end points. you can also animate offset to help get the effect you want.

Dragass

Participant

Text based layers seem to have an option for Stroke width animation.

Mind you this is the 2018 version.

R

Rick Gerard

Community Expert

You can animate the stroke width in text layers and shape layers but you cannot taper either one of them.

Climberfx

Known Participant

You can with 3dstroke from trap code.

designmaverick

Participant

YOU CAN DO IT IN AE

I was looking for the same thing and found this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=613&v=9c97vXvDYBQ

You just manipulate the "Brush Time Properties" setting in the "Write On" effect.

sergiovisual1

Participant

i hope afte effects will include a stroke with width variation manipulation like anime studio software* not effect write on* i would like the stroke stays in footage all time.

CookiecrayonAuthor

Participant

Thanks for the answers guys

It's unfortunate that AE doesn't do it as simply as Illustrator, but thank goodness for all the work-arounds

Cheers!!

Shan

Mylenium

Legend

No, AE doesn't have any such thing. You could try the various particle systems and modulate particle sizes by keyframing some properties or using parameter maps, but outside that I don't see much. Even if you were to buy e.g. Plexus and use the various options there to control dot sizes it would still not compare to AI's function. Some of that stuff may of course also benefit from using expressions down to the point of manually placing individual circles and animating their scale...

Mylenium

R

Rick Gerard

Community Expert

The way to do this is to start in Illustrator, create your tapered lines there, Expand appearance in Illustrator, then import as a comp in AE and convert vector layers to shapes. There are two ways to animate the creation of a tapered line. If you use Offset Paths instead of Trim Paths then the line starts growing from the thinnest point and moves to the thinnest point. If you use Trim Paths then you must have a straight tapered line and you have to set the right first vertex and then animate both start and end values to make the line start at the thinnest end and extend to the thickest end.

Here's what a comp looks like:

Here's a zip file for you with both a CC and a CS6 project inside. Sometimes AE is buggy creating shape layers from vector layers. If that happens you can add a stroke, then just turn the stroke off in the AE project. I hope this helps. There is usually a way to do what you want in AE if you think outside the box. Here's what it looks like (Click on the animated gif to see it)