Need help with making a gradual colour change across multiple elements

[michaelo67661284]

I need the follow element to have a gradual colour change starting from the cloud, and pushing all the way through the cable + text to the phone of a different colour (#1ebaef)

How is this possible + what is the best way to achieve it,

Thank you in advance

[Mylenium]

The "best" way would of course be to split up everything into single elements with individual gradients and animate those, but a simple, reasonably efficient method might be to use the graphics as a track matte on a gradient layer. You're still going to need a few duplicates for the separate blocks, though.

Mylenium

[michaelo67661284]

How would the gradients work with the cable/lines i have, as i would want the animation to look like it is being pushed through the cable. 

Thank you for your help

[Mylenium]

No need to be over-exact. The cables are way to thin to even discern if a gradient is not perfectly aligned. The only critical section is the self-intersecting loop that may need to be split up into two or three segments just by itself. Otherwise simple linear wipes at suitable angles or animating the two end points of the Ramp effect would very likely work a charm.

Mylenium

[Rick Gerard]

You can make a gradient along a path in Illustrator. If you start with your white path on the bottom layer, duplicate the layer and change the stroke to gradient along a path and create your color gradient, then duplicate the layer again and change the gradient along a path from black to white you can import the whole thing into After Effects as a composition then set the black to white layer as the source for a Gradient Wipe applied to the colored gradient layer and animate the reveal:

If you carefully examine the screenshots you'll see everything that I did to reveal the gold to red gradient path on layer 2.

This is an easier way to get a soft edge reveal than using trim paths.  If you want to stick with trim paths you'll have to add Trim Paths to a wider copy of the line you want to reveal above it, add a blur, then use that copy as a track matte for the layer below.

The key to making this kind of a transition easy to animate in Illustrator is creating the proper layered illustration in AI before you even start anything in AE.