Simple scissor animation - removing dash-marks where scissor cuts

[dirk71]

Hi there, I'm a newbie to Animate. 

I have a simple scissor animation which cuts along a path (this is done).

What I want to do now is have marks where the scissors are going to, and when the scissor crosses the mark, the mark is removed. I should note : the path the scissor takes is circular, or at least joins up - it is not always a straight line.

I don't know how to do it. I looked at masks which looks promising?

e.g.           X_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ __ _ _ _ _ _[end] 

When my scissor X gets to end, all the dashes should disapear. I would also like more complex dashes to follow.

Any help/tips/strategy would be appreciated.

Is there an easy way to achieve this?

[n. tilcheff · Accepted solution]

Hi mate,

You're on the right track.

Masks in Animate are reveal masks, so you have to duplicate your motion guide layer (i.e. the path of the cut), apply some dashed line stroke to it and mask it with an animated mask.

At the beginning the mask will cover everything, so the dashed line will be all visible. At the end the mask will not intersect with the line and will reveal nothing.

Depending on the complexity and length of your animation you will have to choose whether to have a Classic Tween for some shape that woks as the mask or Shape Tween. You need to match the movement of the scissors and for that you may need to change approaches, depending on the path. In some parts you may need to even do manual frame-by-frame adjustments to the mask.

In principle it is very simple; the execution, however, will require some special attention to detail.

Good luck!

[dirk71]

Hey there, thanks for the quick response. I think I understand what you're saying, I'll give it a nudge anyway, and see how it goes. 

Cheers