Wouldn’t Trapcode 3D stroke allow a taper on the back end? Thanks for the tip.

John

 

From: After Effects Mail List [mailto:AE-List@media-motion.tv] On Behalf Of Byron Nash
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 1:03 PM

To: After Effects Mail List
Subject: Re: [AE] Animate object to path/Object flexes and bends as it follows path

 

You may need more than this, but here is a quick tip. For arrows you can usually combine an arrowhead attached to a null with a stroke of some kind hooked to the same null. This only works with uniform width shapes that you can separate the tip into a different layer. When combined they appear as one element. 

 

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 2:07 PM, John Morgan <John.Morgan@slcc.edu> wrote:

Teddy that response was priceless! Fwded to boss...who is somewhat savy but sorta thinks that stuff looks easy.

J

 

Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID

Teddy Gage <teddygage@gmail.com> wrote:

    Definitely a good piece, but obviously not easy to emulate. It's like learning how to cook by eating an 11 course meal. Difficult, unless you have the recipes. I have a hard time believing it was "only" $10k and two weeks for that piece.They must have paid their team of animators and editors next to nothing. And I say team because there's no way one or two people pulled that off in two weeks. I've seen 30 second pieces with less involved graphics and no video footage for double that budget produced in twice the time.

- the text could easily be AE, with a solid and some precomp mask / matte layers, the circle / gear stuff moves like it's controlled with some nice expressions, the motion and flow is nice overall. lots of easing (ease and whizz script maybe? or hand-drawn animation curves more likely). The hand-drawn stuff looks - hand drawn with a tablet in illustrator, paths animated and moved on and off with shape layers controls. Much of it looks like it's a combination of shape layers from AI and AE

- the "3D" stuff may be faked using AE planes and well drawn vectors. You'd be surprised what you can do with some tricks. The train may be completely 2D but moving in 3d space with some hand drawn warps, like you thought

- I see some possible use of plexus plugin and / or trapcode particular, for the triangle breakdown, small explosions and orbiting planetoids

- definitely use of some stock vectors I recognize, like houses and buildings etc. good to save time

good luck.

On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 1:15 PM, John Morgan <John.Morgan@slcc.edu> wrote:

Brian, Scott and Jim, Thank You.

I’m in an in-house college marketing shop, wearing many hats as videographer and all things related including motion graphics. Am not an Ae power user….yet. Still, I have 9 years of Ae use under my belt. A short stint with Combustion before that. And a brief amount of Softimage 3D before that.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqoJEtM4jX0

 

My boss had seen the above clip from Simon Faser University and had read a report about it in some college-related national magazine. She wants me to push my envelope and incorporate more motion graphics such as those used in the clip. The story in the magazine was a write-up about how SFU had “pulled off this incredible thing in just two weeks.” Ha! I thought. She handed me the article and I read between the lines and interpreted the language of the article. A marketing director and the college pres had written the script, but “a Toronto-based graphics facilitator” had helped. Likely a boutique post house, unnamed in the article. Cost $10,000.00. Right. I informed my boss that the project hadn’t been done in house at all!....other than script. $10k for 4-mins of finished video is obviously heavy with AE and 3D animator time, not to mention the creative concepting and story boarding time. Possible ad agency involvement, but not mentioned in the article.

 

Motion graphics interspersed throughout the project.

 

That very first scene where the SFU logo follows a spline is what I was trying to achieve in Ae. Much of the other red-white animation looked like it could be done inside Ae, except for some of the objects that are 3D (maybe models imported to Ae.) Towards the end, there’s a train that’s obviously not 2D.

 

I pulled the video off youtube and have been going through the animations a frame at a time to see their progression…..as learning experience. The text animations seem like they came from somewhere else, or 3^rd party plugin. Or, they’re complex multi-comp projects with stroke animated. Not sure how the cross-hatching was applied. Complex. Not that I’m trying to duplicate, but I’d like to learn some of the steps so as to have the ability.

 

Any thoughts about how some of these motion effects were created, or whether within Ae or plugin would be appreciated.

 

John

 

From: After Effects Mail List [mailto:AE-List@media-motion.tv] On Behalf Of Brian Maffitt
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 10:42 AM
To: After Effects Mail List
Subject: Re: [AE] Animate object to path/Object flexes and bends as it follows path

 

If you use Freeform Pro applied to a large precomp, you should be able to Distort the layer/comp in any way you like, for example, following an s-shaped path. Then if you animate your layer inside the precomp, it will follow the distortions contained in the parent comp. Does this make sense?

 

Brian

 

 

16 years ago I messed a bit with Softimage 3D. Animating objects to path and having their orientation follow the path was pretty easy. Applying a lattice so the object could bend and flex as it follows the path was not too difficult either.

 

Now in Ae I’m trying to relearn that technique. I have a solid layer (a rectangle box) following a path with ‘auto-orient’ turned on, so the path animation is done.  What is the trick to making the layer flex as it rounds the corners? The path is an s-curve shape where the S elongates on Z axis.  Can Mesh Warp be applied in a way that it will interact with the curves in a path?

 

Trying to expand my knowledge. Any links to tutorials are appreciated.

 

John

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Animator & Editor
www.teddygage.com
Brooklyn

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