Multiple shapes within shape layer animation

[Luke Mallinson]

Hello. I am trying to animate a logo I designed and having issues with animating multiple shapes within a single shape layer.

I would like to animate the smoke so that it is similar to this example.

I have started with a Shape Layer with multiple circles in the contents folder (yellow outlines in the screenshot below). They all have an outline on them and no fill. I then applied a "Merge Paths" with "Add" as the mode. This makes it look like 1 single shape (my plan is to mask out the lower half of the circles).

Now the part I am having trouble with. I need to animate the position of the circles. When I transform the position property of an individual circle I don't get a "Motion Path" which means I can't easily create a nice curve for the circle to follow. I tried to then edit the curve using Bezier Handles in the graph editor, but handles won't display either.

Is there a way to make this work? Or do I have the wrong approach.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

That is unfortunately an inherent limitation of shape layers vs. AE's - shall we say lacking - widget drawing code. You might be able to work around the issue by using Nulls and pickwhip expressions to connect stuff. Another workaround would be to use bog standard Circle effects/ masked circles, animate them in a pre-comp and in the parent comp apply a stroke layer style or the vegas effect. This also only applies the stroke to the combined result and you can eradicate the inner fills by using layer belnding options or a duplicate of the pre-comp as an inverted matte...

Mylenium

[Luke Mallinson]

Thanks for your help! Animating them in a pre-comp and then adding a stroke layer should work exactly how I want.