How do I: Make an imported Object follow a path...

[coheno96053755]

Hello,

I am trying to make a rope design follow a path to create a logo reveal for a client. While I am able to recreate the design from his logo, making it tie itself into a knot is a different story. I have tried creating a rectangle for a mock animation in Adobe Illustrator and imported it into After Effects as a Comp, and then applied a Mask path to the Position property of the AI object. However, it did not follow the Path like I wanted (like water in a pipe, with the Path being the pipe). Does anyone have any suggestions?

Cohen

[Rick Gerard]

It's very hard to point you in the right direction without actually seeing the artwork. If you want a rope to start at the edge of the frame and animate in and tie it's self in a knot then you'll probably have to use the same technique that a cell animator would use - create every frame. The only other option I can think of is to use a 3D application. Blender is plenty capable and it's open source and free. http://blender.org

Anything you do entirely in After Effects that involves a bending and moving rope is going to require a lot of artwork. If you just want to reveal the rope already tied in a knot then the easiest way to do so is to use a shape layer with a stroke and a trim path animator as a track matte or set matte and the artwork broken into layers where the rope passes in front of itself. A knot would require at least 3 layers to get the effect of the rope tying it's self in a knot.

[Mylenium]

This is what you are going to need:

BAO Boa - aescripts + aeplugins - aescripts.com

AE itself has no path distortion effect. Other than that of course there's all kinds of manual animation techniques using masks and manual transformations. Either way, even with the plug-in - should you decide to buy it - it's not going to be pushbotton animation. You have to spend some time on it.

Mylenium

[Stefan Gruenwedel]

Cohen: It looks like this post is a parallel topic to the one you posted here: Creating a Wood Burned Effect with Text and Logo

It helps to show the artwork you have in mind. Please confirm if this is the same project.

[coheno96053755]

Yes, sorry. These are linked. I was thinking of a way to reach more people.

The art in the other post correlates with the question in this post.