Funnel animation

[skaidesign]

Hello! I'm trying to create an animation in After Effects where objects will be passing through a funnel. When they pass through the skinny part of the funnel, I want that skinny part to show the shape of the object before it spits out, but I can't figure out to do this. I'm at a fairly beginner level of AE.

Here is an example I found that demonstrates this pretty well. This person is showing circles passing through. Results Filter Animation by Charles Burdett - Dribbble

Any help would be much appreciated.

~Sara

[Roei Tzoref · Accepted solution]

we recently had a similar question - see if that helps: Re: After Effects CS3- Make one layer take the shape of another

[Rick Gerard]

The easiest way to do this for different shapes is to use a 3D app like Blender. I don't have time right now to dig into C4D lite to see if you could do it there. You also have all kinds of other distortion effects to choose from depending on the shapes you are trying to reproduce. A few more details would help us point you to a solution. If all you want is balls or circles then Roei's solution wold work just fine and be very easy.

[skaidesign]

Thank you for also responding, Rick! I'm also trying to push squares through the funnel, so I think Roei's solution can work for me.

[skaidesign]

Hi Rick,

The circles work perfectly with the Blender effect. But I'm having some issues when I push a square through the funnel. Do you know what the best way would be to push a square through? I messed around with the Puppet Pin tool, but that got messy and I feel like there has to be a more efficient way.

In case it helps, here is a bit more detail. The objects that I'm pushing through are created in Illustrator and I'm importing them into AE. I've been turning the vectors into shapes in AE.

Thank you!

Sara

[Rick Gerard]

I think you mean the circles work perfectly with the Bulge effect.

Blender is a 3D app that is free and open source. it has little to do with After Effects. You would have to research how to use geometry to distort other geometry. It's pretty basic yet semi advanced 3D stuff. You would make 3D models of the squares (cubes) and the funnel and then if you wanted them to look 2D you would do that with shading and camera position.

To push Squares through your funnel all inside AE you would need to use other techniques or invest in a 3rd party plug-in like Forge Freeform. There's nothing easy about it. Unfortunately I don't have time tonight to give you a step by step. Maybe in a day or two.. deadlines loom tomorrow.

[skaidesign]

Oh yes, I meant the circles work perfectly with the bulge effect.

I'll look into Blender and Forge Freeform. Thank you again for the help - much appreciated!

[skaidesign]

Thank you Roei for your help! I'll check out the info in the link you sent me. Much appreciated.