animating an arrow over a map???

N

Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
I'm making a WWII documnetary and I need to animate an arrow moving over a map where the arrow just gets progressively longer and winds it way forward.

Is there any way to animate an arrow in AE CS4 with the arrow head being part of the line?

I know how to use the Write On tool but I was wondering if After Effects has the same function Apple Motion 4 has.

In Apple's Motion 4 you can set the end of a line to "bevel" or "Arrow", thereby sparing you the work of placing an arrowhead on top of a line and moving it forward in sync as the line is revealed.

Thanks in advance for any help,

- Nick
 
But can you animate an arrow in After Effects? Is it essentially an arrow head moving over a line that is progressively revealed? Or can you choose give the line an ending like in Apple Motion where you can choose bevel or arrow head as the tip of the line?
 
I don't use motion, and your description of exactly what you are trying to do isn't clear to me?

In AE, you can animate arrows (motion paths), you can reveal through masks, you can use shape layers and animate or make them "grow" (these are vector based, infinitely scalable, just like if you were using a vector from illustrator)

Not sure if this is what you're asking, but you can "parent" the layers , so the arrowhead and the "shaft" move together, you could also precompose the layers, so it's 1 arrow and not 2 shapes, so to speak

Are you trying to reveal a dotted line or solid line? like Indiana jones style?
 
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You have to make an arrowhead and the complete "shaft".

Animating the Arrowhead is easy keyframing.

Make the shaft over the complete length, and as you animate the arrowhead along the path, revile it with a mask. Easy a 123.

Frank
 
I don't remenber for sure but maybe inside creativecow tutorial there is a tutorial for similar things.
 
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