trying to use After Effects to design this animated railroad map...

N

Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
I'm trying to design this railroad symbol here in After Effects, but I haven't been able to fiure out how to do this:

http://gallery.me.com/nn00#100092

Looking forward to any suggestions as how how this could be done in After Effects. I don't want to use Photoshop, because I would like it to be a vector graphic that I can scale at will. I know it can be done in Illustrator, but I need to animate it in AE, so I thought, why not do it all in AE.

I hope to animate the black and white rectangles in the rail road line symbol (lower image) so it looks like they're moving forward.

But first, how do you draw a line with alternating colors...as in black-white-black-white (rail symbol) in AE???

Thanks in advance for any help on this issue.
 
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It's probably easier to just draw it in illustrator.

However, if you're tied to AE then you can either draw it using masks or shape layers. If you go with shape layers then try messing with the stroke thickness and spacing.
 
You can draw it in illustrator and simply copy paste the objects into after effect. Paste it on a solid and you´ve got a mask.
 
Another possibility would be to use a third party plugin from Red Giant Software known as 3D Stroke. I'm sure you've heard of it. It is extremely useful for drawing lines and you can even animate the start and end points of any given line. The plugin works by drawing masks in AE and it's very simple to use. When your project is completed you will still find plenty of use for 3D Stroke since you are not at all limited to lines; you can create an outline for any shape you can think of. Hope this helps.

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/trapcode-3d-stroke/

-B
 
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