After Effects: Create Nulls From Paths (Trace Paths)

[@mpthemotion]

I have been searching for last 5 hours for resolving this problem 2:15 Oh my God! Such a big relief. Thank you, sir.

[@MikeMurphyCo]

I love to hear that...thanks and glad it helped you! 👊👊

[@SabirAli-np7ci]

Excellent tutorial.. short but very important one!

[@MikeMurphyCo]

Thanks…glad it helped! 👍

[@Lapislazuli9925]

Very good informations we get from this great video. Thank you so much. Any idea why we I create the null it dose not go to the rectangle but away from it. Any one get this issue. I wonder what mistake I am doing.

[@ileyncasallas]

Excelent script, very useful, thank you

[@serag_officially]

it's really helpful

[@MikeMurphyCo]

Glad it helped! 👍

[@VidarrKerr]

Another Awesome Video! You are becoming my favorite, Educational, Ae Teachers for sure. Liked and Now Subbed! -------------------------- THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!! Also, do you have a video kind of like this, but the camera is attached to the null and the null follows the trace path like this? I'm in an area of Brazil with bad internet right now and I'm trying to look through your videos, but it is so slow. My trace path has to go around the outside of a building and then, thru a door and into a room. I tried doing it without a trace path, just key frames, moving the camera, set the key frame, etc, etc, etc. So tedious and the result is terrible. It would take many, many more hours just to get the camera path set. This trace path with null has to be the way. I hope...

[@MikeMurphyCo]

@@VidarrKerr Really appreciate that…thank you! I am very overdue for Camera & Tracking tutorials, but as of now I do not have any Camera tutorials to help your project needs. Will see what I can come up with in the near future, but happy to help you with any troubleshooting if I can. 👍

[@serag_officially]

thanks

[@MikeMurphyCo]

You are welcome! 👍

[@Babymech]

Thanks! Is there really no better way to reverse the direction of the trace? Time-reversing the keyframes makes it a lot more difficult to then link other values to the progress value - I might be able to do the mental gymnastics to make it work, but it would be a lot easier if the progress was just going from 0 to 100...

[@MikeMurphyCo]

When there is a will there is a way! After Effects has so many ways to achieve the same results. I do not have a specific solution to offer you off the top of my head, but ’m sure if you search for a way that fits into your workflow, you will find a solution👍.

[@daimonxart8253]

thank you! something weirdhappens to my path, when i create the null path it ccreate it in a corner and not in the shape path, like if the center is in another place but itis in the center i do nnot know how to explain it

[@MikeMurphyCo]

Sorry to hear that and hard for me to guess or speculate without knowing more details, but I can tell you it can be a finicky technique that often requires trial and error. I’ve gotten lots of random issues when testing different things. Some things to test: Centering the Anchor Point position. Pre-composing. Tick the ‘Continuous Rasterize’ box.

[@dynomik]

thank you very much. I have the problem that I wish to connect a layer A to follow multiple paths (for a sentence for example) but when I copy the mask paths to the position of the layer A, I just get the masks without path. Anyone here know how to do this? Thanks

[@MikeMurphyCo]

I’m not 100% certain what you are wanting to do, but it sounds like might want to create a Null Layer and parent the layer(s) to the Null and then animate the Position of the Null Layer.

[@dynomik]

@@MikeMurphyCo hey Mike, its basically very simple but I forgot how to do it. I try to let a layer follow a selection of paths (outlines of letters of a sentence) which I created with auto trace function. I tried to copy the masks paths of the traced masks to the position of the layer but only get the masks itself copied into the layer. When I copy the mask shapes one by one it works and the layer follows this paths but I cannot copy all at once, which is very frustrating when having 180 shapes^^ Maybe you have an idea? Thanks a lot

[@dynomik]

@@MikeMurphyCo I also tried to convert the text into a shape layer to be able to trim paths individually and connect the layer to the trim path but somehow this dont work at all...

[@MikeMurphyCo]

@@dynomik Ah, I understand what you are doing, but unfortunately not sure how to advise you on doing it all at once for 180 shapes if you have tried and it does not work. My hunch is there is a script/plugin on AE Scripts to handle such a task, but it's not something I have ever looked into. Sorry.

[@dynomik]

@@MikeMurphyCo no worries, thanks anyways, cheers

[@tralthamidor]

It only seem to work if you use a closed shape. Creating an open shape will give you the no path selected error. Is there a way around this?

[@MikeMurphyCo]

I am traveling so unable to test and try to replicate, but will try to do so next week and can let you know what I discover.

[@jconway2907]

Not sure if it helps but I was able to do it if I turned off Fill and then made sure it was selected w Contents/Shape1/Path 1/Path?

[@VidarrKerr]

@@jconway2907 I got something like this to work. Thanks for posting this though, because I forgot how I did it. lol.

[@CREATIVEFILMS-hv5xu]

sir how to get this script plz help me

[@MikeMurphyCo]

The script is included in After Effects. It is not a 3rd party script. 00:45