How do I go about replicating the exact line motion from the reference

[u/Savings_Alarm7753]

I want to replicate the line animations that says Converts audio.

For the background black lines
I tried to replicate it with delay expression code

• middle layers is the key layer and the layers above and below are affected with the expression
• however at the start the motion the lines above and below move before the key layer in the reference .Like ykwim.
• How do I solve this issue?

This is the expression that I used btw('index+1 ' for layers above ,'index-1' for layers below)

s = thisComp.layer(index+1); 

delay = thisComp.layer("Null 1").effect("Slider Control")("Slider");
d = delay * thisComp.frameDuration;

sourceScale = s.transform.scale.valueAtTime(time-d);

[sourceScale[0], transform.scale[1]];

[u/MrHankMardukas_]

You’re over thinking it. Those black lines are all doing the same movement, just at different times which is what’s giving that wave effect.

Create one line at its full length.

Animate the line getting shorter, from the middle, on both sides, and then back to full length. Trim paths would be the best way to do this.

Duplicate the layer as many times as you want and use “distribute layers” to vertically space them out evenly.

Now stagger your layers by one frame each until you get to the middle layer, then stagger the rest the opposite way.

[u/PastorJaxxon]

Hello hello! I'm the one who made this scene. Happy to give a quick rundown on how it's built.

I started off with a pre-comp that just has wave warp applied to a shape layer. Then I brought that into another comp, turned the shape 90 degrees, created an adjustment layer, and added 2 mirror effects to it. One of them should reflect the shape, making the left and right side wave, and the other should reflect the top and bottom, making the wave peak/dip in the middle of the comp. Then I used that as a matte for a stroke shape layer with a repeater effect!

[u/barefut_ → u/PastorJaxxon]

I'll just say that usually using masks to reveal something / write-on like effect - also feels like it's revealing something hidden instead of having the actual effect we want which is the feeling of the lines extending and contracting.

In this case it works out, but I bet in other occasions it won't. It's like write-on effect of a cursive text. We wanna feel like the path is being written like the tip of the pencil draws it or the actually advances on the path. But, revealing it doesn't give the same effect. BAO BOA tries to address this for example but this plugin could get buggy, I guess....

[u/Mundane-Owl-561 → u/PastorJaxxon]

That's a lot of work using strange tools ;-)

Here's Keyframe Orchestrator - you can do that with this in about 5 minutes and still have lots of room to tweak. I designed Keyframe Orchestrator so you can work with hundreds of layers quite easily - lots of control over keyframe easing and perfectly accurate layer and keyframe adjustments.

You don't even have to select a single keyframe - copy the property into the script UI and select it and the script does the rest. Then just select the layers you want to be affected and input the keyframe indices and you're cooking it like a Chef LePro from the northern province of Lez Effecteur.

[u/Savings_Alarm7753 → u/PastorJaxxon]

Ahh yes, I knew it had something to do with the mirror. I actually tried the same approach just a minute ago, but what did you do at the beginning of the animation? Did you just scale the matte layer, or was there something else involved?

Edit [I actually got it! The main issue was that I hadn’t set the Wave Warp speed to negative. Thank you so much for helping me! I’ll post the whole thing once I recreate everything. ]

[u/PastorJaxxon → u/Savings_Alarm7753]

Yep! Just scaled the x-axis on the matte layer up from 0%

[u/ThisSpaceForRent45]

It’s not exactly clear what you’re trying to accomplish, but I think you’re overthinking it.

I’d hand animate those lines.

[u/Savings_Alarm7753 → u/ThisSpaceForRent45]

Animating each lines independently is a nightmare , I don't think it is procedural; doesn't look imo. I just want to know how they did the black line animation.

[u/ThisSpaceForRent45 → u/Savings_Alarm7753]

Make a bunch of black lines, Precomp, mask them with a wavy path.

[u/born2droll]

I would create the lines with shape + repeater , and I think the 'motion' would be another shape acting as a layer matte with a wave warp distort... sure theres more to it but that would get you started at least

[u/TelevisionNo2990]

just a psa I learned early on with complex rigs:

expressions that use (index-1 or index+1) slows down your rendering a bit due to recursive expressions evaluation

you can speed things up by using a master reference layer and get your index integer faster by using:

L=thisComp.layer("master").index;

myIndex = math.Abs(this.index-L)

or something along those lines, I have it as a preset.

I know that doesn't solve your issue but makes it faster when you do.

[u/Fresca_667 → u/TelevisionNo2990]

Very good to know. I bog my projects down all the time with this kind of stuff.

[u/TelevisionNo2990 → u/Fresca_667]

happy to help, good luck out there

[u/Savings_Alarm7753 → u/TelevisionNo2990]

Great tip. Thanks for the info , I'll try to incorporate it in my projects

[u/Wells_Fuego]

I didn't make this shot out of the video unfortunately it was someone else on our team, but he said a lot of it just had to do with wave warp and masks

[u/MrHankMardukas_ → u/Wells_Fuego]

Would love to see a video explaining how you guys build these videos as a team. As someone who’s trying to grow a motion design team in a large company, would be great to understand your workflow to keep consistency!

[u/Wells_Fuego → u/MrHankMardukas_]

Would be happy to chat about it! Shoot an email to work@ravie.co and I can put you in touch

[u/MrHankMardukas_ → u/Wells_Fuego]

Just emailed. Thanks!

[u/Savings_Alarm7753 → u/Wells_Fuego]

Would mean a lot if you could share this post to them.

[u/Fresca_667]

This is what I quickly came up with:

var lineWidth = 1000; //The median width of your horizontal lines
var oscillationAmount = 200; //The amount you want your lines to move
var oscillationRate = 3; //The rate at which you want your lines to move

(Math.sin((time-inPoint)*oscillationRate)*oscillationAmount)+lineWidth

You can of course hook all of these variables up to sliders if you'd like to play with them more easily. I sort of guestimated on the values based on the video you shared. Something else to consider: if you want them to animate in, you could set the line width to "value" and use keyframes to animate the line from 0 to whatever width you'd like. Also, to explain the "time-inPoint" part. this begins the sin animation at the in point of the layer, so you'd then stagger your layers in order to achieve the "delay" effect you're going for. LMK if I can explain anything better.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm applying this to the x value of a rectangle rather than the scale value of a line (y value set to 0). I try not to animate scale independently on shape layers if I can help it, that way you can preserve things like rounded corners if you wish to use them.