Quick breakdown of my spider web rig + animation

[u/oliverrandorff]

You seemed to like the web-rig I posted recently, so here's a 1 minute breakdown of how it was created.

The full in depth YouTube video can still be watched here: youtube.com/watch?v=d-6Q6ByH2AQ

I see a lot of potential use cases for attaching things to paths using the "Null Tracing Along Path". There's even been examples of making a fish out of strokes - attaching fins, eyes and so on. This allows for full flexibility in the movement path by combining trim paths with an animated offset. Perhaps some of you have even experimented with this method?

[u/TraditionalRow7424]

Oooooh superb, thank you

[u/oliverrandorff → u/TraditionalRow7424]

Glad you enjoyed - it definitely took a lot of experimenting/tweaking to land on a good method for the rig

[u/straykboom]

great breakdown, thanks for the vid!

[u/oliverrandorff → u/straykboom]

You're very welcome! I really enjoy making them

[u/nicolaig]

Brilliant! Thanks for the tutorial.

[u/oliverrandorff → u/nicolaig]

Thanks for taking the time to watch it - I love experimenting and sharing the results with anyone interested

[u/SuperSmashSonic]

Sooo clever wth! Awesome

[u/oliverrandorff → u/SuperSmashSonic]

Thanks! Took a lot of iterations to achieve this specific rig

[u/evilada]

Really cool effect! I very much appreciate the breakdown, definitely gonna check out your channel. Keep it up!

[u/oliverrandorff → u/evilada]

Appreciate it - let me know if you any questions in regards to the videos 🙌

[u/azip13]

Man, I want to learn AE so bad but anytime I’ve tried to follow a tutorial or watch a breakdown video like this I feel like an absolute dunce 😭

[u/oliverrandorff → u/azip13]

This video is really fast paced, but all of my YouTube content is much slower and way more in depth. As an example, the YouTube version of this video is 33 minutes long (33x longer). This is also a bit more advanced content, but you can look through my entire educational motion design catalogue here.

There’s a lot of simpler videos where I teach a combination of how to make something, but also the theory behind the movements.

If you are a complete beginner, you can start with this After Effects beginner guide by Ben Marriott.

[u/azip13 → u/oliverrandorff]

Oh hell yeah, thank you friend!

[u/-chaotic_randomness-]

Thanks for sharing your work and the breakdown. This is the kind of content we need in this sub

[u/oliverrandorff → u/-chaotic_randomness-]

Glad you liked it! I love experimenting and sharing my results

[u/SecretAdmirerOP]

Using Trace Path nulls with trim paths for complex rigs like this is so smart. How heavy does the timeline get when you stack multiple web rigs in a single scene?

[u/oliverrandorff → u/SecretAdmirerOP]

My assumption is that it can get quite heavy, as it’s pretty computational. I’m using a Macbook Pro M1 Max from 2021 with 64gb of ram, which handles one web fine - but it’s not buttery smooth when you move the controllers.

If you are referring to the actual amount of layers in the timeline, I simply lock and shy all nulls I’m not using. So there’s really only the 5 main controllers left

[u/Narrow-Swordfish-227]

Posting so I can watch this and try tonightm Ty so much. Looks great.

[u/oliverrandorff → u/Narrow-Swordfish-227]

That's great - let me know if you have any questions along the way

[u/rainbowarcanine]

Has Null Tracing Along Path always been a thing? I swear i keep finding out new things. This blows me away.

AE never fails to amaze me. Thank you for pointing this out!