opacity of individual shapes

[codegen]

I have a case in which a lot of small lines have to individually appear (Comp Eng instruction animation). Is there any way to control opacity of individual shapes on a vector layer without putting each line in a separate layer? the best I have thought of is setting the color of the shape to the background color.

[Greenlaw]

I would just animate a mask over the shapes. Depending on the artwork, it could be as simple as expanding a rectangle or animating an irregular. If you set the keyframe interpolation to Step, just set a keyframe in the mask for each reveal. I do this in After Effects all the time; it's a lot easier to keyframe one object vs. many.

If there are a lot of shapes to reveal, you might use the Magnet tool to reshape the mask...this can be more efficient than using the Transform Points tool.

If each shape has to fade in individually, that could be a bit more complicated, but it really depends on the artwork and how you want to reveal it.

[Hoptoad]

You could use Styles, as color changes can be animated. For example, create 20 different styles that are the same color, all Alpha 0%, named something logical like "color 1" through "color 20." Then animate each Style on the timeline so that each color changes to Alpha 100% when you need it to happen.

For example, color 1 can appear on frame 24, color 2 can appear on frame 48, and so forth. All the small lines you mentioned can remain on the same layer.

I discovered this feature by accident when some of my colors began changing as my animation played, and I was like, "Gasp! What did I do?"

Personally, I would use Layer Settings. I would divide the small lines into 20 separate layers (or whatever the number ), then I'd make all the layers invisible on frame 1. Then I'd simply animate each layer's visibility, so the lines appear when needed. It may take a while to set-up, but the execution would be super simple, plus you can drag the visibility keyframes around easily to adjust the timing.

[SimplSam]

You could animate the individual Shapes' Alpha (Opacity), or use Styles, Layers, Masking, Position etc (as already mentioned).

In some cases, you may be able to use Particles -- but this depends on what / how you need to animate.

Also, if there is some logic to the pattern - you may be able to script the animation.

[slowtiger]

If it's a lot of nearly identical items, I create one, animate the line visibility or whatever property, then duplicate that object and shift the keys in time, and the object in space. Saves a lot of time over first creating all the shapes, then animate each of them individually.

[codegen]

I was trying to avoid having 50 different layers. I forgot about alpha in the color, which seems to be what I want.

Thanks all for your help.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, here's another idea: Use an FBF layer as a mask to 'dab out' the shapes. After dabbing the last shape, you can reverse the keyframes so the mask functions as a reveal. Super easy!

[Maestral]

This works like a charm. I've tried to add fading and it can be done, though manually.

Once you complete the steps Denis described, on the Layer Settings/Switch tab...

Check Interpolate sub-layers
Uncheck FBF drawing

You'll end up with sequenced layers
Key the change of opacity for the first object to appear, select and copy the keys for this object (red ones)
Move to the next layer, select the next object to appear and Paste Relative.

I made the FBF steps on 2 but for some fine tuning, perhaps 3 or 4 would work better but then maybe you'll have to shift the layers/sequences to overlap.

It kind of combines slowtiger's and Denis' approaches. Those inverted FBF layers give you prepared sequences and the manual steps appear to be inevitable.

p.s.
Is there a script which can automate this layers shift/overlap, as in AE?

[codegen]

Thanks.