Follow Path & Curvers?

[catlover8976]

Hello,

I'm trying to have a rail road track that can distort, warp and move into the distance while the wooden planks are moving along them (to imply movement of the viewer) but I'm new to both the 'follow path' tool and curvers and though I thought this seemed like the way to go, I can't for the life of me get it to work.
Honestly I'm struggling in general to get 'follow path' to work with anything other than a straight line. Whenever I use 'Alt' to try and set a vector object to be bent, the object always behaves erratically, or just vanishes off the viewable area entirely. I can't find any tutorials that properly explain how to use it when you want it to bend the layer, what am I doing wrong? It's entirely random when it seems to want to work.

Where should the object be in relation to the centre of the layer?
Where should the centre of the layer be in relation to the path?
Where should the path be in relation to everything else?
What's the best way to approach perspective in combination with these?

If I could just have something that actually explains how it all works I'd really appreciate it thank you.

[Greenlaw]

Can you upload an example of a file you're having trouble with?

FWIW, I use both Follow Path and Curver regularly. They both work reliably most of the time, but on rare occasions, I've seen Follow Path break and I need to copy the setup from a previous version or recreate it to make it work the way I want. (Tip: Save a lot of incremental versions. Eventually, you'll thank yourself for it.)

In general, the rules for Follow Path are...

• Lay out the artwork horizontally, with the starting end at the origin.
• Make sure the artwork is segmented to support the deformation you expect. For example, a rectangle with only four points cannot bend at all. To bend smoothly, it needs points along the long sides.
• Make sure the path is long enough to support the length of the item that you are bending.
• When you click on the path, the layer will simply follow the path.
• When you Alt-Click on the path, the artwork will deform to the shape of the path.
• There is a 'hidden' option called Rotate With Path. This will make the object follow the path's direction without bending. To enable this, open the Layer Settings for the object. (I've never tried combining this with the bend mode...probably not a great idea, but I guess I gotta try now.)

Curver shares some capabilities similar to Follow Path, but it's specifically meant to be used as a deformer. I use it mainly for animating hair, or smoothing out joints by combining it with bones. When combined with Sketch Bones, Curver works great for tails and rope too! In my experience, it's easier to animate a Curver path with Sketch Bones than pushing individual knots.

I should make a couple of tutorials about how I use these features...they're both very versatile. and super useful, and I probably have some unusual but interesting uses for them. Will add this topic to my list.