Can a layer follow only one path or several?

[Hugging_Bear]

Hi guys,
today, I wanted to animate a hand drawing several lines on a sheet of paper. It all went well for the first line, using the follow path tool. But it somehow won't work with the second line. I assume, the reason is that I can only attach one layer to one path and not to several paths. Am I right?
I guess the solution would be to create copies of the hand and attach them to each line/path the hand is supposed to draw.
Well - if you know about a better/quicker method - please let me know!

PS:I created a copy of the hand, but it is still attached to the first path. How can I detach the copy from the first path?

I have an additional question. How can one determine the direction of stroke exposure? I'm using already existing layers and noticed that the stroke exposure moves the wrong way! I guess, I have to recreate those lines/strokes in the right order.

[Greenlaw]

I would move the horizontal path for each row, or maybe 'staircase' a single path back and forth for each row.

[Greenlaw]

Stroke Exposure can be animated forward or backward. You just keyframe the direction from 0-100 or 100-0. If you're using a mouse to animate the Stroke Exposure, use the Alt key to reverse the direction. Tip: sometimes, it's easier to keyframe this feature using the numerical input. It's more precise, anyway.

If you're new to using Stroke Exposure, you'll want this info too: Changing the start point is messy with native tools. I've described how to do this elsewhere in this forum, but it's much easier using this script from SimplSam:

SS - Curve Exposure+

Hope this helps.

[Hugging_Bear]

I would move the horizontal path for each row, or maybe 'staircase' a single path back and forth for each row.

I don't understand what you mean. You probably mistook 'animating a drawing hand' for 'animating a writing hand'. There aren't any horizontal rows and no 'back and forth'. Those lines go all over the sheet.

I ended up using felt 10,000 copies of the hand. Additionally, I had to animate the appearance and disappearance for each hand. Not the most efficient way to animate.
The Follow Path Tool works fine for a very basic function. But what we need is an 'add to next path' and a 'detach from current path' function/button. I had to delete and recreate those layers that were attached to a path but weren't supposed to anymore. It is like driving a car without a reverse gear!

[Hugging_Bear]

Stroke Exposure can be animated forward or backward. You just keyframe the direction from 0-100 or 100-0.

The first number stands for the starting point, the last for the finishing point. So, the 100-0 option should make the stroke exposure disappear, shouldn't it?
I just tried it and didn't get any results ... no stroke exposure at all!

[Hugging_Bear]

SS - Curve Exposure+

I installed this script and got only an additional Exposure Stroke Tool ... identical to the one I already have.

[hayasidist]

a simple example -- one hand; one path; many visually separate strokes. Might or might not work for you but ...

[Hugging_Bear]

Well - I thought about that solution too. But creating a new continuous path, making is follow the intended route and make parts of it invisible, is probable more work than creating copies of the hand and animate its visibility.

BTW - how did you change the colour of the line in each section???

[hayasidist]

BTW - how did you change the colour of the line in each section???

one path with many shapes. (I actually had three shapes -- the black line was all points and the red and green were just the points relevant to them; but better would have been 5 - i.e. 3 black, 1 red, 1 green - and that could have avoided the "hidden segment" because the "empty" segments would not have been in any shape.)

I looked at the way Moho currently stores the path to follow and the distance along it. It's a total of 4 values: M_Curve, MohoLayer, Boolean and float. At present only the float (as a percentage of the total curve length) has an animation channel associated with it. And (at present) there aren't animation channel types that will readily support dynamic assignment of Curve and Layer.

[Hugging_Bear]

Thanks for this information!
Here the project I'm working on: