Project type
Motion GraphicsTutorial
Tools
After Effects
Date
March 2, 2017
I created a spirograph inside of After Effects, with some sliders for customizing the visuals. Project File for download:
Spirograph.aep765.2KB
I saw this tweet on my timeline and wondered how I could recreate it in After Effects. I created three shapelayers - once for each circle - with the inner two having lines. The small, outer circle is the indicator and most important null for drawing the spirographs. The way I visualized the spirograph was by parenting a point light to the outer circle, and using the light as an emitter in Trapcode Particular.
pathVisibility | checkbox that toggles the visibility of the shapelayers |
numPoints | specifices the number of points or vertices you want the spirograph to have |
revPerSecond | indiciated the number of revolutions per second. Setting it to 1 would make the object do one complete rotation every second. Each of these values are keyframe-able but numPoints creates interesting results when keyframed. |