How to animate spiral curve using timeline animation?

[kategoesberserk]

need to animate a spiral curve like the one below without using any actionscript:





basically the black wire will rotate around the upright blue pen - can't figure out what's the best way to do this!


anyone has any tips


thanks!!!

[The_e-Tahn]

Animate the center part (where it's all coiled around) moving up in a movie clip. Make it loop. Then make the top and the bottom frame-by-frame drawings of the 'tail' wrapping around (could probably do this in as few as 6 frames if you *had* to; it's pretty simple animation too so it shouldn't take too long). Attach these bottom and top 'wrap-around' edges to the movie clip that's moving up constantly (probably use a mask so it stays within that space)-- it'll take some tweaking and perfecting to match up the 'tails' with the main 'spiral' part, but it can be done
Hope this makes sense and helps...

[kategoesberserk]

hi! thanks for the tip!

the spiral spins REALLY FAST - so do you think i can cheat a lil' by creating 3-4 sets of coils movie clip (coils move from side to side quickly, 1-pixel apart) and placing them on different x position along the pen and blurring 1 set of coils to create the 'fast movement' feel?

[MyFriendIsATaco]

I'd do this: Make sure the black spiral is on it's own separate layer.

And just simple tween a rectangular mask sliding down over that layer to reveal the black spirals. Should be rather simple.

[MyFriendIsATaco]

Oops, disregard. I was under the impression that you just wanted to animate in the spirals. Not constantly spinning around the core.

Do what The_e-Tahn said!