Soupcan

Faux 3D cylinder preset built from simple shapes for easy animation.

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Create new shape

From Presets & Effects panel

Drag the preset into your comp to create a new layer with the shapes and controls.

From KBar

Create a shape layer with anything in it (keyboard shortcut Q) then click the appropriate KBar button to replace the shapes and add controls.

Controls

• Width: The horizontal size of the shape
• Height: The vertical size of the shape
• Invert: Toggle the locations of the top and bottom colors
  • Useful when flipping the shape and the motion should continue rather than oscillate
• Flip: Simulation of rotation along the x-axis
  • Negative values show the bottom edge of the shape
• Anchor Position: sets the location of the layer's anchor point to control how a cylinder expands. Center expands outward, Top expands down, Bottom expands upward. The top and bottom anchors will be set at the midpoints of the upper and lower faces of the cylinder.

Examples

Installation

├── 📂 Soupcan
│   ├── 📂 aep
│   │   │   └── Soupcan-Coin flip.aep
│   ├── 📂 KBar icon
│   │   │   └── Soupcan.svg
│   ├──  Soupcan help.html
│   ├──  Soupcan.ffx

Basic install

Copy .ffx files into the Ae presets folder, then restart Ae.

• OS X:~/Documents/Adobe/After Effects CC 2020/Presets/
• Windows:My Documents/Adobe/After Effects CC 2020/Presets/

Presets will be available in the Effects & Presets panel by searching or under
*Animation Presets > Presets

Ultra productive install

A much quicker way to use presets is with KBar from aescripts + aeplugins. Save your .ffx preset files to a main location (bonus nerd points for using a shared folder like Dropbox).

• Right click the KBar panel > KBar Settings
• Click Add Button
• Click Apply Preset
• Navigate to the .ffx file on disk
• Name it and set an icon

Missing the preset?

1. Click the menu and Refresh List
2. Be sure Show Animation Presets are enabled

↑ This one is easy to miss.

Changelog

1.1

Released: 2020-09-22

Added

• Separate Flip control
• Invert control for full rotation

Changed

• Updates to shape layering for more stable drawing at thin sizes

1.02

Released: 2020-09-15

Changed

• Renamed from Cylindroid to Soupcan

1.01

Released: 2019-12-03

Added

• Color pickers (top, bottom, side)

Fixed

• Bottom edge when vertical size goes negative (thanks to Jack from 2deadfrog.com (opens new window))

1.00

Released: 2019-12-02

• Initial release