Hey and welcome to Solvin’, although, fair warning, this isn’t just a tip, there’s
a bit of explaining in this one.
Spirals in AE are simple enough to do. You link one Null to another and spin the parent
around while animating the position property.
But Golden Spirals are something else entirely. Golden Spirals are the most common construction
shape in nature. They’re fractal, meaning they look identical no matter how close or
far you get from them.
Mathematician Leonardo Bonacci, better known as Fibonacci, first described the spiral in
the early 13th Century. Fibonacci also came up with the Fibonacci Number, the mathematical
sequence where each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. I'm going to this year’s
Fibonacci convention. It'll be as big as the last two put together.
Anyway, The Golden Ratio as the spiral is also known, is also hugely popular in Graphic
Design and Architecture.
It’s widely accepted that art, buildings and any design which follows the Golden Ratio
is more pleasing aesthetically.
Which brings us to After Effects. There is no preset for the Golden Ratio or Fibonacci
Spiral in AE. Which, when you learn about how important it is, kinda sucks.
I spent hours Google-ing and really struggled to find solutions. You know, just between
us, I don’t think most mathematicians understand the Fibonacci Sequence. I found dozens of
websites, all listing the equation and none of them were useful in spelling it out enough
so that I could translate it into an expression.
Take this site: mathsisfun.com They can %@$&*! right off. It’s all “ooh,
look at this formula, with zero explanation”.
Intmath.com at least explain what each of the terms mean, oh except for this one: e
What the %@$&*! Is e?
In the end, I found the answer I needed on the Autodesk forums. I had to rewrite it for
After Effects, but at least I had something I could work with.
This expression when added to a Null Object, will have the layer animate through the Golden
Spiral perfectly.
Here’s how I implemented it.
Create a Null Object - by going to Layer > New > Null Object.
And then before we add in the equation, go to Effect > Expression Controls > Slider Control
Hit enter and rename this ‘Size’. This is going to control the size of your spiral.
And keyframe this property from 0 to 1000.
And now, nip down in the description, and a really important step here, if the Subscribe
button is red, click it to be grey. And if you see the Like icon as grey, go ahead and
click it to turn blue.
And once you’ve down that, click on the More option to expand the description and
copy the expression.
Looking at this expression. We create a variable called Radius and link this to our slider.
But the values are too big for AE to handle. So I divide this by 145. You might want to
alter this, but it worked out right for me.
Then we take each position property in turn, and do Maths on them. But I left Z at 0. So
I get a 2D spiral here.
Then I bundle up the position values into an array and now the Null moves in a Golden
Spiral.
It’s up at the top corner though. So rather than try to edit the equation, let’s make
a new null object. Set it initially to be positioned at 0,0,0 and parent our spiral
null to it.
Then we can alter the position of the parent to wherever we want it on screen.
To display this path, I’d link it to CC Particle World.
Check out my tutorial on how to make a preset to make that easy.
For that preset, I need to have another Null object, which I need real world coordinates
for, so I’ll use this Expression:
To link my emitter null to the spiral. Then I’ll apply my preset - I’ll link to the
video in the description, where you’ll also find the expressions you need to use with
CC Particle World.
And let’s up the longevity, and in Physics, turn off velocity and set Gravity to 0.
And there’s our Golden Spiral.
In the description below, you’ll find a link to this project - so you can get started
right away. One other thing I found on my internet trawl, was this preset by Hypoly.
This creates a shape layer in the Golden Ratio.
You can use as a Guide Layer, so it doesn’t render out, just by clicking here.
The blog was last updated 7 years ago, I couldn’t find any sign of Hypoly being active. But
thank you dude! It’s a really nice preset.
Oh - if you’re wondering why I spent so long looking for a way to use a Golden
Spiral in After Effects. Well that’s because in my next tutorial, and especially for subscribers:
Han al du say and mo du way Klib, I’m makin’ a Galaxy