Animating 3d Pie Charts

If you spend any time working the corporate graphics side of the biz, it's only a matter of time before someone wants you to show data in an interesting manner. Bring on the pie charts!

It's a bit of a mind-bender how to even create a pie chart in After Effects, though, unless you're lucky enough to own a copy of Digital Anarchy's 'Data Animator' plugin package. So for those of us struggling without, here is one (well, three, actually) ways to make that data look great.

Each stage steps up the 'quality' quotient. The first part describes how to create a simple, flat, animating pie chart using no third party effects. If you're happy with it, then you're done! But if you want to up the production value a bit, the next section covers how you can use Zaxwerks Invigorator to extrude the chart, giving it depth. Finally, the third part shows you how you can use Zaxwerks' new Layer Warp plugin to bring the data on (and off) in an interesting manner.

Here is a link to the 'finished' clip, showing what you will be able to accomplish (QT, Pjpeg, 7 sec., 3.5 megs). Then take a look at this tutorial explaining how to do it (QT, h264, 26:25, 26 megs). Finally, you can download the project file here (AE v7, Zaxwerks Invigorator v4 (optional), Zaxwerks Layer Warp v1 (optional), 25 kb)