Animating a road map of our trip using CS5

Question

I would really appreciate help on this subject. I have a road map and want to show an animated line of the roads we travelled. I have tried using PS, where I opened the map, created a new layer, drew in the first part of our trip in red, saved that as a jpg file. Created a second new layer, then using a wider brush, in black, and using the FADE option, carefully traced over the red line, at the end of which the wider black line had faded to white. I then deleted the map and the red line layers,and saved the faded line only as a bmp file.
Next I placed the map, then the red lined map side by side onto the timeline of my video in Premiere Pro. I then used the gradient wipe effect to place between these two maps, opened the bmp file, as instructed, then stretched the left and right end of the transition to cover the 2 jpg maps on the timeline. So far I have tried a combination of all of this about 500 times and am about to give up. I can get an animation of sorts, but nothing like the moving snake like line that I want. Also, I have read Mr Hunt's advice, and may resort to placing a PSD Layer over a map, however, I have seen how the moving route line works and it is most effective but almost impossible for me to achieve. I am looking foreward to your views. Thank you.

Answer 1

I promise you that this is best done in After Effects using the pen tool to draw a path along the road. Everything you need comes standard in AE... no plugins.
http://www.monologue.gr/tutorials/an-animated-arrow-tutorial-to-rule-them-all/
^^^ This tutorial is so easy to follow, anyone can do it in just minutes. You can skip the arrowhead bit and just make the line follow the road, and it's even easier. I take this technique a step further and color the line/arrowhead with keystrokes so that I can animate arrows showing airflow through equipment that change color from red to blue and back to red, indicating the temperature of the air as it moves through the system.
After Effects can be an intimidating program, but give it a shot. You'll love the result.