Motion Graphics (Animated Graphic) Like a Circle Being Drawn – Addable in PS Video Workflow?

Question

Hi, i create video tutorials in Photoshop CC*, only of screencasts. Sometimes i insert a red circle around important parts of the screen.
I would like to show the circle being drawn bit by bit – not the whole circle slowly fading in, but being drawn around the subject over time. Also interesting might be arrows that build up and bounce a bit. (This NOT like a button being pushed.)
I didn't find online good info how to create an addable circle being drawn or sth like that. I found verbose tutorials about movie title animation in Photoshop, but they don't help to create a circle being drawn.
A circle being drawn around a point of interest - this is easily possible for instance with Camtasia – but i would love to add the animation within Photoshop. It should be possible if the animation is a smart object within a TIFF or PSD file, but i don't know how to create animated files like that.
Are there animated files like that available somewhere? Best would be vector files that could be changed (for instance contour width, contour colour, speed etc.).
Or how could i create them myself with Photoshop? (I have no experience with Premiere or Illustrator.)
Thanks!
*aware that there are other solutions to all of my procedures, which are better for you

Answer 1

Henrik Nerr wrote:
Actually i know of that repeating thing after free transform, but didn't think it up here. I wonder, if you do that with a vector object and the result was turned into one smart object, you could then transform it into an ellipse?
There's no reason why not, but you'd have to animate as a perfect circle, an then distort into a flatter ellipse at the end, which sounds kind of klunky.  But as is the way of these things, you have given me another idea.  I've never done this, but I can't think of any reason why the layers that make up the animation shouldn't have layer masks.  I bet the penny just dropped and you can see where I am going? :-)
It would need some manual input, but you start with your ellipse, and copy it whole as many times as you need frames.  The layers will have incrementing names, which we will take advantage of later. Group those layers to keep them tidy.
Now use Transform Again (or Step & Repeat) on a black segment the radius of which will be big enough to completely cover the long side of the ellipse.  The resulting layers will also have incrementing names, and they should match the ellipse layer names.  Group these to keep them tidy.
So you'll start with this (Note I am using only four frames to keep this demo simple)
After Step and repeat you'll have
Turn off the Mask Group, select layer 'Ellipse 1', Ctrl click one of the mask layers (which I have ballsed up by forgetting to rename), and add a layer mask to Ellipse 1.  You'll see where we are going now.
Select the mask layer you just used, and the mask layer next to it, and merge them.  Repeat the last step, and continue for all Ellipse layers.  You'll end up with something like this (but with heaps more layers)
Note that you end up with just the one Mask layer, because you have been merging them as you go.  To produce the animation start with all Ellipse layers off, and as you progress to the next frame, turn on the next Ellipse layer.  Unlike with normal animations, we keep all preceding layers switched on because we are building, and not moving.
OK, here's the clever bit.   Unlink all the Ellipse layer, layer masks (click on the chain icons.)  Make sure the layer content, and not the layer masks are active (double white line around the thumbnail).  Select All the Ellipse layers, and Free Transform to fit the next item to be highlighted.  If I recall correctly, using FT on multiple layers is a fairly recent thing.  Can anyone comment on that?  If you are thinking ahead, make sure the Mask layers are big enough to cover the largest item you might need to highlight.  These layers are always tuned off for the final animation, so they can be as big as you like.
I'd be inclined to keep master copies of both Ellipse and Mask groups, and work off a new copy for each highlight.
Personally, I'd just use After Effects, but if you can't get use of it, it is at least possible with Photoshop.