Question for the many Graphics Geniuses here - About vector art

HI guys

I know we have lots of graphics gurus here.

Here's the deal.

I have a simple Adobe Illustrator line drawing. Something like this:



Say, it's made from about 50 pen lines or so...

What I want to do is, animate the "drawing" of these lines (vectors).

The end effect would be "kind of" like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRQHMOgxveU

Is this "easy" to do?

Would I have to export to a flash program?

Ultimately I want to basically have a 20 second AVI (movie) of the elephant being drawn.

Can anyone think of the best way to get this done (by an automated process)?

Thanks!

bumpage

adobe after effects theres many tutorials .. its not hard once you know how .. but it takes a bit to learn ... also the more fluid and smooth you want the flowing lines the harder it is...

edit:

no automation available ... but for a couple bucks on a place like odesk or elancer you could probably get it done automaticly

A bootleg way to do this would be to use mask layers in flash. Mask the entire elephant and animate the mask to reveal parts of the elephant.

Dont think there is an easy way to do this though.

Ya i was looking for a shortcut way

i've seen a few tutorials using after effects.

none of them too easy

you'd think someone would have made a little plugin to do it or something...

ya i could probably fake it with masking...

hmm...