I built this entirely in After Effects from shape layers rather than imported footage. Elliptical paths were duplicated, offset in 3D space and driven by a central null so the cluster could rotate as one object while every orbit kept its own phase. The final volume comes from controlled highlights, colored light spill and soft shadow falloff—not simply from placing Glow over a flat line.
I drew one clean ellipse with a tapered stroke, converted it into a reusable pre-comp, then duplicated and rotated it across the X, Y and Z axes. Parenting every orbit to a central null gave me one master control for the overall spin without flattening the individual paths.
This is the piece I treated as a lighting exercise. I split each ribbon into a sharp white core, a saturated color pass and a wide blurred spill. Darkened duplicate passes and opacity falloff sit behind crossing lines, creating contact shadows that clarify which ribbon is in front.
Rotation keyframes were eased in the Graph Editor and slightly offset so the form never moves like a rigid logo. Cyan, green and violet were animated with gradient controls, while motion blur softened the fastest crossings without losing the bright core.
I matched the first and last rotational values mathematically, kept the evolving properties on complete cycles and used a short opacity handoff at the edges. The final pre-comp was checked frame by frame so the loop returns without a visible jump or brightness pulse.