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Spinning Dizzy Stars
Hello,
I am wanting to create a cartoon like circlet of stars that spins around a characters head. Has anybody done this before that has a tried and true technique for it?
Thanks for your time.
-Eric -
5 Replies
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I actually did this a couple weeks ago for a promo I was working on. There are several ways, depending on your footage. If your talent is filmed on a green screen it’s pretty easy. Here’s the down and dirty way I did it.
Make your stars or whatever you want animating around the person’s head. Make it a 3D layers and animate it going in an elipse a little bigger than the talents head. You’ll want the front of the stars to come down lower than the back. Key your guy out and make it your second layer (your 1st layer if for your background). Above that put your stars (layer 3) and position them so they go in front of the guy’s head. This will take care of the stars going around the front of the guys head. Because AE isn’t a true 3D app, you have fake it from here. Where the stars are supposed to go behind his head, you’ll need to duplicate your key of the guy and put it on a layer above the stars (layer 4). Now your guy is in front of and behind the stars so they’ll look like they’re coming out of his face. From here just mask his head off so you can see the stars in front. Now the stars are visible on the front and should look like they’re disappearing behind his head. You may need to tweak the mask from here, but you’re pretty much done!
If your talent isn’t on a green screen, welcome to rotoscoping. Same as above, but you’ll need to cut your talent’s head out from the background first, then the rest is the same.
Hope this helps. I’m sure others will have much faster and easier ways, but this can get you started.
Michael.
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Michael,
Thanks for your reply. What I am really stumped on is how to animate the stars around the elipse in a 3D space. This seems like such a basic thing to know, I’m sure I’ll use 3D layer but beyond that I don’t know how to start.
Thanks,
-Eric -
Sorry. You don’t need 3D space. I spaced out for a moment there. Just take your regular 2D layer and make an elliptical mask. Then click on Mask Shape, Ctrl+C to copy it, delete the mask or set it to NONE, then set a keyframe into your position parameter of your star and Ctrl+V to paste it. You now have position keyframes for your star to follow in an elliptical pattern. You may have to adjust the anchor point to get it where you want it. You can further fake 3D space from here by animating the scale as it travels around the path. Star gets larger as it comes around the front of the head, then smaller as it goes around the back. Sorry. Hope this helps to clear things up.
Michael.
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Michael,
I’ll give it a shot today and let you know the results.
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An easy way to get these stars to spin around his head would be thus:
Set your stars up (as 3d layers) in a circle around a null object (also a 3d layer).
Then parent them to the null.
(You probably want to make sure your star layers are set to orient towards the camera.)If you have your green screened or rotoscoped talent also as a 3d layer you should be able to rotate the null and position it in such a way that the stars go around his head. Then keyframe the rotation!
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