• Adobe After Effects

  Travel lines around the earth

  Posted by Simon Levshin on July 31, 2008 at 10:21 am

  Hi everyone,

  I’m trying to create travel lines (as in aeroplane routes), that
  animate over the earth from one central lcoation. Problem is the earth
  is scaling down. I’ve drawn a mask but I need one end of the mask to stay
  in position on the globe (motion track perhaps) and have them “bend”
  over the earth to the other side.

  Any help would be appreciated

  Thad Ciechanowski replied 18 years ago 4 Members · 3 Replies
• 3 Replies

• 

  Patrick Hearn

  July 31, 2008 at 10:49 am

  OK. I’m going to assume your setup is this:
  ·image of earth as a globe
  ·paths for lines
  ·stroke effect animated to draw onto paths

  Now you say the earth is scaling down… I’m guessing you start in close and then move out. Perhaps precomp the earth and masks and scale that.

  Better yet, if you want a better looking move away (if indeed that is what you’re doing) make the precomp a 3d layer and create a camera. Now snimate the camera away from the layer. The rate of size change is much more natural this way.
• 

  William J. meyer

  July 31, 2008 at 3:36 pm

  Hi Simon,

  How about this:

  Create two precomps of identical dimensions, twice as wide as they are tall. One of these will be your map of the Earth. The other will be the animation of your airplane routes over a transparent background.

  In a master comp, apply CC Sphere to each of the above precomps. Give the airplane route comp a slightly larger radius. Now the routes will bend over the Earth globe but maintain their starting point.

  Of course, you’ll have to fiddle with the CC Sphere controls to turn the globe properly toward the viewer.

  Bon chance!

  -william

  Now in post-production
  The House That Jack Built
  https://thehousethatjackbuilt.wordpress.com

  OS X.5.3 MacPro 8-core (2X 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400)
  ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
• 

  Thad Ciechanowski

  July 31, 2008 at 4:13 pm

  The trouble with that is the lines can’t “arc” back to the Earth. I’ve had to do this same effect and I wound up using the method of the above poster: making a flat map with the lines, pre-comping, and the using ccSphere.

  This is tough in AE because you can’t create 3D objects. If any of these workarounds won’t do, try Zaxwerks to create the sphere, or Trapcode 3D Stroke to create a 3D stroke on the sphere (still difficult though).

  http://www.dijitmedia.com

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up