-
Advice/Help with this animation
Hey all,
I’m making a corporate video for a client and for a section of it I used the superb Earth Zoom tutorial from VC as a visual tool to show how Manchester is the central hub for the UK. After it zooms out I did very basic masks of lines coming in, representing planes arriving. This can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVPyujNIkNY
However, the client has come back and said they don’t like the lines. They say they want the lines to curve like they would if they work coming around the globe, and to look more 3D. I have to admit, after doing the basic animating masks that I used for the lines I’m at a loss. Can anyone offer any advice on how I could achieve this effect a lot better?
Any help would save my life!
Thank you
-
11 Replies
-
Fake the 3D by curving the lines so they arc up and back down again. Sure, it’s not physically correct since you’re viewing from above, but it may be what the client is imagining. Or make the ones at top of screen arc up, and ones at bottom of screen arc down. The start and end points would be the same as before.
Or … you could use 3D stroke to draw a line that curves up toward camera and down away from camera as if it were a really high arc on the earth. The line would appear thin at both ends and fat in the middle. It should curve up (seen from camera) a bit as well. To sell this (and the other) you need a shadow that is a straight line.
To picture this, imagine the arc as the bow, and the shadow as the bowstring.
-
Thanks for the response Steve, I’m going to give those a go now. How would I keep the drop shadow a consistent size but the matte/stroke different?
Thanks once again.
-
The second option sounds more appealing having tried the first and it doesn’t really add much to it.
I was going to try the second option but I can’t see a 3D Stroke in the effects toolbox? Do you mean making a standard stroke effect a 3D layer? If so how to I manipulate only sections of it?
Thank you once again.
-
Ah. 3D stroke is a third-party plugin by Trapcode. A must-have, in my opinion.
If you don’t have it, consider drawing a mask in the shape that you want (long arc with bulging middle). Then make the drop shadow by making another mask, but straight this time, using a black solid, blurred, semi-transparent.
All this would be 2D fakery, not 3D, if you don’t own 3D Stroke.
-
Steve’s suggestions are bang on though there may be another option if you don’t have 3D Stroke.
It requires a bit of fiddling but you can animate lines in a 2D Comp precomp the line animation and then apply CC Sphere and adjust the radius appropriately.
The fiddly bit is getting the location correct. If you’re using 3D cameras then you may need an expression to keep the CC Sphere layer orienting to the camera.
-
You know what, just had a basic go at this and it’s working a treat already! Thanks a lot!
-
Got pics? Vid?
-
Steve;
I threw this together in 3 minutes to give you the general idea. It still needs some tweaking to make it look right. The line on the right appears too soon…
https://reels.creativecow.net/film/earth-with-lines -
Yeah, to be honest still not great but better, any other tips would be most welcome!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtSuEQTA4NQ
-
haha wow, 3 minutes eh? And totally blows mine out the water! Did you just use the curves for that or stroke as well?
Cheers.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up