Camera track/map fly through – Google earth or not?

[D j Harris]

Hi, looking for a bit of starter guidance on how to create a (smooth) fly through on a map. A client has asked for a previously created video to be amended – the video is flying around parts of the UK following a path (that glows as we follow it) and just want to make sure I;m not going down the wrong route.

My first thought was to create a video in Google Earth Pro, and then add an After Effects path to it.

1st problem: In Google Earth I can’t see how to keyframe a camera fly-through (the video we’re trying to add to has the camera flying about, speeding up slowing down etc, and very smoothly, like an AE camera)

2nd: Also, even if I did get a smooth flythrough video in Google Earth, how do you add (track?) the path in AE so that it doesn’t look ‘separate’ from the video?

3rd problem: is that on the current video it looks like the ‘route line’ is more of a ribbon, that stands up from the map in 3d (think lightcycles in Tron if that helps!) and sometimes appears to go behind the 3d buildings in cities, which is a bit confusing.

I’m just wondering if there’s a way of doing this that ‘map fly-through experts’ (if there are such people) know about and I’m unaware of – like creating the ribbon directly in Google Earth, or perhaps there is a completely different app that works better for making videos.

Any pointers much appreciated!

Thanks