Compositing Question

[Mary Waitrovich]

you could just use a wipe as a transition at the beginning of your flight path image. You might have to adjust the angle to make it look right.

Mary Waitrovich
Media Plus You, LCC
http://www.mediaplusyou.com

[Matt Carlson]

To have complete control on how and when your flight paths are drawn you need to use the “Mask” key framing in the event pan/crop section on your flight path clip. It will take a lot longer to hand key frame (maybe hours depending on how complex your flight paths are) versus finding a way to use a transition as a mask, however. You do have the added bonus of complete control with key framing though. If you are unfamiliar with mask key framing then learning the ins and outs will also take some time. It is worth it if you ever plan on doing more composite work. Masking is one of the most important tools in such work.

[John Gordon]

I would break up each leg as an image and use a wipe transition at the angle of the leg. It’s a lot faster to use multiple tracks than to keyframe a mask along multiple legs.

John Gordon

[Pete Baratta]

Hi Max, there’s a free program I use for that only and it’s called Route Generator…easy download and you can import your picture or map to use as a background…just draw a route line with the mouse from a start point to a finish…you have control over the line thickness and colour…also they give you basic icons, such as a car, train or bus to place at the start of the line. You just hit animate and the job’s done…export as normal. You can even paste a photo of your own vehicle as the icon used…best thing…the price is right!, Pete.

[Dave Haynie]

I might well use the masking technique suggested… just mask off the portions you’re not using. Another technique is to simply draw the flight paths. Well, of course, you’ve already drawn them… so what you want to do is un-draw them. This is a pretty easy animation technique. You start with the drawn route, then save off successive PNGs, each with a little more erased in Photoshop.

In case that’s not clear, you can see this kind of thing in an animation I did earlier this year (below). Each time something is being “drawn”, it’s probably, in reality, being erased in reverse. Masking is easier if you have one straight line, since Vegas will do the “tweening” for you — you only need to keyframe the start of the mask and the end. But if it’s too complex, just animating the line might be the easier thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCrUrOQkJSw

-Dave

[Max Collinge]

Thanks for all the responses, all great ideas.

What I ended up doing was using keynote with my map background, drew flight paths with bezier tool and then added wipe animation to all the paths simultaneously. It was EXACTLY what I was after. Then just exported the presentation as a .mov.