flying through a room

[Grant Swanson]

Hi Vincent,

You can quite easily do this using either image projection right inside of After Effects, or even easier, just use Photoshop’s Vanishing Point, which will bend and distort the 2D image to whatever planes that you make, and you can make it as complex as you want; Photoshop will export it to After Effects as a series of 3D layers pre-arranged in 3D space for you. Here’s a great demonstration:

https://tv.adobe.com/#v=https://adobe.edgeboss.net/flash/adobe/
adobetvprod/nab_2008/58_nab_007a.flv?rss_feedid=1116&xmlvers=2

Hope this helps!

Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex
videoapex.blogspot.com

[Vincent Genova]

Thank you. So you suggest building a 3-D model of a theater in Maya or a similar animation program?

[James Benoit]

Unless you want to spend a long time building a 3D model of this theater, lighting it, texturing it, etc…I would just use what grant swanson said. Photoshop’s vanishing point will take the real texture and real lighting, and distort them in 3D space. And if you make your planes extremely complex, you will end up with a more realistic look than trying to build the model in 3D. After Effects will automatically distort and offset the perspective for you, so all you have to worry about is creating the planes in vanishing point; photoshop and after effects will do the rest!

[Grant Swanson]

[Vincent Genova] “I would like to take a 2-D image of a movie theater and fly down the aisle. My idea of doing it right now would be to make each row of seats a layer in photoshop and spacing them out. Is there a better way someone can help me with? Maybe something with a more 3-D feel?”

I’m assuming since you wanted “to take a 2-D image of a movie theater” you mean that you wanted a 2-D image, offset in 3D space.

By all means you can create a theater in a 3D program, but it will take far more work to create a room that even comes close to the free amount of realism using the protocol I suggested with Vanishing Point. All the work’s done for you, and you decide the amount of detail you want by simply dragging out another plane. This would be more close to the look that you requested in the first post.

Grant Swanson
Visual Effects Supervisor
Video Apex – Minneapolis, MN
videoapex.blogspot.com

[Bill Kelly]

Try watching these tutorial. They should give you some help.

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html?id=21

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html?id=20

[Vincent Genova]

Thank you Grant! Vanishing point is now my new favorite tool.