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How to achieve this Apple in-store demo movie effect?
I can’t find an actual clip of this to link to, so I hope I can explain it reasonably well – please bear with me!
I’m interested in recreating an effect I’ve seen in some Apple in-store videos. Imagine various icons from your OS X dock, but arranged as if around the perimeter of a circle. The icons move around the perimeter in a stop-start motion, so that each one spends a moment closest to the camera.
Another way of describing it would be a 3D replicator set to “circle” and “face camera”, and then tilted slightly back in 3D space so that the icon at the 6 o’clock position is closest to the camer and the one at the 12 o’clock position is furthest away. The movement around the perimeter of the circle would be accomplished by animating the offset.
Here’s the bit that’s been puzzling me: it’s easy enough to achieve with a replicator for a single icon, but how can I do it with, say, 8 different icons?
The one thought I’ve had is that I could use FCP to create and export a movie file in which I have, say, 100 frames of icon 1, 100 frames of icon 2, 100 frames of icon 3 and so on up to icon 8 and then use the “start frame offset” function of the replicator to build an 8-point circle with each point being a different icon.
Is there an easier/better way, though?
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6 Replies
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I think Keynote has a pre-set to do that. However, this is how I’ve done similar effects. Use the circle shape tool to create a circle. Set to outline. Add logo. Add “Motion Path” behavior to logo. Change “Path Shape” in motion path behavior to Geometry. Drag the circle shape to the Shape Source well. Hide the Circle and you have a logo that follows around the circle. Add the other logos and best of luck.
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Thanks for that, Stephen. I can see how that would give you extra flexibility, because then you could fly the individual logos in from offscreen to build up the circle, and fly them off again after they’ve done their carousel thing.
I guess I was thinking along the lines of a movie, a replicator and the “start frame offset” because that would make it child’s play to move all the logos around the perimeter of the circle in a start-stop-start “tie rack” or “roulette wheel” motion, using just the one offset parameter. Co-ordinating that sort of animation for 8 individual logos on 8 individual layers feels like it could get complicated 🙂
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Some variation of the “cover flow” plug-in maybe? And I’m goign to steal your trick with the circle, Stephen, hope you don’t mind.
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Thanks Mark, I thought that was a cool trick as well. Amazing what those behaviors can do.
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The replicator trick will certainly work, although, if you’re replicating icons, you might rather just create an image sequence instead of bothering with an FCP sequence.
Another way to do it if there are only a few icons, would be to draw a circle shape, and rotate it 90 degrees on the X axis. Place it in a group and drop all the icons in the group with it. Make sure that the circle and icons are all at the 0 position inside the group.
Select all the icons (SHIFT+click) and in the properties tab, adjust the Z anchor point parameter until you have the icons at their “front and center” placement.
Then select each icon individually, and change its Y rotation to give it a different starting point in your “circle”. From there, all you need to do is drop a Spin behavior on the group.
That’s to show you that there’s more than one way to approach an effect, but personally, I don’t think it gets much simpler than using the replicator.
Andy
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Thanks for that, Andy. BTW it was your Video Wall tutorial that taught me how you could use the “start frame offset” function of a replicator, so thanks for that as well 🙂
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