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image size question- zooming in 3-D
I have a question about sizes of images that I’m nesting a video.
Basically, I need to make a wall of 32 ‘video screens’ in a 1024×768 comp (for a Keynote presentation). Each of these ‘screens’ has an still image embedded that is panning slowly. What I want to do is zoom in and out of the entire wall with a camera (b/c the wall will be at an angle), settle in on each of the individual images so that it fills up the entire comp size, then zoom out again.
I’ve been having trouble figuring out what size to bring in the images and what size to make the individual comps that I then nest into the comp that shows the entire bank of screens.
– I started off by placing large images into a 128×96 comp so I can pan around, then nesting those 32 comps into a 1024×768 comp to create my wall. But when my camera zooms in, the images become very pixelated, which makes sense b/c the 128×96 comp is now taking up the full screen.
– So I then started over again by placing each of the images into a 1024×768 comp, then nesting those comps-each scaled down a lot-into another 1024×768 comp to create my wall. But again, when my camera moves in, the images get pixelated.
I’m fairly new to After Effects, and I’m definitely not understanding a lot. Thanks in advance for any help!
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7 Replies
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Try hitting the “collapse transformations” button for those sub-comps.
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I would start with the camera in zoomed position first and then work from there, doing the zoom out after. I wouldn’t make small images in the matrix comp, I would keep them full size. I suppose it might take longer to render, but you will get full res.
The rest should just be a matter of moving your camera around.
Brian
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[Steve Roberts] “Try hitting the “collapse transformations” button for those sub-comps.”
Steve has the right idea. I will add, however, that you’ll need to enable the 3D switch on the layer inside those nested compositions as well. If you want motion blur you’ll need to enable that inside of the nested comps… If there are any effects you had applied to those comps, remove them and apply them inside the nested comps.
These are all somewhat arcane processes that are necessary if you want to take advantage of the ‘collapse transformations/continuously rasterize’ feature (which you do).
Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
Thanks for the responses! I forgot to mention in my original project description that the wall of video screens will be slightly “curved” (so that it looks like a “C” from the top view)- I’m faking it by rotating each column by a few degrees.
I think this is where the pixelation problem arose: I had the images full-size in a 1024×768 comp, nested and dramatically scaled down four of those comps in an intermediate comp to create one column, then nested that comp into a final comp so that I could rotate each column. (Otherwise, I ran into the problem in the first sketch below when I skipped this intermediate step:
(note: each grey box contains an image) By rotating each screen individually, I couldn’t achieve the curved screen look which I got by tilting whole columns. If anyone knows a way of achieving the second look without pre-composing the columns, please let me know!
So I nested the columns and thus ran into problems b/c I was scaling down in the intermediate comp and then zooming in in my final comp. I tried to work around this by keeping my images at 100% size in my intermediate comp thereby making this comp 1024×3072 to fit four images stacked vertically. Then bringing this comp into the final comp and scaling down in this final comp only. Now when I zoom in and out, the images look fine. But I’m worried about the sizes of these intermediate comps. Now I have thirty-two 1024×768 comps which I then nest into eight 1024×3072 comps which I again nest into one 1024×768 comp- will this cause any problems?
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[Steve Roberts] “Try hitting the “collapse transformations” button for those sub-comps.”
[Darby Edelen] “enable the 3D switch on the layer inside those nested compositions as well…If there are any effects you had applied to those comps, remove them and apply them inside the nested comps.
Ah ha! I tried the “collapse transformations” earlier today but the columns kept losing their 3D properties in the final comp- So I need to have the 3D switch on for every intermediate comp? I will try this at work tomorrow and let you know if I get it to work! 🙂
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When you ‘collapse transformations’ on a composition, it’s basically like taking all of the layers inside that child composition and extracting them as is into your parent composition… At least, that’s one way of thinking of it. All blending modes, transform properties, material options (for 3D layers) and layer switches applied inside the composition will now have an effect outside of the composition as well.
Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
Thank you so much, Darby! What you suggested was spot-on.
After collapsing transformations, I turned on the 3-D switch in both the final comp and the nested comp, and my final comp retained its 3-D properties.
Love Creative Cow 🙂
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