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Laying picture on a 3D path to be followed by a camera
I want to lay down several pictures on a large-radius ellipsis in 3D space, and have a camera follow that ellipsis clockwise, in the plane of the ellipsis, and “run through” the pictures very quickly. As the camera comes closer to a picture, it should fade rapidly and reveal the next picture behind it etc… The camera basically follows the elliptic path and the images are placed so that that path goes through their centers.
I figured out how to link the transparency of a picture to the distance to the camera, so that as the camera comes closer, the picture starts fading away, revealing the other picture behind it etc…
Where i am stumped is an effective way to place the pictures somewhat automatically. I have close to 100 pictures, and manually laying them out on a curve is just not something i contemplate doing. Is there a way that i can say: “place those 100 pictures on the path, at 500pt distance from one another” ?
The closest i have come to it is to use a naming convention for each layer (layer0, layer3.6, layer7.2 etc…) and use a standard math formula to compute a position on an ellipsis using the “number” part of the layer as the “angle” where the picture should be placed on the curve (100 pictures on 360degrees means one every 3.6 degrees).
This is still very time consuming as i am effectively managing each picture independently, and was wondering if there is a better way.
Thank you,
Laurent. -
3 Replies
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You might also look for the tutorial called “Circle of Cows” for a delightfully elegant way of laying out many objects along a form.
There was once a free plugin for AE called something like 3D Assistant Lite that would distribute objects along a path. I don’t supose it still exists.
I need to ask another question: Is it absolutely necessary that all 100 still images be on screen? If not, your task can be simplified by creating a cycling composition into which you just drop new images as they are required using a script.
bogiesan
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Dave, i’ll look at your solution, but i have a feeling that you still need to do something for each of the pictures. The formula approach seems to me like it ends up being less manual work.
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David, thanks. I’ll look for that tutorial (sounds like what i want to do), and for that plugin if it’s still available somewhere.
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