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Panning Effect Across Multiple Polaroids
I am trying to give the effect of multiple polaroids randomly scattered across a table and a camera panning and zooming slowly across said table. I have set up my multiple polaroids in Photoshop, imported it into AE as a comp, set comp to 3d layer and dropped a new camera into timeline. When I use the XY tool to pan across comp it wants to move the whole comp on the XY axis. How do I keep the polaroid comp still and give the effect of moving the camera across XY axis? Thanks.
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4 Replies
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My best guess is that this is the problem:
The camera has a point of interest which is focused on the comp at the moment. If you move the position of the camera, you don’t change the point of interest. (Like a string with one end stuck to a table and one end in your hand, when you move your hand, the part of the string stuck to the table stays there, which in this case is your point of interest.
Ofcourse you can just move the polaroid comp across the cable but a better way of doing this is moving the camera, which leaves room for more complex camera movements later on. OK here we go:
An easy way to make camera movements more simple is link the camera to a “null object.” This (sort of) unlinks the point of interest. Here’s how to do this.
Go to LAYER > NEW >> NULL OBJECT.
a new invisible layer is added to the comp, the null object.
Now Link the Camera Layer to the Null Object Layer.
If you want, you can make the Null Layer a 3d layer.
Use the position properties of the null layer to pan the linked camera.Easy as that. Good Luck!
Jerry
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Jerry: Thanks for your response. I think you have pointed me in the right direction but I am still unable to achieve the look I want. I have parented the null object to the camera and manipulated the position properties but I still can’t get the effect of the null object representing the camera lense’s panning and zooming. I can still see all of my polaroids in the comp, not only the polaroids I am panning a zooming. I am trying to give the look of 30 pictures randomly laid out on a table and a camera panning across the table where you would only see maybe four or five of the pictures in the frame and then zoom in on one picture that would then fill up the entire frame, hold, then zoom out and pan, revealing 4 or 5 more pictures, zoom in on one, hold, then zoom out again repeating this process until all 30 polaroids have been revealed. Thanks for your time and willingness to help.
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Hi Jeff,
I think this is what’s going on, tell me if I’m wrong. You imported the polaroid graphic into AE. Dragged it into the Comp and made a camera. The camera is placed so that the comp is fully in the camera’s field of view. So now you see al of the polaroids that are in the graphic right?
If you want only one polaroid in the camera’s field of view you can do several things. There is one thing though, when you’re going to zoom in to, let’s say to a part of the graphic that holds 1 polaroid. And this part is going to fill the entire screen, the original graphic should be big enough to be able to fit the screen without blowing it up.
1. You can make the Null object a 3D layer, now you can edit the camera’s position to get closer to the graphic.
2 you can edit the camera’s “zoom” settings in the “Camera Options” dropdown. (Below the Transform settings in the layer)
Good luck again!
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Hey Jeff, you can also add the seperate XYZ effects to the Null to give you more control over the camera movements.
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