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Silly question from a newbie…
Hello. I am, as the post says, new to After Effects. I’m currently trying to fiddle with the camera tool to make photos three-dimensional, and have a couple of questions.
1) How do I make the composition “move around”? Right now, all I’m able to do is make it zoom around between two points. I can’t, for example, figure out how to make it move left, then right, then left again as the zoom is taking place. I imagine this involves make keyframes in the course of the composition, but I can’t figure out how to do that, or make the camera do anything besides zoom in and out.
2) How can I best utilize the depth of field options? The way things are now, it’s making the objects I have set closest to the camera look blurry, which is the opposite of what I want. I want them to be in focus as they pass by the camera, then slowly go out of focus as the camera moves away. I know this has to do with settings like aperture, etc., but I’m lost when it comes to the proper settings I should use. Fiddling around with them doesn’t get me anywhere, and only results in giving me a whole lot of work, as I have to readjust all the layers every time.
Hope you guys can help…
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2 Replies
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1) There are 3 camera tools, pan, zoom, rotate – they will each control the camera in different ways (as the names suggest). Actually they are just adjusting attributes of the camera such as position and point of interest, so you could even control them through the numbers directly, but the tools are easier 🙂
2) For the DOF, Focus Distance is the point which will be in focus (which is a distance from the camera). Aperture is kind of like the amount of stuff that will be in focus, so by adjusting it you can make lots of things be in focus or a really narrow area.
You should really check out the AE help file, as it is very good and will give you more detailed information about all this stuff, including hotkeys, extra info, and some pages have links to tutorials or other tips.
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Stuart pretty much summed it up but, just as a side note with the camera tool:
If you are new to After Effects, learning shortcut keys now will help in the long run. Pressing the “C” button on your keyboard will quickly cycle through the different modes for the camera. When you are done, using the the “V” key will return your cursor back to the pointer. Learning these shortcut keys will help you out a bunch especially when you need to Rotate “W”, Move the whole comp without effecting anything “Spacebar”, check your Safe Zones “‘”, etc…
Just wanted to point that out because if you start using the camera a lot with 3D objects or anything else for that matter, while building your comp you will save a lot of time if you learn how to use shortcut keys.
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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