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Spherical mapping with Cycore Mappit or other technique
Hi all,
I just know I’m on the verge of solving this little problem but I can’t quite make the leap on my own.
I’m working on a project that will have me doing loads of work with CC Sphere, mapping weather data onto a 3D globe of the earth. Both my earth image and the weather data are already prepped for 3D mapping– they are distorted using the equirectangular technique and carry perfectly as Source layers for CC Sphere.
However, I would like to have a second CC Sphere object layer OVER my globe, which needs to add other information– arrows to show ocean currents, text labels, that sort of thing– to the comp. I envisioned creating a precomp, in which I could move my objects around in plain old XY space, and then that would be the source layer for the outermost CC Sphere. Only problem is correcting my precomp for the spherical distortion that we’d see at the poles of the sphere– I need to recreate the equirectangular distortion somehow inside of my precomp to make it usable as a source layer in CC Sphere.
I found Cycore’s Sphere Utilities has a plugin called Mappit, and that seems to get me most of the way there, but I can’t quite get it doing what I expect. Has anyone had success creating spherical maps from precomps inside of After Effects, either with this plugin or in some other fashion?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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3 Replies
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3D movement on a cc sphere spherical surface
https://motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/random-sphere.html3d camera connected to sphere
https://www.motion-graphics-exchange.com/after-effects/Ultimate-CC-Sphere-Light-Comp-Camera-linker/4b539a347c787https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/
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Thanks for the links Chris! Very interesting stuff.
Unfortunately I’m not sure this is going to do what I need; the MotionScript link could possibly get me a workaround, but I can’t use random motion on the sphere– it must be strictly controlled. I don’t really know how to adapt the code to allow that.
For example, given a CC Sphere using a globe of the Earth as a source, I need a way to move, say, an arrow down the east coast of North America and up around the west coast of Africa and Europe. I would prefer to use a precomp as a source for a second CC Sphere layer here so I can have long strokes with curvature.
Really what I need is a way to distort a precomp so that it will map properly over a CC Sphere layer. If that’s using the Mappit plugin then that’s great, or if there’s some other way, I’m open to any and all suggestions.
Thanks again!
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you don’t have to understand trig, just remove the random code and replace it with simple expression sliders, then simply keyframe the sliders. don’t make me upload a project file now! lol.
https://technicolorsoftware.hostzi.com/
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