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Zooming in place
I have a large image (7502 x 9216 px) that I’m dropping in AE so I can do some panning and zooming across it. My problem is when I try to zoom in on an area. AE will zoom in based on the “center” of the image, not the center of what I’m actually looking at. This makes it hard to pan to one location, pause briefly then slowly zoom in to that area without the image moving. Is there a way to tell AE to zoom based on what I’m currently centered on, and not the center of the whole image?
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9 Replies
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Also related to this question, when I’m panning and looking for the next part of the image I want to zoom in to, a lot of times I end up going back and forth, up and down across the image till I find a spot again. Unfortunately, AE tends to record all those movements as well. How can I tell it to just pan from point A to point B and ignore all my other movements between those two key frames?
See, the image is a large mosaic of pictures and I’m starting (at 100%) on one area of the image and zoom in to 150%, then I want to gradually zoom out (back to 100%) as I’m also panning to the next spot on the image, then pause and zoom in again (to 150%). Repeat that process a few times and then finally zoom all the way out (roughly 5%) where you can see the whole image.
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By “zoom” I assume you mean you are adjusting the scale of the image. The reason the image scales from the center is due to its anchor point being in the center. You can move the anchor point by using the pan behind tool or adjusting its X and Y value in the Timeline. However, to do what you are doing you simply have to animate scale and position properties and it will zoom into the part you want. You shouldn’t have to animate the anchor point.
For your other problem it sounds like you need a basic understanding of keyframes. When you click the stopwatch of a property you enable keyframing (animation) of that property. The diamond shaped icons on the timeline indicate a point in time and a value. These are keyframes. To make your image move from point A to B, set a keyframe on frame 0 and move your image to where you want it. Then move the time marker to a different point in time (however long you want the move to be) and then change the position or scale of the layer. But remember, if you have your time marker on a place in the timeline on which there are no keyframes and you move your image, it will automatically set a new keyframe. If you do this by accident you can always just select the keyframes you don’t want and delete them.
I suggest you find some training material for After Effects since you seem to be struggling with the basics. Hope I helped!
Nate -
No, I realized what was happening and it’s my own fault. I was changing keyframes that were already set previously and when I changed the position of the image on an earlier keyframe, AE will combine the previous (straight point-A to point-B movement) with this second adjustment, which then resulted in sometimes a little bit of back-and-forth or curved panning.
For example, I have a keyframe at 2s, one at 4s, and another at 6s. Now, each one has a different position on the image. Playback will pan straight from 2s to 4s to 6s. However, if I go back to the 4s keyframe and change the position of the image to somewhere else, what will happen is that when I playback, AE will start movement at 2s and do as if it’s heading to the previous position of 4s, then midway it will change direction and head for the new position. The straight line is now a curve. Then as it leaves the 4s mark, it makes a beeline for where the previous 4s position was and again change direction midway to head for the 6s position.
I don’t know if this is normal behavior nor if there’s a way to tell AE to “forget” the previous 4s position and just move, in a straight line, from the 2s position to the 4s position to the 6s position.
I’ve already redid the whole timeline and it’s working the way I expect it to. I just know not to go change any of the keyframes in the center otherwise I may get screwed again.
As for the zooming part, yes I’m just scaling the image larger (for 1 second) then back to 100% during the panning part (which can last up to 7 seconds.) I’ll go play with the anchors some more, see if I can figure it out. And yes, AE is new to me, I’m still learning.
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Aharon did a cool two part video on the “boomerang” effect with keyframes. Pretty informative when you’re doing these zoom/pan&scan comps.
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Sorry if I insulted your intelligence, I assumed you were a newb. Yeah, sounds like the boomerang effect. To make up for the insult, here are links to the tutorials, if you haven’t found them already:
Boomerang Tutorial Part 1
Boomerang Tutorial Part 2 -
Errr, no insult taken. As I mentioned, AE is new to me so I’m still learning. Though I’ve been using PremierePro for quite some time now, so I knew what you were referring to with the keyframes. I just didn’t realize AE was using Bezier keyframes. Once I converted to Linear everything worked. Of course, now that I know how to change it, I simply have to play more and have some more fun. 🙂
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Cool. Yes, definitely play around- that’s how I learn.
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footage layers always scale and rotate around the anchor point. this means you need to put the anchor point where you want the center of your zoom to be. I always animate anchor point instead of position when doing this kind of work.
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Yes, before 3D in AE, this was the standard way to work, and I still prefer it for a lot of shots. However, another option is to convert the footage layers to 3D and create a 3D camera to do the moves like a real camera. Don’t forget to switch off “auto-orient” for the camera in the layer>transfrom menu.
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