[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

To create a camera, select layer>New..>Camera. Select 35 mm (for instance). Now you’ll be looking at any 3D layer through the camera, while every 2D layer in the same comp will not be affected by it.

If you look at your 3D layer position value, there is a z value in addition to the x and y. So, when you move something in space along the z axis, it will move closer and further away from the camera. (This is the case with the initial view. If you move the camera around, and especially if you rotate it, the axis that will make the object go further away or closer to the camera will change.)

So, let’s say you want the object to fly in from the bottom left corner toward the center. If you drag the object on the x and y axis to the corner and then drag the z value to a minus range, the object will come closer to the camera and out of the frame. You can put your beginning position keyframe there. Then move forward in time and change the z axis position value only to a large positive number, say 10000 (keyframe). Now when you preview this, the object will fly in like it would in “real life” rapidly past the 3D camera and slowing down into distance in real perspective.

You don’t have to have a moving camera to utilize the 3D properties in AE. You just need some 3D layers and a camera. AND you can have 2D layers in the same comp, so if you have a background (footage or image) that you don’t want to be affected by the camera, leave the layer 2D.

Obviously there is much more to this, but that’s the basic concept.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Making the layer 3D and adding a camera would be my answer. Then you don’t need to scale it but move it in space and the camera perspective will take care of the rest.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

I don’t know that you wouldn’t be able to stabilize it with a single tracker point at the corner of the building and then add pan back in.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

If you attach the hat on a stick and make it “dance” that way, as opposed to having the hat on a dancer’s head, you’ll have much less manual work ahead of you. If you paint the stick green and light it well, you may even be able to keylight the whole thing.

Once you have the basic motion, you can add more motion with audio-to-keyframes if need be.

—

Alternatives include getting a 3D model of a hat and animating it with C4D or Element 3D.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

And then a second, more sensible idea:

1) Create the whole field of spheres and mask it so there is only one sphere in the middle showing in the beginning.

2) Create a hole row of spheres and mask it so there is only one sphere showing. (Precomp and) duplicate.

3) Animate the first move with the two masked rows and animate the mask for the field to reveal two more balls at the end of the animation.

4) Rotate the two rows 90 degrees, animate the mask so that three balls are showing, place appropriately for next animation.

5) Repeat steps 3 and 4, animating masks and flipping between horizontal and vertical until screen is filled.

This way you only need three layers and animated masks to do the whole lot.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

If you can settle for pushing the new spheres from the center line rather than the edges, you can stack mirror effects one on top of the other, as in the attached. Don’t know if it will choke at some point due to number of effects, but at least it might be less tedious an approach.

9469_mirrorball.aep.zip

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

You want to tie the scale, position and opacity to the x position of the layer/precomp with expressions.

The real trick is keeping the distances between the objects as one scales up, which is why you have to create an offset to keep the other layers away from the center until they come close enough to it to start to scale.

I did a comp where the shape layer was 100 x 100 pixels and used these expressions.

For scale:

location = transform.position;
distance = Math.abs(location[0]-thisComp.width/2);
if (distance<1){distance=1};
layer_scale = 100;
if (distance<500 && distance>100){layer_scale = 100+(500-distance)*(9/4)}; // scale goes from 100 to 1000 in 400 pixels
if (distance<=100){layer_scale=1000};
[layer_scale,layer_scale]


for position:

x_location = index * 150 + time *100;
y_location = transform.position[1];
distance = x_location-thisComp.width/2;
if (distance<0){sign=-1}else{sign=1};
distance = Math.abs(distance);
offset = 400;
if (distance<100 && distance>50){offset = 400-(100-distance)*8};//offset goes from 400 to 0 in 50 pixels
if (distance<=50){offset = 0};
[x_location+offset*sign, y_location]

for opacity:

50+transform.scale[0]/20 // opacity 55 when scale is 100%, 100 when scale is 1000%

I used time and layer index for the horizontal position, so it doesn’t have to be animated by hand. (Add an initial offset to left for the x_location to fit a longer row of items.)

When you copy the solid, other layers are automatically offset 150 pixels to the right, so you can duplicate this as many times as needed.

To make this flexible with sliders, layer sizes etc. would be significantly more work, so I’ll leave the modifications up to you. The basics are there.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Main problem was that your Wave Speed was set to 0.55, not 0.5, so it didn’t match to Math.PI frequency.

If you move to a spot where the waves are high and adjust the Phase one way of the other to the point where the ball will align to the wave, it will either work or will be exactly half a rotation off.

I’m sure there is some formula that can be worked out, but it is easier to just move the Phase.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

You’d need Particular — several instances thereof — to get anywhere near that in After Effects. Although I suspect that effect has been generated programmatically, perhaps with Processing.

This has bit of the same feel (Processing):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8yhQCdhLvg

Or this (Particular):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvDt87G-fS0

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[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

To clarify, are you trying to just fade an object it once it reaches a specific x location?

Or are you also trying to start an animation that is kept “frozen” to frame 1 until you reach a specific x location?