[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

If they are dirt on the lens, which is likely the case, they will be stationary, which does help matters.

It is a job for After Effects. You want to make an adjustment layer and draw masks (with feathered edges) that are the shape of those spots and add a Curve adjustment to push those areas darker. Levels may work as well if you find Curves difficult to manage.

What I would do first, however, would be a temporary adjustment layer that maximizes the visibility of the problem by making another adjustment layer with a Levels adjustment wherein I would darken the shadows and lighten the highlights until the problem spots were maximally visible, i.e. had maximum luminosity range from near black to near white within the spots. It doesn’t matter if the whites blow out and darks fill in in the overall image, as this would be a temporary adjustment. Then I would make the masked adjustments in another adjustment layer that is between the footage and the “maximize the problem” adjustment layer. This way you can dial in the correction better, and when done, remove or turn off the temporary top layer.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Hi Gary,

Here’s one way to achieve it (see attached project). I used an expression which takes the index number of the layer and a slider value and scales up the layers proportionally for one loop.

(I used your sample image, replace the missing image file with that.)

To make this into an actual tunnel image (not just a grid), construct the wall, floor and ceiling pieces that are within the first complete square in your image. Just the first section in is needed. You might want some overlap over the line, my mask is not pixel-perfect. Everything’s inside a precomp, as it was better to mask off a square section.

You can remove all layers except for the control layer and the bottom one, and when all set, duplicate the bottom layer as many times an needed to get an “infinite” tunnel.

To speed up or slow down, change the comp length and move the second keyframe for the slider to the end of the comp (or actually to one frame after the end of the comp).

9083_onepointperspective.aep.zip

The expression used for the layer scale is:

transform.scale*Math.pow(1.5,index)*thisComp.layer("Control").effect("Scale")("Slider")/100

Wherein 1.5 is the scale factor from one layer to the next, and there’s a Slider named “Scale” on a layer named “Control”

The slider animated from 4 to 6 (4 x 1.5 = 6, same as the scale factor between layers, for one full loop)

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

I would simply keyframe the null and copy/paste the position data to the keyframes. That way you retain control of timing and sequence. You can add a smooth expression to the null to make the camera move smoothly.

Any specific reason to do that differently?

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

… or you can use three versions of the title (hand-drawn, auto-traced) and circle between them.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Quite possibly the font has been incorrectly created by the font designer with wrong path winding.

Converting the type into paths should fix.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

I suspect that in order to get it to look like the camera is moving when zooming in, you will need to have a background that gets enlarged when the camera moves in. Then when the background is stationary and the object shrinks, it gives a clear differentiation between the two actions.

To make it seamless, the start frame of the zoom in and the end frame will need to look the same. It is probably easiest to do sort of a double zoom (camera zoom from the current position in AND a zoom from a far-away position to the current camera position) and blend between them during the zoom — you can get away with a lot with a fast zoom — so that you end up with the exact same background on the first and last frame.

You could also increase the motion blur shutter angle (if you haven’t already) to make the motion blur even more prominent. Composition settings>Advanced.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

Hi Max,

(In Illustrator) with path selected, Object>Envelope Distort>Make with Mesh, set columns and rows to 1. This will give you a single-square distortion area with bezier handles that you can use to warp it in or out.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

I guess not. Just tested this project on AECC2015, Windows 8.1, i7-4790 @ 3.60 GHz, 16 Gb RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980> gave me an estimated render time of around 3 hours!

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

I drew the lines in Illustrator. I only had to draw four (closed) shapes based on your reference (those shapes that go to the corners and the ones that are centered between them) then blend between them with the blend tool. I expanded the blends (which makes them actual paths) and then copied and pasted the lot as masks on a solid in AE.

In AE, the stroke effect can draw all masks, but it needed some expressions for the moving beginning and end points of the stroke. They are drawn in two sections that are 1/4 of the full length of the path. The expressions move the beginning and end points in relation to time so that it circles around. The final trick was that I needed to draw the paths in four pieces to account for the crossover point at 0/100%.

The result would be improved if the shape was drawn with one continuous line, not as separate shapes.

If you like the basic look, it can be applied to any path using the same setup with strokes, slider and expressions, it is mostly a matter of how to draw the shapes you want (with one continuous line preferably). The expression for the slider controls the speed at which the line travels. You’ll note that one beginning value and one end value for a stroke don’t need an expression, as they are always either 0 or 100 respectively.

[Kalleheikki Kannisto]

It almost worked 🙂

The problem was I didn’t draw it as one continuous shape, but as a sequence of separate shapes.

9043_helixoid0.aep.zip