any way to wrap a 2D atlas around a 3D globe in After Effects???

N

Nicholas Natteau

Veteran
I have 2D atlas of the world that I created in Illustrator CS5 and brought into AE CS5.

I'd like to wrap the map around a globe. Can I do this AE CS 5?

I believe it's possible in Photoshop, but I don't want to use Photoshop CS5 for this as I'm working with a vector map.

Thanks very in much in advance.
 
Thanks again PDR. But is this an additional plug-in??? I can't find it in my AE program? Is this an add-on/optional plug-in for AE CS5 ???
 
OK still can't find it. Looking through all the menus. I thought it would be in the Effects section, but haven't found it yet, still looking. I think I understand what may be going on. I'm using an evaluation of AE CS5.5. Perhaps not all the plug-ins are there? Because I typed in "CC SPhere" under presets and nothing came up.
 
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in the effects search box type cc sphere and it should show up

if this is a demo version, some effects / presets / settings/ export formats might not be available until you purchase and register it
 
HI PDR,

Sorry to bother you again but having applied the sphere, I notice that when I zoom in on my globe, the states on the globe map get all pixelated even after clicking the "continuously rasterize" button in the timeline. Any idea what could be going on here?
 
Sorry PDR,

I meant blurry edges. This time everything in the map is blurry when it's applied to the globe. IS it the case then that when you wrap a map around a sphere, zooming in causes everything to become blurry? Is so it's a real shame.

If zooming in on a 2D vector map causes no blurriness at all when you have the continuously rasterize button checked, why would it be different when wrapping the vector map to a sphere? I hope it's something I'm missing.
 
Not sure...

Did some quick tests and it seems to work ok here on an .ai vector, the scale is a bit different with the continuously raterize switch on, but it's a lot sharper/clearer with it on

But I couldn't replicate your other problem either (with the stencil luma reveal)


Do you have your preview quality at full ?
 
Hi PDR,

Yes I do have it at full quality. Just so have this right, to dolly/zoom in on my globe, do I not apply a "camera" and zoom in with the camera?

Here are the states/countries on the globe all with blurry edges despite the "continuously rasterize" option selected:

http://gallery.me.com/nn00#100024
 
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Nicholas Natteau said:
Hi PDR,

Yes I do have it at full quality. Just so have this right, to dolly/zoom in on my globe, do I not apply a "camera" and zoom in with the camera?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what you're trying to do, but it's not a 3D plugin. There are some tutorials to simulate this using expressions and linking to camera. Search Google for CC Sphere and 3D


Here are the states/countries on the globe all with blurry edges despite the "continuously rasterize" option selected:

http://gallery.me.com/nn00#100024
Click to expand...



I'm not sure if I can see the blurry edges but I'll take your word for it. But they look ok in that screenshot
 
Hi PDR,

You need to actually download the image "globe blurry edges" to really see how blurry the borders are. This doesn't happen when the map is 2D or not wrapped around the sphere. The borders remain tack sharp, no matter how far you zoom in/dolly in or scale up. But unfortunately, with CC SPhere applied, there seems to be no way for the "continuously rasterize" to work. Not sure why.
 
scale the vector layer up. You may have to adjust some of the other paramaters of cc sphere to accomodate

I'm not sure what you are planning to do with camera moves and such, but this isn't real 3D. You're limited in what you can do. You might consider using a real 3D program (e.g. 3DSMax or Cinema4d)
 
I tried doing this a year or two ago (using CS4), and it wasn't possible to wrap a vector around a globe and zoom in. I tried combinations of AI, AE, PS, and even PP to no avail. I tried CC Sphere, the 3d sphere in PS, blowing it up to 5000% before "sphere-ing" it (crashing AE numerous times), only to get the same stinking stupid looking globe that only showed a part of Africa no matter how it was rendered. I have a post on dvxuser (somewhere), creativecow, dvinfo, videocopilot, and maybe a few other sites asking how. So, I'm not sure about 5.5, but with CS4, making a globe with a vector and keeping the vector information... IT'S. NOT. POSSIBLE.
 
Thanks Hawk. Just heard the same from several other forums as well. Is there no paid 3d plugin for AE that can do this. If not I'll stick to 2D then.
Studio 3dS at 4,995 is way out of my budget.

PDR, do you know if Cinema 4D has a steep learning curve? If so I'll stick to 2d for my map.
 
Nicholas Natteau said:
Sorry PDR,

I meant blurry edges. This time everything in the map is blurry when it's applied to the globe. IS it the case then that when you wrap a map around a sphere, zooming in causes everything to become blurry? Is so it's a real shame.

If zooming in on a 2D vector map causes no blurriness at all when you have the continuously rasterize button checked, why would it be different when wrapping the vector map to a sphere? I hope it's something I'm missing.
Click to expand...

Don't know if this is any use to you... but you can't map a flat surface to a sphere without stretching, or tearing. Don't know how the effect function works. If it is a simplistic sort. The perhaps you don't have the resolution in your image to cover the sphere at a reasonable resolution.

A Mercator projection of a sphere, as in ordinary flat world map, does not represent accurate 'distances' for given latitudes. That is one inch near the north pole going across the map, is not the same distance as one inch at the equator.
 
Nicholas Natteau said:
Thanks Hawk. Just heard the same from several other forums as well. Is there no paid 3d plugin for AE that can do this. If not I'll stick to 2D then.
Studio 3dS at 4,995 is way out of my budget.

PDR, do you know if Cinema 4D has a steep learning curve? If so I'll stick to 2d for my map.
Click to expand...

You might try using Blender, a free 3d modeling program, and UV mapping of your 'flat' image file onto a Sphere mesh object. You can also animate the sphere, and with an alpha channel mask, bring it into AE.
 
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