First Big project in 3d

CaptainMench

CaptainMench

Carbonite Member
http://homepage.mac.com/captmench/Comp6.mov

I've been building this for the last few hours. Seems to be going well -- I wasn't sure what to do, but I think I have the technique down.

Few questions:

1) How would I go about to extrude, or give some depth to the photos.
2) There are a few anoying whip turns and stuff that i just can't find why, how would I smooth them?
3) I tied the camera to a null object then moved the object with changing the point of interest on the camera. Is that the best way? Because sometimes I had to change the orientation of the null to get the camera into position.

4) Really, I guess the biggest question is how to animate the smoothest camera moves?

IF -- IF you want, I posted the .aep on my website for download...

http://homepage.mac.com/captmench -- it's called CameraMove

Thanks --

CaptM
 
As much as After Effects tries to simulate 3-D space it's still a 2 dimensional program. For photos like that you might be able to get away with putting a small bevel on them to give them some depth, might look cheesy though. You have a lot movement which is hard to get right, it takes time and trial by error to get that down. You might me better off just moving past the photos instead of having them on a plane that your trying to zoom all over. That would be tough for anyone to get right. And yes, parenting your layers to a null layer is usually the best way to get controll over all of them easily. If you really want the 3-d look in After effects I would suggest getting the 3-d invigorator plug-in from Zaxwerks. You can import illustrator files and add depth to them with ease, it's a little pricey though.
 
Hey Cap'n ;)

I wasn't able to download your clip to check it out yet (i'm on a slooooow dialup in the hospital).
But, to smooth out camera moves, explore and play around with keyframe interpolation and easing. (continuous bezier vs roaming, etc). This will give you a more "human" smooth feeling to your moves instead of a real "sterile" jerky type. Not saying yours is like that, as I haven't seen it yet, but just putting it out there..

I'm working on 3D stuff in AE right now, using alot of camera moves... I'll upload a clip once i'm back to a real connection...
 
Thanks Kai -

Yeah -- I've been messing with three techniques and all have their problems. First was simply moving the camera, second parenting it to a null and moving the null and third was locking the camera and moving the pre-comp of everything else.

The problem I'm finding is not even when you put the easing on a keyframe all that does is make the rubberband bend up more and there is still a 'point' at the bottom. That's where I get my jerk from.... (did I just say that??)

So -- I was trying to lock myself to 30 seconds, but that just makes some of the path too fast. I'll try using 60 just to see how slow I have to go to get some nice smooth camera transitions.

I'm imagining the scene from Kill Bill in the food place just before she gets jumped by the 88s. That sense of camera goes anywhere. I can see the crane in my head and I can move my hand, but it's a combination of the crane move plus the pan of the camera. That's why I chose to tie it to the null... I can move the crane "null" and still pan the camera... that was the technique I used in comp7.

http://homepage.mac.com/captmench/Comp7.mov

CaptM
 
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