Wedding Slideshow 'Blooming Pictures'
by Greg Werner
on
Apr 27, 2009 at 10:04:56 pm
I'm a first-time poster so I apologize in advance if I'm breaking any forum etiquitte by just posting a broad question out of the blue but I have little to no experience in AE and I'm battling against the clock to make a wedding video and I have nowhere else to go ^_^;
Most of my video work has been realized through a 'casual-user' level of experience with Premiere Pro (CS3) but there's an effect I'd like to accomplish that I think only AE(CS4) can help create and I have no idea how to make it a reality.
I'd like to make an effect where a series of red slanted forward rectangles (that appear shaded by a light source from above), arranged in a ring, circle and scale up while slanting backwards to reveal pictures on their reverse sides. While they scale up and the space in the middle of the ring grows larger, I'd like another set to come up from the middle of them repeating the effect (possibly circling in the opposite direction) so it appears like a rose blooming into pictures.
Here are my 10-second-drawn renditions of the idea:
From what I've seen done with AE this seems doable HOWEVER I have no idea where to begin and without much time I'm sweating bullets. I don't expect anyone to design my video for me however, if you could suggest some specific ideas or perhaps tutorials that deal specifically with a similar style or template I would be grateful. Thank you very much!
It might work. if not, you will have to buy a plugin like trapcode echospace or find a null script in the script forums.
You could probably do it by hand. Make the squares as presized 3-d precomps, parent them to a null, rotate that null and animate the transforms. Then use that spiral effect.
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/921684#921688
If you set up the precomps just right, they will auto refresh all the pictures setup in a timeline loading in new picture flower pedals.
Re: Wedding Slideshow 'Blooming Pictures' by Greg Werner on Apr 28, 2009 at 12:36:40 am
Thank you for your reply!
I'm interested in the method you suggested, however, I don't know what it means. Any basic tutorials you might suggest that deal with what you described? I'm looking myself but not knowing anything about AE I'm simply not familiar with the appropriate terminology and what I should be looking for.
Re: Wedding Slideshow 'Blooming Pictures' by Chris Wright on Apr 28, 2009 at 7:12:41 am
I can't think of any one particular tutorial that will give you enough information to become broadly proficent in AE overnight. Read the books Motion graphics design studio founded by Trish and Chris Meyer on After Effects vol. 1 & 2.
Instead, I have uploaded a basic 3-d opening flower template that you can tweak to your liking. You might learn a few things.
Notice the loopouts, they give you infinite cycles of animation and you can load as many pictures as you want onto the the pedals.
Replace placeholder with your pictures and rose_bg for pedal texture of your choosing.
Re: Wedding Slideshow 'Blooming Pictures' by Greg Werner on Apr 28, 2009 at 10:12:28 am
Holy...What did I do to deserve that? It's amazing! What do I owe you? I have much to learn but I'm going to play with it and see what I can garner from it! I'll be sure to send you the final product! You're the MAN!
Re: Wedding Slideshow 'Blooming Pictures' by Greg Werner on Apr 28, 2009 at 1:12:28 pm
Wow! I've tinkered the template for a few hours with my limited AE knowledge and was able to figure out how to replace the rose 'back' and add the picture!
You've done so much I feel bad keeping up with the newb questions but if you don't mind...
The picture I add seems to be sized incorrectly so do you know where in AE I can find the Solid dimensions so I can find what size I should make the photo(s) in Photoshop?
I was also wondering how to handle the Replace option to make different pictures in each for every ring. Do I simply Duplicate the solid multiple times, change it to a Placeholder and Replace with my images one by one?
Re: Wedding Slideshow 'Blooming Pictures' by Chris Wright on Apr 28, 2009 at 8:18:42 pm
The comps are set 720x480 square pixel, the usual size for digital camera photos outputed to a fullscreen dvd. You can reset project for Blueray HD if you want at 1920x1080.
Simply bicubic resize in photoshop to 720x480 square. If you keep the loopout in precomp pictures, it will use that for the source of all rings continuously updated. Lay pictures down one after another, or export them from premiere as an avi slideshow. Scrub precomp pictures composition to see how it works.
If you don't want the 3 rings to have the same source, duplicate precomp pictures, rename it, place it in a ring comp and copy/paste transform and parent information for each new pedal/precomp.
Re: Wedding Slideshow 'Blooming Pictures' by Greg Werner on Apr 29, 2009 at 2:16:11 am
I'm getting closer! Thank you for the size info, the preview looks remarkable!
Stumbling with adding a new picture to each ring though. Here's what I've been doing.
1. Duplicate precomp pictures and call it 'precomp pictures 2'.
2. I assume I need a new REPLACE YOUR PICTURES HERE for the precomp so I duplicate that (REPLACE YOUR PICTURES HERE 2) and add a new picture.
3. Open precomp pictures 2 in Timeline Panel and add RYPH2, check 3D-Layer, then change the Parent info for rose and Red Solid 1 to RYPH2.
4. Before deleting it, I twirl down RYPH, highlight Transform, Edit->Copy, highlight RYPH2, twirl down, highlight Transform, Edit->Paste.
At this point I get something quite strange so I'm slipping up somewhere. BUT hypothetically if that worked, at that point I would simply open the main rings composition and replace any of the precomp pictures with precomp pictures 2, then copy and paste Transform as well as change parent info to Null 1, correct?
Re: Wedding Slideshow 'Blooming Pictures' by Chris Wright on Apr 29, 2009 at 3:45:46 am
I think you're getting the parenting mixed up. The actual movement of the pedals comes from the looped keyframed rotation of "replace pictures here" and anything that is parented to that, also rotates.
The Null1 is an invisible square that rotates and anything parented to it spins on it's invisible pinwheel arms, like the milky way galaxy. Make small changes and preview, not big ones and get lost in the errors.
