Spatially smoothing Position Curves
by Chris Arnold
on
Sep 22, 2009 at 9:26:16 pm
I am more of a 3d guy using Cinema 4D, but I'm doing a project for what I thought would be easier in After Effects. So I animated a 3D layer in after effects with linear keyframes, the Animation being about 2 minutes long. Then I went back and did another pass to adjust the temporal keyframes to how I needed them to sit. Then I went back for a third pass, spatially interpreting the keyframes in order to get a nice smooth motion of the layer.
Now in C4D if I was to grab a spline and select all the points and smooth them I would get a super clean motion path, but in After Effects, selecting all the points and setting them to "continuous bezier" or "auto bezier" gives an ugly result. All the curves in the front and top view stretch so far beyond the next keyframe for keyframes that are close together. I need to do 5 more animations like this and I just don't have the time to adjust individually all the curves in 3D space. Is there an easier way, or perhaps a script I can implement?
Re: Spatially smoothing Position Curves by Chris Arnold on Sep 23, 2009 at 1:35:32 pm
Yes, thanks for that post, it is the Boomerang effect that I am dealing with here. Unfortunately Aharon Rabinowitz gives 2 results, one being using hold keyframes when you have two keyframes with the same position, and the other, setting interpretation to Linear for when the position moves on a straight line. Both are great solves but don't touch on a continuous non-linear motion.
Re: Spatially smoothing Position Curves by Chris Arnold on Sep 23, 2009 at 2:21:45 pm
The issue I have is a 3D comp with close to a hundred keyframes, and it's super difficult to adjust the bezier curves in the different 3D views in AE. Would take a long time, though it's possible, it would be great if there was a "spatial" easing script out there. I did find this script, but it seems to be only a "temporal" ease.
