Polar coordinates

Polar coordinates

by Timothy Chew

on Apr 12, 2010 at 9:55:18 pm

Hi there,

I'm attempting to recreate this effect in AE with footage-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/snarfo/119870372/

I rotate the footage 180 degrees and increase the interpolation, but unlike PS, AE bends the footage "inwards" on itself, rather than "outwards" to achieve the globe effect. I apologize for the non-technical language :).

Would greatly appreciate any suggestions or solutions, it could very well be something totally simple!

Re: Polar coordinates

by Steve Roberts

on Apr 12, 2010 at 10:23:51 pm

Have you tried turning the image upside down first? Try applying distort>transform first, to rotate it 180 degrees.

Re: Polar coordinates

by Timothy Chew

on Apr 12, 2010 at 10:54:26 pm

Steve,
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, that is where I am stumped. Rotating the image 180 degrees in PS works but not in AE.

-Tim

Re: Polar coordinates

by Darby Edelen

on Apr 12, 2010 at 11:32:05 pm

[Timothy Chew] "Thanks for the reply. Yeah, that is where I am stumped. Rotating the image 180 degrees in PS works but not in AE."

That's because in PS you rasterize the image as rotated 180° and then apply the Polar Coordinates function. After Effects will apply the Polar Coordinates effect and then apply the Transforms/Rotation. It's an order of operations problem.

You either need to pre-compose your layer, rotate it 180° in the pre-comp and apply Polar Coordinates to the pre-comp.

Or, as Steve suggested, apply a Distort > Transform effect above the Polar Coordinates effect and set the rotation to 180° in the Transform effect properties.

Either of these will work.

Darby Edelen

Re: Polar coordinates

by Steve Roberts

on Apr 13, 2010 at 1:14:32 am

"Above" ... "first" ... same thing, but redundancy is good.
Timothy! Read my post again! :-)

Effect>distort>transform is soooo useful. For example, if you want to flop a layer but still be able to scale it up or down normally, use the aforementioned effect to scale x to -100, Y to 100. Then you can scale normally with abandon.