Spin, Shrink, Move Question

briggs wrote on 4/2/2002, 8:19 AM

This is really a two part question.

First the easy part: When you want to spin a video scene (around its center point) and do maybe 3 or 4 full 360 degree revolutions, what's the best way to do this? Track motion or Event Pan/Crop? Keyframe the motion at 90 degree intervals? 45 degree? Is there an easier way to do this with maybe only a few key frames or using some plug-in?

Here's the rest of the question...

I'd like to be able to have a shot start at full screen and end up reduced to about 1/6 the screen, located in the bottom left corner of the screen. The motion would be to reduce, spin counterclockwise, and move toward the lower left all at the same time. Has anyone done something like this successfully? What steps did you follow?

Thanks!

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 4/2/2002, 10:45 AM

I'll admit up front that i'm biased toward pan/crop. I just haven't gotten the hang of track motion yet. On the other hand, i'm a very analytic and number oriented person and i like being able to type in exactly the parameters i want to use, and pan/crop excels at this. Track motion is too organic and artsy for me. ;)

If you want the frame to rotate 4 times, in pan/crop add a key frame to the end of the event and set the rotation to 1440 degrees (4 x 360). if you want it to rotate the other way, set it to -1440. It's really that easy. Something to keep in mind though, as the image rotates, it won't completely fill the frame. If you want to have the frame completely filled, you'll have to crop in somewhat so that the narrowest part of the image (top to bottom) will fill the longest dimension of the frame (the diagonal).

For the effect you described, you can combine the same rotation mentioned above with a "negative" crop at the keyframe at the end of the event. Stretch the cropping rectangle out so that it is 6 times larger than the image, and slide it until the image is in the desired corner. The image will then shrink, rotate, and travel to that corner simultaneously.

briggs wrote on 4/2/2002, 4:11 PM

Thanks! Worked great.

The only other thing I had to do to that keyframe was reposition the center point, since I wanted the track to continue to spin around its own center point.

Chienworks wrote on 4/2/2002, 7:41 PM

Ahhh. Good point. And i overlooked it. Oops. But at least you can feel majorly proud for finding that one yourself :)

osiase wrote on 4/11/2002, 6:16 PM

I can't find rotation field in the Event Pan/Crop window. Are you talking about Angle? or is there a rotation field hidden somewhere?

Chienworks wrote on 4/11/2002, 8:52 PM

Yes, Angle is what you're looking for.