Animating a Map

Good morning!
Does anyone know a quick and easy way to animate a map in FCP? I want to do an old fashioned "they traveled from NY to Miami" sort of thing where a line moves across the map. If it looks "retro" all the better! Is this possible in FCP, or do I need to take an After Effects class?
Thanks in advance!
nadia

Lyric's drawing tools make this easy. There are others but off the top of my head I can't remember.

[www.lyric.com]

Michael Horton
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"Quick & easy usually means cheesy" is a saying I started using many years ago.

There are many ways to accomplish this...it all depends how fancy you want to get. Off the top of my head, I would do this in Z-Space in After Effects by adding a Camera & lights. I would animate the line floating slightly above the map with a light or 2 creating a subtle drop shadow on the map below and animate the camera to follow to it's destination.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Thanks so much for the hints! Actually, in this case, "cheesy" might be just what I'm looking for (I was thinking of the maps in Frank Capra's Why We Fight).
I'll try your suggestions.
nadia

> Actually, in this case, "cheesy" might be just what I'm looking for

Could be! After all, this is a bit of a dated device. But you should make sure you have the right creative personnel and tools to make it look deliberately cheesy. Cheesy with style. FCP isn't really optimal for this kind of work.


www.derekmok.com

Here's a simple way.

1. Export a freeze frame of your map and open this in Photoshop.
2. Draw the line you want to happen in the animation on a new layer.
3. Delete the 'map' layer so you just have the line on a clear background.
4. Import the 'line' .psd into FCP.
5. Put the .psd on V2 above your map.
6. Go to the first frame of the section you want to animate.
7. Use the crop tools to completely hide the line. Add a keyframe.
8. Go to the last frame that you want the animation to happen over.
9. Use the crop tools to completely uncover the line. Add another keyframe.
10. Render.

Why not use Motion? Use it with the Replicator, as per this tutorial from Motion Smarts: [www.motionsmarts.com]
and it'll look nice and dandy.

Nice one, james.

If you have Motion 3, just draw a path and animate it's start to finish, couldn't easier. Especially nice with all the line controls you have now....


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