Animated map in FCP?

Hi all,

how can you do these animated maps, where the travel path is traced in a colored line? I imagine it can't be done in FCP, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Thanks,
Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

motion or after effects

-andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Before Joey chimes in, here's a little tutorial on how to generate a simple path and animate handwriting in AE. You can probably get some ideas along those lines.

[www.videocopilot.net]



www.strypesinpost.com

I'm afraid AE is not an option, but I'll take a look and see what I can find in Motion.

Thanks,
Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

Build a bright map path against black in Photoshop, aligned to the map graphic, export a TIFF RGB, import to FCP, and it should key over your map.

Layered over the map, apply an 8-point garbage matte to the path graphic and set it to disclose the path over time using two or more keyframes.

HTH

- lsm

There are plugins that do this from Noise Industries and probably more. For FCP X





Michael Horton
-------------------

Very decent demo, Mike. Of course I would have retained the RED over brown and black, and would have pulled OUT from the origin to the whole traverse- you know, the right way to tell the story. But otherwise, nifty.

If you happen to be in FCPX.

- lsm

Thanks Loren, excellent idea!

Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

Good luck. Post the result!

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
To reposition a Marker press Command and drag it!

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide™ Power Pack
with FCP7 KeyGuide --
now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

So I've done a quick test which looks promising and gives me a chance to brush up on my bezier curve skills :-)

How do I post this? Do I need to upload to my web space and link or can I attach it here somehow?

Thanks,
Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

That is the easiest way.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Ok, here it is:

[www.root-studio.com]

This link will probably break sooner or later, but it'll be good for a while.

Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

The line is way too light. Had to play it a few times to find it. It needs to be a bright color in contrast to the map (which is why most people use bright RED)

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Actually, it was bright yellow, but I forgot to make the bgcolor black, so I just inverted and chose add in composite mode. It's just a test to see if tracing actually works the way I had planned it. Of course, the real map will have proper contrast. Working on it now...

I'm creating my map in 300 dpi, but presumably I should be converting to 72dpi and 1920x1080 before I import in FCP, right?

Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

One (hopefully) last question on this topic. I think it looks great if you can slightly zoom in on a map point, then zoom out and do the tracing animation. This poses the question on the resolution of the image though.

I thought of trimming my map to 1920x1080, but if I then zoom in using the motion tab, I'll likely end up with a jaggy map. Is there any penalty of just using my original image resolution of 300 dpi. That would give me plenty of headroom for zooming. What are your thoughts?

Thanks,
Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

> I thought of trimming my map to 1920x1080, but if I then zoom in using the motion tab, I'll likely end up with a jaggy map. Is there any penalty of just
> using my original image resolution of 300 dpi.

A higher dpi means absolutely nothing in video land.

Ppi (pixels per inch) only matters when you are scanning and dpi (dots per inch) only matters when you're printing. When scanning, ppi determines how many pixels are assigned to represent each inch of image. Photoshop seems to call this setting "dpi" regardless, which results in some confusion.

Right now, the only thing increasing the dpi value of the image file will do is slow down your computer. Even if you had chosen a lower dpi at some point without changing the pixel count back to what it should have been, changing the number back doesn't get you back the pixel information lost when you told the software to get rid of the pixels.

The only thing a higher dpi can do for you is if your original image was scanned at too low a dpi (resulting in fewer pixels assigned to every inch of the image). Re-scanning it at a higher ppi will generate a larger file and more pixels.


www.derekmok.com

Derek, I can follow what you say, but I'm still confused. Here's what I think and please let me know where I'm wrong or not:

If I increase the scanning resolution, I end up with a larger image size because the image contains more pixels.

If my scan contains just enough pixels to fill the 1920x1080 frame and I want to zoom in, I need to scale up and the image becomes jaggy.

If I have more pixels than can fit in a 1920x1080 video frame and I want to display the entire image, it needs to be scaled down. That should be no appreciable loss of quality.

Scaling down means I can zoom in without sacrificing image quality until the image size becomes 100%.

Assuming the above is correct, is there a formula to find out the ideal image size? Trial and error? Educated guess?

BTW, even though I have scanned the map (at 300 ppi), I'm redrawing it using drawing tools on a semi-opaque layer, because I don't like the original map's layout, colors, background, etc.

Thanks,
Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

> Scaling down means I can zoom in without sacrificing image quality until the image size becomes 100%.
> Assuming the above is correct, is there a formula to find out the ideal image size? Trial and error? Educated guess?

No...how much are you zooming in? Two hundred per cent? Three hundred?
If your Sequence frame size is 1920x1080 and you're zooming into an image by 200 per cent, then you need an image that's at least 3840x2160 pixels. Doesn't matter what the ppi/dpi is.


www.derekmok.com

Stefan,

It's quite easy. As Derek explained for (most) video apps only the amount of pixels matter. So do the scan with a dpi setting which matches your zoom factor.
You also can download my free app to help.
[www.spherico.de]

-Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

@Derek - Ok, I don't know ahead of time how much I want to zoom in until I try, but once I know I can always go back and adjust the size. Problem solved!

Thanks,
Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

Andreas Kiel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Stefan,
>
> It's quite easy. As Derek explained for (most)
> video apps only the amount of pixels matter. So do
> the scan with a dpi setting which matches your
> zoom factor.
> You also can download my free app to help.
> [www.spherico.de]
> ml
>
> -Andreas


Thanks, I'll check out your app.

Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

> So do the scan with a dpi setting which matches your zoom factor.

I disagree with Andreas on this one. In my opinion, when you scan images, you should do it as large as possible -- as large as your equipment and storage space allow. Because when you scan images, you are not just prepping them for video -- you will often be using the same images for print (eg. the artwork, the poster) and other purposes which require much bigger images, and scanning is such a slow, manual process that you don't want to do it twice.

So, scan them big. Really big. Print-media big. Then make a copy with a new name (but one that's related to the original name) and reduce the size (and dpi/ppi) to what you need in video, and at 72dpi. Doing it this way allows you flexibility. If you find you need to zoom in more than anticipated, for example, all you need to do is go back to the original scan and do another resave at a larger size.


www.derekmok.com

Derek's approach is a kind of multi usage approach. If the scan is for that reason he is totally right.
In any case you can use the little app to calculate the dimensions of the copy fur usage in FCP or similar.

-Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

derekmok Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Then make a copy with a new name (but one that's
> related to the original name) and reduce the size
> (and dpi/ppi) to what you need in video, and at
> 72dpi.

Why 72 dpi? I thought I just learned that there is no dpi in video. Is that for faster drawing on screen?

Thanks,
Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

> Why 72 dpi? I thought I just learned that there is no dpi in video. Is that for faster drawing on screen?

I explained it in a post above.


www.derekmok.com

The 72ppi/dpi may have been an issue years ago, but you can easily do a test by saving the image with an extremely high ppi, say around 50,000 ppi and another at 1ppi (or you can try 72) with the frame size the same for both. I doubt you will see a performance degeneration with high ppi. At least not when I tried it.

72ppi was the screen resolution of Mac displays a couple of decades ago and was used to set typography standards. It has no relevance today anymore.



www.strypesinpost.com

Stefan -

The mapline will look great in bright green or yellow-- I'd stay away form red; I know it's less of an issue than it used to be, but old habits die hard.

If you're scanning, the language is DPI and quite relevant. If building a graphic image in Photoshop, PPI is the language. Both end up in PPI space.

The system I developed for intelligent scanning of photos and intelligent resolution in graphics based on your enlargement needs avoids confusion, (ScanGuide Pro) but in FCP 6, which you appear to be using, you need to avoid anything approaching 4,000 pixels either X or Y. The graphic G-world is limited to that count (as in FCS3- FCP7).

Too many of these data-rich graphics in the timeline which approach 4K (like 3820 pixels width) can really corrupt your project. This is why folks use Motion or AE to animate maps which require zooms and export into the project's native format.

I go the ScanGuide route-- the reference table for the format I'm using tells me when a scan DPI (or a target PPI in Photoshop's Image Size dialog) approaches frame size danger dimensions. The advantage is-- no frame rescaling-- the frame stays at native format size. It's what you stuff into the frame which supports enlargement. In frame resizing, you end up scaling the image down to the project format which has the same effect as pixel stuffing.

Whatever floats your boat, they're both valid. I simply find frame rescaling of a graphic unwieldy. Many graphic veterans counsel creating your graphics at the size they're going to be displayed. By authoring them at a finer resolution you stuff more image data into the format rectangle and gain the ability to enlarge a section.

But it may be unnecessary. HD graphics are already data-rich-- there is notable "wiggle-room" where the A/V engine can invent pixels as you zoom in without notably softening the image.

So before PPI stuffing for more data (or re-dimensioning to a larger rectangle, which amounts to the same result) you should first experiment with what you can get away with!

It may be that 1920 X 1080 at 72 PPI will give you an acceptable 1 - 1.5X zoom-- possibly even a 2X zoom, thus helping you avoid stuffing it to 144 PPI, but I'd like to see this on a 40" monitor before blessing it. Everything looks spiffy on an iPhone screen.

Above all, observe graphic import limits. (Motion at last note offers safe import at up to 5K, Avid 5K, AE something ridiculously large.)

- Loren
Photo scan rates demystified!
ScanGuide™ Pro compact reference
available here in the Store.

I know I like to know what happens to problems that were discussed in forums and whether and how they were solved. As I'm getting close to wrapping up my map thing, I thought I'd show you the preliminary results.

Fiddling with garbarge mattes to hide unwanted path regions was getting out of hand, so instead I saved graphics for each distinct stage of the map in the timeline and used a simple keyframed crop to reveal the path over time. Lowtech alright, but suits my needs.

Here's the preview:
[www.root-studio.com]

Stefan

PS: I just noticed that a bit of the top got cut off - not sure why that is (not on my local copy), but you get the idea anyway.

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2

That came out nice and bright. I would start close as the first leg appears and gradually widen to include all of the land mass.

What is that country? Idaho? Rwanda? Albania? Israel after the two-state solution?

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytips:
Copy clip Attributes with Command-C
Paste selected Attributes with Option-V
Remove selected Attributes with Command-Option-V !

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide™ Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Good idea - yes, I'll be zooming in and out a little and also display the point of interest's name. I'd like the points that appear to start big and then pop into place. I'll probably do that in motion.

It's actually a lake (Lake Starnberg near where I live) and the line draws the route of the ferryboat.

Stefan

--
macpro 2x3 ghz dual core intel, 10.6.8, FCS 2