On the Road to Delhi
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Step 6: With the Triangle layer selected, press the P key on your keyboard to bring up the Position Property for the layer. Paste (Command+V or Control+V) the Mask Shape to the Position Property. Here is what should happen; all of the mask control points will be translated to Position keyframes. The first and last keyframes will be regular keyframes, while all of the keyframes in between are roving keyframes.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]Roving keyframes are keyframes that are not linked to a specific moment in time, but rather are used to help create smooth movement over several keyframes at once. Because roving keyframes are not time specific speed and timing is determined by adjacent keyframes. In this case, the speed and timing is related to the first and last keyframes for the Position Property.

The only problem we have right now, is that the motion is very short. We can fix that by expanding the keyframes.

Step 7: Make sure all of the keyframes are selected for the Position layer. HINT: You can select all of the keyframes for a property by clicking on the property name. Hold down the Option key on the Mac or the Alt key on the PC and click and drag the last position keyframe to the end of the Timeline.



TIP: Is your triangle facing the wrong direction? A quick fix is to use a negative Scale on the Triangle layer to flip it over.
Step 8: If you make a RAM Preview, you will see the triangle move from one destination to the next in one smooth continuous motion. Again, another problem arises as the triangle is still facing a single direction. It would be better if triangle would point toward the next destination.

This can be done by aligning the layer to the path. With the Triangle layer selected in the Timeline, go to Layer>Transform>Auto Orient.



When the Auto Orient window pops up, turn on Orient Along Path.



Make another RAM Preview, and you will see the triangle acting as it should.

Step 9: Finally, we need to create the trailing line for this animation. With the Map layer selected, apply the Stroke effect to the layer. Set the Path to Mask 1, and change the Color and Size to match your triangle.



The only thing you need to do now is create an initial keyframe for the End amount and set the value to 0%. Move to the end of the Timeline and change the End value amount to 100%.

Make another RAM Preview and admire the results.



With the animation set up, we can now animate the map movement.

Step 10: Create a New Composition that corresponds to the aspect ratio of your final output.

Step 11: Nest the Map Composition to this new composition by dragging the Map Comp from the Project window to the Comp Window.

Step 12: If you need to scale the map layer up. Realize that this will degrade your image. It is probably a good idea if your initial map and triangle images were created to be larger than the final comps size.

Step 13: Create Position keyframes for the Map Comp layer that keeps the triangle and tip of the stroked path near the center of your composition.





You can download the project and files in sit format by clicking here.

As a final touch, you may wish to add additional layers with images of the locations your hero is traveling through. Use a soft mask on these additional layers and composite them on top of the map. With this exercise complete you now have the means to show your traveler getting from here to there.


When not working deep in the labs of the DMN Central Division testing the latest and greatest software/hardware products Stephen Schleicher can be found at the local university teaching a few courses on video and web production. He can be reached at schleicher@mindspring.com. You can also visit him on the web at www.mindspring.com/~schleicher





Source: Digital Media Online, Inc.
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