Photo Mosaic & AE

[momoffduty]

I used this effect on 2 projects as endings and it was well liked. Made with AndreaMosaic & AE. Mashed up Ambient/Muvipix music a bit. Here is a sample using a family photo:

[Paul LS]

Cool... really surprizing when it pulls back.

[Steve Grisetti]

Wow, Cheryl! Another great piece!

[Peru]

Very nice.

[Dave McElderry]

Amazing stuff Cheryl!

[Chuck Engels]

That's Awesome !!!

[rusty]

Holy-moly, that's cool. Fantastic work!

[Jayell]

I agree with Paul. Amazing when you pull away from it. Nice stuff, as always, Cheryl!

[momoffduty]

Thanks! I'll type up my notes. When I researched this effect, I found tuts on using Card Dance. But, I didn't like that there wasn't much control and ended up using Card Wipe Transition. This took a little finessing and finally have a formula. The first time it took about 5 hours over 2 days running different numbers thru Andreas & AE. The numbers aren't exact for the slices, but found a work-around in AE.

[Bob]

Very nicely done!! Thanks for posting that!

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Thanks! I'll type up my notes. ...

...which I would really like to have a copy of, pretty please.

[momoffduty]

Thanks! I'll type up my notes. ...

...which I would really like to have a copy of, pretty please.

John, will get those posted later today. Ever since you used Andreamosaic for your contest entry, I have been wanting to try it out and was on my todo list for 2 years. I got sidetracked yesterday working on my church's website and will type of my notes today.

Thanks Bob! An alien family mosaic would look really cool.

[momoffduty]

Please add to this thread if you have any suggestions. Thanks.

Photo Mosaic & AE Card Wipe Transition


Prepare Photo

The photo size in the example is 1600x2000. A smaller photo can be used.
In earlier tests, I found that a photo’s size rounded to the nearest 100 works best. To round off for example, if a photo is 1678x2349 then drag it onto a new layer of 1600x2300 and some of the edges will be cut off. I did upsize a photo a bit without loss. In tests, I could not find an absolute size or ratio that worked best to have even slices, but a correction can be made in AE.

Copy the photo to a new project folder. I found that having all mosaic assets in one folder helped since that is where AndreaMosaic places your photo data base file and completed mosaic by default.

AndreaMosaic (See Screen Shot)

Add the photo and it will appear in the preview screen.
Mosaic Size: nnnn pixels: Change nnnn to the photo size, in the example 1600x2000.
(In an earlier project I did use a photo that was about 700x900 and I made the mosaic size 21/2 times larger)
Resolution: 100PPI
Tile Size: Select 30 tiles x row. Look at the preview & if there are partial rows &
columns, change the tiles by adding 1 or —1 to get the best even tiles & rows. In the
example were 32 tiles x row (which equals 32 columns & 55 rows)
Flip Vertically: Checked
Rotated 180°: Checked

The other settings were left at the default. Change any personal preferences. Make note of how many rows & columns were generated.

Select Tiles (bottom button) and in that window, add folders for the source archive.
Save Archive. An archive will be generated and then you will be asked to name & save.
(I saved mine in the Mosaic Project folder.) Now you are ready to create the Mosaic.
Close out that window.
Create Mosaic. A mosaic will be generated and placed in the same folder as your source
photo.


After Effects

Import source photo and mosaic photo.

Drag mosaic photo to create a new comp. The size should be the mosaic size and square pixels.
Rename the comp Mosaic. Select the source photo layer and Precomp.

In the Mosaic Comp, apply the Card Wipe Transition to the Precomp layer.

Card Wipe Transition Effects Panel:

Change the completion to 0.
Change rows & columns to equal the mosaic. The example was 32 Columns &
55 rows.
Open the Position Jitter. Change the X,Y&Z Jitter Speed to 0. Change the X & Y
Jitter Amounts to 1 (No Keyframes at this point, this is just to get the slicing
correct)

If the slices match the individual photos then skip the next part.

To align the slices, open up the Mosaic Precomp. Use a Mask to eliminate any partial rows. In the example the columns were even, but there was a partial row at the bottom that were a few pixels. (See Screen Shot)

It will be difficult to see in the monitor, so guess on placing the mask at the bottom of the photo. Change the Mask to Subtract. Zoom into the photo & use the Hand tool to see the bottom of the photo. Adjust the mask. Careful not to move the Position values of the photo!

Now the Mosaic photo is equal, but the PreComp is too large. The Card Wipe uses the transparent area in calculating the slicing. To fix this, make the PreComp smaller. Ctrl+K to change the PreComp size by a few pixels. When the height (or width) is changed for a Comp, pixels are taken off evenly from the top & bottom. Try to guess ½ of the amount of the masked area. Move the photo’s Y position down a few pixels. Use the Hand tool to look at the top of the photo in the comp and at the bottom. The comp has to be the exact (or close to) size of the masked photo.

The example project only had to have a few pixels taken off, but a previous project had ¾ of a row that needed to masked out. Switch between the Mosaic Comp & the PreComp to view slicing and adjust. This may take a few tries.

AndreaMosaic includes a partial row in the total. Change the row count in the Effects Panel. The example was changed to 54 rows.

Keyframe the Card Wipe (all easy ease F9) (see Screen Shot)

Position Jitter Amount for X & Y at 19 seconds set to 0 and at Home set at 5
Position Jitter Amount for Z at 19 seconds set to 0 and at Home set at 18

Camera Position XY at 15 seconds set keyframe, which should be center. At Home move layer left, this will vary with project depending on the size of the mosaic.
Camera Position Z at 12 seconds zoom in and set keyframe. At 19 seconds set keyframe that is zoomed out to see full photo.

Add the Source photo above the Precomp layer at the 20 seconds mark. Apply Linear Wipe effect & CC Light Sweep effect. Adjust angle & feather, etc.

Apply Reduce Flicker Interlace to the Mosaic Precomp layer. Set around .3

Make a new Comp that is the size of your project in a NLE. Name Export Comp. Place the Mosaic Comp in the Export Comp and scale down to fit. Make sure the scale isn’t too small and cuts off the animation. Adjust the Camera’s Z Position keyframes in the Mosaic Comp if needed.


Other Notes:

A previous project had 20 columns & 38 rows and looked as good as the larger numbers.

I did think about using the rdslicer script, but that would be a lot of layers.

[RJ Johnston]

That is nice work! Very cool.

[Paul LS]

Thanks Cheryl, I will have a go at reproducing it.

Paul.