3D Offset tutorial & notes

[momoffduty]

Video copilot has a great tutorial on 3D Offset. Lots of possibilities for animation.

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/3d_offset/

Thought I would share my notes.

3D Offset Video Copilot #69

Add a camera

Add Adjustment Layer and name “Control”

Add Slider to Adjustment Layer and name the fx “Multiplier”
This slider controls the offsets in seconds.

Add photo or graphic to timeline and make 3D and PreComp
(this will be called Source Photo in notes)

Enable Time Remapping on the Source Photo & alt+click stopwatch for expression:

time-(index* Pick Whip to Multiplier Slider)

The Time Remap expression should read:

time-(index*thisComp.layer("Control").effect("Multiplier")("Slider"))

Right click on the Multiplier Slider in the Property Panel and Edit Value for slider range of 0 to 3. This is for the time of the offset.

Add another Slider to the Control Layer and name the fx “Offset”

On the Original Source Photo alt+click the stopwatch for Position for the Z Offset expression:

value+[(0,0,index* Pick Whip to Offset Slider)]

The Position Expression should read:

value+[(0,0,index*thisComp.layer("Control").effect("Offset")("Slider"))]

Right click on the Offset Slider in the Property Panel and Edit Value range of
0 to 1,000. This is for the offset in pixels.

Make sure the Source Photo is in the top of the layer stack.

Ctrl+D the Source Photo to duplicate the layer the number of copies desired.

My Suggestions:

Can keyframe the Offset Slider to animate. A negative number will animate backwards. Animate the source photo in the PreComp. Swap out photos or comps. Add more expression sliders for the X or Y Positions or the X, Y, or Z Rotations and keyframe.
Slider expressions with an index creates an offset of the source.
Slider expressions with no index moves all of the photos at the same time.

[Steve Grisetti]

Very nice, Cheryl! Although those "expressions" still scare me. They're like Flash actionscript. Brr!

[Chuck Engels]

Actionscript 3.0 isn't too bad Steve, just takes time to learn like anything else.
Great thing about Actionscript is that you can use it in Flash, Flex, Eclipse, ColdFusion, and more.
It's really not so hard once you get the hang of it. Lynda.com has some great tutorials on Actionscript

[momoffduty]

Although those "expressions" still scare me.

This expression is fairly basic. The ones that are 4+ lines long scare me. But the moral is that if I can figure it out then anyone can.