Embedding contextual information into a 3D tracked clip
I am exploring ways to communicate contextual information within a video sequence without too much fuss and so far my experimentation has led me here: mTracker 3D and Keyper (I’m not going to do a product review - if you want more information go here for Keyper and here for mTracker).
Firstly mTracker3D - there are a bunch of YouTube videos which do this but I wanted to see it for myself… and it’s so impressive. The main hassle here is that tracking the shot can take a few minutes (something which you don’t see in those YT reviews and which can feel a bit tiring at first, so prepare for it by doing some ironing or something).
Second - after watching Mark Spencer’s review (and in particular this bit) I started playing with the idea of using Keyper to create a space between the talking head and the background. This is the result.
I then played with it further - isolating the fore/backgrounds by reducing saturation and/or enhancing the colour of the info label.
Yes there are a lot of rough edges here, but the point is that it opens up the potential - especially when trying to tell the story of a location.
Combining video with a timeline/map
So here is the next design problem I am attempting to solve - easily moving from an animated timeline to a series of clips without having to reinvent the keyframe wheel each time. The main principle here is that the clips need to feel LINKED to the timeline. In previous examples (here and here) I was basically living by my wits making it up as I went along... This time I need a more sustainable process for those upcoming bigger projects in my day-job.
Rough sketch of animation states - drawn while eating porridge in my kitchen.
Mocked up states in Affinity Designer. I took proportionate screen grabs from the West Worthing video.
It was very frustrating trying to get this to work. Too many moving parts! The problem is that once you start animating a dialogue box (and drop-zone) you have to be ready to apply it to a wide range of possibilities. This is something I don’t currently have time for so I trimmed it all back to something more simple and workable.
Here is the sample piece I arrived at:
And my process:
1: Trim whatever content I have in shot using FCP into a single timeline. Make sure that there are a three or more seconds built in at the start of each usable sequence for the transition between Motion-designed material and the video clips.
2: In Affinity Designer - segment the vector timeline into pre-decided sections (based on content in step 1).
3: Import into Motion (via Pixelmator) and animate with FCP-friendly pauses using the ‘write-on’ behaviour.
4: Decide camera compositions bearing in mind where each video insert is going to pop up. Sometimes it might be good to use a whole screen (some video deserves it) and occasionally as a smaller inserted clip.
5: Use the AddMotion A-B setting (see image below for what I did). Notice that whatever A-B settings you end up using - copy that adjustment layer, swapping it out for the B-A reverse. Change the transition to 2 seconds. It works well I think.
The AddMotion plug-in.com/info/osmaddmotion/ does a lot of very useful heavy lifting in FCP.
6: Notice that I am using an adjustment layer to apply AddMotion clips to the timeline. This becomes a little tricky when you have multiple clips stacked on top of each other… solve this by using the ‘behind’ blend mode (see below). It’s a great fix.
This is the first time I have used this blend mode - I picked it up from the Ripple guys on YT.
So the built-in limitation with this solution here is that it can be perhaps a little… ploddy?
This is the design I was pressing for - something formula-driven that can be relatively easily-repeated without me crying at night. For those more funky everything-is-moving designs I will likely build it all in Motion.
I hope that this will be a format that can be applied to a number of stories.
The Three Forts Animated Map - proof of concept
So after a bunch of experiments I arrived at a working sequence that I think is a good proof of concept. The ‘proper’ end version will be waaaaay slower and likely have some video superimposed but for now this is worth sharing I think.
Thanks LN and Sam Ballard for useful feedback.
More Animation Tests
These experiments can get tiring to the outsider reader pretty quickly so I am going number my updates down the page as this piece develops and keep publishing the same post - feel free to skip. This is for my own brain tracking changes and developments.
1: Write-on using line segments
For this:
I drew a line on the iPad - saved it to the cloud
opened it on the Mac and sliced the route into four or more sections
exported this into a single SVG file which I then opened in Pixelmator Pro/exported to a Motion project
in Motion I create a duplicate (black underneath with a wider outline) converted the top pieces into a yellow thinner line
I broke the four pieces into ease-in/out write-ons
I created a default marker in Affinity and did the same thing as above
then I added various animation behaviours - fade/type on/fade out
duplicated the pieces along the line and changed the pointer with shape manipulation within Motion
For this method to work it needs the stages to be decided in advance - the write-on behaviour is quite quick and easy to do instead of using keyframes.
2: Camera movements using ‘Frame object’ and ‘ease both’
Using the ‘Frame object’ menu function to position the focus on the placed markers. Then I use the scale slightly to bring it in. I don’t really like the wiggling going on in the camera movement. It probably needs a bit more love to get it feeling better.
3: More careful handling of keyframing
I went back and scrapped the camera moves and tried a bit more care. This time I used less scaling. It feels efficient and (perhaps) a little less human but I think it functions fine.
4: Redesign the map elements
I went into Affinity Designer and used all of my prior ideas to make this. It went back and forth between the Mac and iPad to make the most of the various organising/creating tools. Notice that I have used the green (going there) and red (returning) colour scheme. I also added in some edited segments for where the hills are most extreme. In an earlier version I tried to bring in a moving gradient diagram but it felt too busy.
5: Animate the sections
Pixelmator Pro didn’t play well with a handful of elements when I tried to bring my design into the SVG file/Motion project process.
the mile marker numbers didn’t translate accurately, so I ended up converting them to vector curves feeling pretty sure that I wouldn’t need to change the text again
the sections I had cut out to represent steep hill sections were re-interpreted as rounded sections (see below).
The Affinity designer squared ends (left) and the resulting Pixelmator Pro rounded version (right). In the end I quite like the look so it wasn’t such a sad time for me.
I needed to go in and tweak a few of the numbers that hadn’t translated very well even after converting them to curves.
Overall I was happy with Pixelmator Pro but be aware that it isn’t a perfect translation tool. It’s great but not perfect for Affinity files - worth bearing in mind if you cry a lot at night.
Anyways - here is the latest build:
There are a few framing issues but you get the idea - I like how this is turning out. When it comes to the video I am hoping to make with the actual Three Forts run, I need to remember to break those sections into smaller parts (as per section 2 above). Another issue is how the interplay between shot footage and the map works - so far this is a nice set of moving information - how do you integrate shot video into this without overdoing it?