Animating a Map

[hhijim Profile Private message]

I am nearing completion of a show of a vacation river cruise recently taken.

I would like to animate the map of that cruise, by placing a line on the map showing the route taken.

When my show moves from city a to city b, I want the line on the map to move between those cities. Then between the next wo cities until the cruise is completed.

I suspect this effect has been achieved may times in the past; however, I cannot figure out how to do it.

Suggestions will be appreciated.

I have CS 4 Creative Suite available to me.

Many thanks.

[bellzerr Profile Private message]

If your line does not loop, you can use a layer with your line above the layer with your map. Mask the line and pan the mask layer to expose the line. I'm sure other more elegant solutions are available as well.
Mark

[anitaemile Profile Private messageWebsite]

Gavin Hoey has a tutorial on how to achieve this in PSG. I recently added a template with USA map that works with a path on my website www.outsidethebox.name
Gavin's instructions:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Pho ... pb7Xpv5eKE

[hhijim Profile Private message]

Thanks for your comments.

They are appreciated.

I benefited from the Hoey tutorial. it was useful and well done. However, the river cruise traveled a line with many curves and I would like to trace the path of the various rivers.

Thanks for your help.

hhijim

[anitaemile Profile Private messageWebsite]

Take a look at the USA travel map at http://outsidethebox.name/pagina14.html and you will see the line makes different curves. It's a matter of repeating the process with another line. Draw the line between the next two places, from one keyframe to the next, but reposition that line at keyframe 1 so that the center is in the place from where the line starts, and reduce it to 0 length to have it come to full length at keyframe 2 . Don't forget to add another keyframe to the end of the slide so that the line stays visible.

Anita.

[anitaemile Profile Private messageWebsite]

ooops, reading your post once more I think what you mean is that you would like to make a line with not so sharp curves. If so you could duplicate your path and use one as mask over the other and place a suitable transition over the mask so that it will reveal the path underneath gradually. If that does not work, you might consider using another application for the path.

Anita.

[heckydog Profile Private message]

I am nearing completion of a show of a vacation river cruise recently taken.

I would like to animate the map of that cruise, by placing a line on the map showing the route taken.

When my show moves from city a to city b, I want the line on the map to move between those cities. Then between the next wo cities until the cruise is completed.

I suspect this effect has been achieved may times in the past; however, I cannot figure out how to do it.

Suggestions will be appreciated.

I have CS 4 Creative Suite available to me.

Many thanks.

hhijim

With Creative Suite you should have After Effects:

What you'd want to do is have your map as one layer. Then add a new solid layer. Whatever layer is on top, you should lower the opacity so you can see the layer below. Add the Stroke plugin to the new solid. Use the pen tool to trace your route, adding curves where needed. If you have a pen tablet that would be best but you can do it with your mouse.

It can go any way you like, even cross over itself. By adding keyframes you can time your route for whatever length you need.

If you think about it, what you're trying to do is the same thing as animating a signature or any kind of text, but instead of revealing letters you would be revealing your route. There are a number of tutorials that explain the process better than I can do here.

This one is pretty good: http://www.layersmagazine.com/animated- ... fects.html

If you want to try it and have questions, feel free to ask.

Joe

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

Something like the following?

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 3121&alb=0

Dale

[hhijim Profile Private message]

Yes, 40n8, what you have is essentially what I am trying to do.

I simply want to trace the course of the rivers included in the cruise.

What do you suggest?

Thanks,

Jim

[im42n8 Profile Private messageWebsite]

This is a matter, simply, of using a mask. In this case I had two maps. One map had no route and the other had the route. I then moved the mask around to reveal the map with the route. I used a lot of keyframes on the mask layer and I also resized the mask at times.

Using a mask or set of masks you can reveal your route. What it's going to take is time. But, you can achieve some reasonable results with a little work.

Now, there's another method that might work for you as well but it's going to cost a bit of $s. Dave Fitz(something. . . dang it can't remember) has a program that makes the process relatively simple. His site is http://www.visisketchpro.com/ and the program is VisiSketch Pro. Neat stuff.

Dale

[nolanz Profile Private message]

I visited the site for Visisketch Pro. I was attracted to another programme "CaptionsAlivePro" I downloaded the trial version (28MB) using dialup, only to be told by Superantispyware that the file contained a Trojan. I addressed my concern to the authors, and was promised a response within 48 hours. I am still waiting!!! It may be a false warning, but I am wary, especially when no assurance comes from the authors.

[heckydog Profile Private message]

It's probably a false positive. I got the same warning.

Then I checked it with Malwarebytes, Spybot, AVG, and Ad-Aware. All said it was okay.

Besides that, the author has been around here too long and done too many good deeds to be putting a trojan in his software

I reported it as a false positive.

Joe

[nolanz Profile Private message]

Thanks Joe,
I'll give it a go now.

[Richard_T Profile Private message]

I managed to get a line animated on a map using microsoft paint and some of the wipe transitions in producer.
first of all i opened the map in paint, then drew the first line on ( going from west to east ) and saved it as a different name ( map ew line) next up i drew the south to north line, and saved again under a different name.

Layer1 the plain map, layer2 ( east to west line) comes in with a wipe going from left to right, then layer 3 comes in with another wipe going from top to bottom. quick cheap and nasty, but it did the trick.

[mreinhart Profile Private message]

When I did a trip, I did it a slightly different way. Probably way to much work, but it only took a few minutes. Using Photoshop (or any graphic editor), take your map picture, then simply put a dot where you started. Save the file as #1, add a second dot along your travel route and save that file as #2. Keep on the process of adding a dot and saving.

In Proshow, simply display the images in order from #1 to ?? with a zero time cut transition. You can adjust the time of each slide to match your needs. Also, you can show part of your map-trip sequence, then show photos, then display more of your map-trip from where you left off.

Hint, make the dots the same size and of a color that stands out so that your audience can make it out right away. Also, you can change to a different color dot for different legs of your trip. My trip from Detroit to Atlanta to San Antonio & back to Detroit only took about 90 slides and lasted about 15 or 20 seconds total.

Mark