Receding treeline?
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Receding treeline?
How do you make a treeline that is receding into the background? For instance, while looking into a car head on, with the trees behind it giving the impression of movement?
Re: Receding treeline?
It's a bit complicated, but basically you put trees on separate layers and assign each layer a different Z value. Then you move the camera (by Z values only), or put all trees into a group and move this relatively to the camera.
If it's only a short scene, I've found it's faster to just duplicate trees and edit Z values by hand, instead of painstakingly trying to create a loop of that setup.
If it's only a short scene, I've found it's faster to just duplicate trees and edit Z values by hand, instead of painstakingly trying to create a loop of that setup.
AS 9.5 MacPro Quadcore 3GHz 16GB OS 10.6.8 Quicktime 7.6.6
AS 11 MacPro 12core 3GHz 32GB OS 10.11 Quicktime 10.7.3
Moho 13.5 iMac Quadcore 2,9GHz 16GB OS 10.15
Moho 14.1 Mac Mini Plus OS 13.5
AS 11 MacPro 12core 3GHz 32GB OS 10.11 Quicktime 10.7.3
Moho 13.5 iMac Quadcore 2,9GHz 16GB OS 10.15
Moho 14.1 Mac Mini Plus OS 13.5
Re: Receding treeline?
Darn it, it's harder than it looks. This would be a good one for a video tutorial, or a script maybe, if that's possible.
Re: Receding treeline?
It's just a bit of work, but not really complicated. I did an example in 5 minutes.
I start with one group layer, into which I put one tree layer. Multiply this combo many times, then change the Z value (cmd-M) of each group layer - from 1 to 20 in my case. Set the camera Z value (cmd-4) to 22 - you see the perspective now. For additional effect I flipped every other tree layer.
The reason why I work with group layers here is that I can easily add other artwork into each group, different trees, whatever. I keep that original tree in there for size and position reference. The nice thing is that you can keep a copy of this file as a master for future projects - just fill the group layers with whatever you need.
Us the orbit tool (cmd-9) for an overview of the setup.
Here's the file: http://slowtiger.de/examples/trees.anme.zip
I start with one group layer, into which I put one tree layer. Multiply this combo many times, then change the Z value (cmd-M) of each group layer - from 1 to 20 in my case. Set the camera Z value (cmd-4) to 22 - you see the perspective now. For additional effect I flipped every other tree layer.
The reason why I work with group layers here is that I can easily add other artwork into each group, different trees, whatever. I keep that original tree in there for size and position reference. The nice thing is that you can keep a copy of this file as a master for future projects - just fill the group layers with whatever you need.
Us the orbit tool (cmd-9) for an overview of the setup.
Here's the file: http://slowtiger.de/examples/trees.anme.zip
AS 9.5 MacPro Quadcore 3GHz 16GB OS 10.6.8 Quicktime 7.6.6
AS 11 MacPro 12core 3GHz 32GB OS 10.11 Quicktime 10.7.3
Moho 13.5 iMac Quadcore 2,9GHz 16GB OS 10.15
Moho 14.1 Mac Mini Plus OS 13.5
AS 11 MacPro 12core 3GHz 32GB OS 10.11 Quicktime 10.7.3
Moho 13.5 iMac Quadcore 2,9GHz 16GB OS 10.15
Moho 14.1 Mac Mini Plus OS 13.5
Re: Receding treeline?
Ah thanks for the fine example. I created a mock 'car' group and layer that was immune to camera movements and now I get it, I think short takes will work great, throw in other items like buildings in those layers you created, maybe hide a couple to break it up (like street corners). Thanks for getting me started, my poor head hurt trying to figure it out.
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Bliss Eyed
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- Joined: Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:33 pm
Re: Receding treeline?
Wow! I needed this advice & this turned out to be a practical solution!
Thank you very much!
Thank you very much!