Bird flying in from distance in the background

[Mattyj]

Just wondering how you folks would go about animating a bird flying in from the distance in the background then landing in front of the camera? Would a path be involved in this?

Cheers,

Matt

[Greenlaw]

You could animate it in 2D or 3D. Which method you choose really depends on how you set up the entire scene...are you using real depth or is it all a flat image?

If you go with 2D, keyframe the scale and position of the bird as it flies toward camera. You'll probably want to use bezier keys to control the rate of the scaling so the bird moves in more realistically. (i.e., it should ramp up sharply as the bird gets closer to camera.)

If you go with 3D, keyframe the position in z-depth as well as x and y positions. This method will look more realistic as the bird approaches camera, and it makes more sense if you've layered your environment to have actual depth.

I tend to prefer the latter even when working in 'cartoon-style' animations. The setup is more technical but it looks a lot better too.

[Mattyj]

Awesome sauce cheers apu Greenlaw, ill look up sone vids on parallax too?

[slowtiger]

Have a look at this:

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/496383202

I just used scaling on the bird (because it always was free in the sky, not interacting with any of the buildings) and positioned it freely (no path). With real depth and the bird being obscured by some building I would've played with its Z-depth and some layer ordering.

Depending on style, you could use 2 different birds for more comic effect and more dramatic timing: a small one with less details for distance, which comes towards the camera and vanishes at the bottom, then a big one with full detail diving up and perching on the branch or whatever.

[Mattyj]

Cool as, thanks slow tiger. Does anyone have any go to resources for key framing on the z axis? Also I presume I could just set two scale key frames, one tiny in the background and one full size in front of the camera?

[Greenlaw]

I'm a bit busy today but I can post some info this evening with examples that may be helpful.

[slowtiger]

I just do it in a way it looks good. Scaling or Z-axis appear to behave a bit difficult: I never get it right with just two keyframes, so I use a lot of keys between to make it look right. Some sketch reference as which path to follow and how large the bird should be at any point helps a lot.

In my example, the bird group layer is set to "ignore camera movement" to make it less complicated.

[Mattyj]

Yeah sweet as Greenlaw just if you get the time, cheers

Thanks slowtiger and thanks for the example, you guys have been really helpful.