Panning Motions—camera moving side-to-side or up-down

1. INTRODUCE—'CAMERA' PANNING MOTIONS:
   1. Layers—Stacking Order;
      

   2. For our beginning in this entry, we'll start where we left off with our posting last week when we faded into the movie and the title—see above fade-in/fade-out. Let's first observe, however, what the layer stacking order is:

   3. 1. fade
      2. title
      3. tree_near
      4. dog
      5. cat
      6. fence
      7. cow
      8. ground
      9. moon
      10. stars

   4. Symbols—As you can see from the example above, that we have already completed the very beginning of our animation in which the sky fades in, followed by the title. If we compare this little animation so far to our storyboard, we will soon see that we have completed the first three frames at this point (frames 1-3); however, our goal now is to complete a few more frames from the storyboard, namely the ones that include the panning motions. There are two of these camera movements, pan down from the sky to the ground, and pan right from the dog to the cat. Since our 'camera' is stationary, since we cannot move our imaginary camera, we have to figure something else out.

      If we think of our camera as the stage (everything must pass across the stage in order to be in the shot), then we realize that instead of moving the camera, aka the stage, across everything, then we must instead move everything else across the stage, aka the camera.

      To pan down, to move from above the ground, down to the ground, we must put everything, the entire landscape, below the stage.

      Therefore, since we have to make everything move, everything must then be a SYMBOL

   
   
   

   5. The stage is the smaller grey rectangle in the upper left. Notice how everything in the scene is placed below the it. Also, notice how the elements that set the scene, the tree, the ground, fence, etc., together all are more than 2 times as wide as the stage. This is so as to allow for the pan right movement as well. As mentioned, I created a landscape that is approximately 2.5 times the width of the stage.

   6. Pan Down—Starting at the point where the title fades out, frame 90 according to the images here (but it could be any frame depending on your individual animation), we will begin the panning motion.

      The title fades out by frame 90, so we will begin the pan down after this, say at frame 100. Therefore, we will need to move all our objects in all the layers that contain elements from the scene to this frame: tree_near, dog, cow, cat, fence, shadows (if you have any), tree_far, ground, moon, and stars. The movement begins in frame 100, so the easiest way to move the objects there in each layer is to first select frame 1 in the tree_near layer. We do not need to concern ourselves with the fade or title layers because they will not be panning down.

   7. Then, hold down on the shift key and click in frame 1 in the bottom layer (this should be the stars layer.

   8. This should select frame 1 in all the layers that have objects in the landscape.

   9. Once selected, then release. Now click again on the selected frames in frame one and HOLD DOWN, but do NOT DESELECT. Instead, drag these frames to frame 100 where we will need to begin the panning motion. Be careful not to drag the frames up or down a layer. If you make a mistake, simply undo (ctrl-Z) and try again. This point, frame 100, is the beginning point of the pan down motion.

   10. Now, we need to extend the duration to mark the end of the pan down motion. We'll give the movement about 150 frames, which would put us in frame 250. So, click in frame 250 in the tree_near layer, hold down on the shift key, and click in frame 250 of the bottom layer, the stars layer. This should select frame 250 in all the layers. Then extend the duration (F5). Right-click over the highlighted area IN FRAME 250, and add a motion tween.

       
       

       ***Careful NOT to deselect anything at this point.***

   
   
   
   

   11. When you zoom out (do not deselect), you should see that everything below is still selected with the blue boxes around each object. This is what we want. It will help us move everything together. Please, do NOT use the selection tool. Instead, to do this, hold down on the shift key (to help us move things faster) while you click on the up arrow key on the keyboard. Do so until the ground and all is on top of the stage. Notice how a keyframe is added at the end of each of the motion tween in frame 250 after you move everything. This will cause everything that was below the stage to move gradually upwards until it is on the stage.

   12. Pan Right—Now that we have completed the pan down camera movement, we have to work on the pan right. One clue as to how to do this is to notice that the ground and fence and entire scene that we drew is more than 2 times the width of the stage. This means that we will push everything to the left in our motion tween this time to simulate the pan right motion of the camera.

       This time, we will give this movement about 150 frames; so, in the tree_near layer, click in frame 400, hold down the shift key, and click in frame 400 of the ground layer, and extend the duration (F5). This time, do NOT include the moon and the stars.

       
       
       
       

   13. Once again make sure you do NOT deselect anything. Just hold down on the shift key and use the left arrow key on the keyboard to move everything selected to the left until the right edge of the ground is just hanging offstage to the right. Once again, notice how the keyframes were automatically added at the end of the duration.

       
       
       

   14. Finally, click in frame 225 of the moon and the stars layers and extend the duration (F5). There is no need to move them. They should just sit in the sky behind everything as the landscape pans by.