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Lee1549
Participating Frequently
May 5, 2021
Question

Looping zoom animation - distortion?

  • May 5, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 633 views

I'm trying to make an infinite looping zoom animation of vector art (.ai files), example attached. When I zoom (whether zoom in or out), the center of the animation is not clear, and changes with the zoom (even though the source image is identical when zoomed in). As a result, the loop is not seamless even though the proportions are perfect. I've also tried with very large PNG files with similar results.

 

I had previously made these animations with Animate but encountered an issue of loss of data on detailed vector files upon zoom, and was told to use After Effects. Here the issue is a bit different but the end result is the same - the animation is not satisfactory. It's also very large when I export, although I'll figure that out.

 

Any suggestions on how I can make this work? Attached is an example of this kind of animation that I made with Animate.

 

Thanks!

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2 replies

Mylenium
Mylenium
Legend
May 6, 2021

You seem to have a wrong concept of how AE works. It uses completely different antialiasing and rasterization algorithms and therefore of course the visual appearance of stuff will be different even if it's vector based. Expecting it to handle stuff that even animate can't get right therefore seems a bit odd, no offense. Ergo the only way to overcome your issues is to work with the limitations of the program, not against them. That includes segmenting your scale animation, possibly. You create different pre-comps for 0 - 35 percent or something like that and then another one or two for the larger scales, with the real point being that you optimize the heck out of the small one by starting with smaller source files which may not even be vector based. Creating a pixel-based segment could indeed result in much better distribution of the pixel values and minimize those nasty aliasing artifacts. Sure, it's a bit more work and getting the timing right might add complication, but if you really want the best qulaity, it may simply be necessary. As for exporting native vector animation - that's what lottie and Bodymovin are for, but they have their own limitations and technically you may not resolve any of your quality problems because of that.

 

Mylenium

Mylenium
Mylenium
Legend
May 5, 2021

Nothing wrong technically. It's just an unsavory combination of harsh contrast, very flat angles and ultimately your scaling causing a lot of resampling when the elements are very small. This will mess with even the best antialiasing algorithms. You likely will have to create different sub-animations for different scales to optimize this instead of relying on such large changes in scale with single shapes.

 

Mylenium

L
Lee1549Author
Participating Frequently
May 5, 2021

"different sub-animations for different scales" - could you elaborate on what you mean by that?

 

Also - in Animate, while there was disappearance of small shapes in the center, there was not the same kind of aliasing/distortion as in After Effects. In AE there is no shape loss and the aliasing is the constraint. Can AE display/preserve vectors? If so, why would an image that's crisp on Illustrator and Animate at any zoom distort in AE?

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