Animated Route

This article demonstrates a way to create an animation of a route on a map. The way this is achieved is by using the Gradient Wipe. You can use this transition for many different purposes and the map animation is only one of them. So even if you are not interested in creating an animated route, you may continue to read because it will explain the use of the Gradient Wipe.

The Gradient Wipe.

Let’s first have a look at the tool that we are going to use: the gradient wipe. If you have worked with video editing program you know of course what a transition is. Even the most basic video editing programs have basic transitions like cross-dissolves or simple wipes. The gradient wipe is a transition that can only be found in more advanced programs. What it does is it create a transition from one scene to the next using a picture containing various shades of gray. Lets consider a transition from image A to image B and let’s call the picture containing the gray pattern C. What happens is that image B will start to appear in the area where the pattern is white and gradually appears in darker areas. The picture at the right for example shows a gradient pattern that will generate a wipe from the left top corner to the lower right corner.

The animated route.

We are going to use the Gradient Wipe for a route animation and we will demonstrate it by using Photoshop and Premiere. Of course you may use other tools if they contain the required options. The final animation can be viewed by clicking on the image on the right .

So let's see how this was created.

Step 1: Create the route on a map

The first thing that you need of course is an image of the map. You can make a digital picture of a physical map or scan it, but you may get a better result from making a screenshot of a map in a digital map program. (However, pay attention to copyright issues...). Our map is called "map.jpg". Open the image in Photoshop. Create a separate layer via the menu: Layer->New->Layer. We called it "Route" because we are going to use this layer to draw a route. Select the pen or brush tool and select the desired settings like color, diameter etc. In our example we used the color red and a diameter of 10px. Now, draw the route on the map. Once you are ready, save the file as a JPEG image. Let's call it "Route.jpg". It should look like the picture above that contains the link to the movie.

Step 2: Create the pattern image.

What we need to do now is to create a pattern for the wipe effect. This pattern needs to run exactly over the route. That is an easy task in Photoshop. First thing is to create a new layer: Layer->New->Layer. We called it “Pattern”. Select the pen tool and adjust the diameter so that it is wider than the size you used to draw the route. Let's say 40px. This is done to make life a little easier. Switch the foreground color to Black.

Now comes the big trick. In the top right corner in Photoshop there is the tab Brushes. Click that to open it. Select Other Dynamics and set Control to Fade and enter a number (say 100) in the box. You may wonder what does this mean. Well, it means that when you draw a line using these settings, the line will gradually fade from the begin to the end. The number that is set determines how fast that happens. If you enter a low number, the fading will happen quite fast. If you use a high number the fading will happen slowly. What you want is that the line is (almost) completely faded when you reach the end of the route, so for a short route you should select a low number, for a long route a high number. Now draw a line very carefully over the route.

What you should see now is that the thick black lines slowly fades while you are drawing. See the picture here on the left. If the fading is too fast, step back, increase the number and try again. This line is going to be the pattern that we need for our Gradient Wipe. Delete all layers except the layer with the fading line. Alternatively you can also make the other two invisible. Now save the image as a bitmap: "routepattern.bmp". This image should look like the picture on the right. You can now close Photoshop.

Step 4: Putting it to work

Let's start up Premiere and create a new project. Import the files map.jpg and route.jpg. We want to start with a map without the route, so first put map.jpg on the timeline. Stretch the duration to half the duration of the whole animation. So if you want the whole animation to take 10 seconds make the duration of this image 5 seconds. Now, put route.jpg directly after map.jpg on the timeline. Make it the same duration. Now we are going to apply the real trick: on the Effects tab go to Video transitions->Wipe->Gradient Wipe. Next drag the Gradient Wipe to the timeline exactly where the two images meet. You will notice that a window pops up prompting you to Select an Image and set a Softness. Press Select Image and browse to routepattern.bmp. Also set Softness to 0 and press OK.

Now go to the timeline and grab the left end of the Gradient Wipe effect bar and slide it to the far left. Also grab the right end and slide it to the far right. The picture below shows you how it should look.

Now play the timeline and like magic you created an animated route. If by accident you have gone the wrong direction, you can adjust that by going to Effect Controls tab and select Reverse.