Hello folks, 

    So in this project I am building, my goal is to create a series of object moves that can be simply added to a 2.5D element in the scene that will bring an object (photo or video) from out of scene, slide into view, maintain a slight movement, then zoom out of frame smoothly. I would ideally build two or three of these "moves" and then be able to drop them on objects at will for a simple transition as the camera gets near. 

    My current setup is to apply the move to a 3D null, tweak the animation curves to a smooth ease, then parent the object to the null. This way there are no position keyframes on the actual object, which is my goal. This is largely because the whole layout may need to be changed at a moment's notice. However there are a few drawbacks to this setup

- Each null needs to be cut and trimmed to target layer

- Every object (couple hundred) needs to have its own null, further increasing a complicated project

- Every null needs to be moved in 3D space to accompany the parented object so the relative movement remains correct.

What I need is something that tells each layer to have this preset animation that won't matter where in 3D space it is, the transform will occur relative to each layer's position. Can't wrap my head around the expression required. Maybe I am overthinking it. One idea I had was to use the overlooked "Transform" EFFECT, but does that effect still use world space coordinates? or are the additional transforms all relative to the layer they are applied on?

All ideas welcome, thanks. Hope that's all clear. This project went from "oh just a simple slideshow with some photo and video" to "200 layer 3D-staggered layout, heavy on the motion graphics". And insist on giving me every asset as a 500MB 8500x4500 CMYK .tif. Sigh. First-world problems.

-TG 

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VFX & Motion Graphic Artist
teddygage dot com