Making photo/video frames "bend"

i don't think you can map an image/video etc around a 3D shape and have it actually bend. The nearest you could do is use a spherize effect. (In AFX the CC sphere is pretty good at this). Another technique is to have the images as replicator cells and have it set to 3D, set the arrangement to outline, set the shape to Sphere and Align angle turned on. This will map a flat object (repeated obviously) around the sphere shape, but the images will remain flat images.

using the native 3D tools in Final Cut

There are no 3D tools in Final Cut Pro. Motion is 2D objects in 3D space.

or AE

A solution was already mentioned using AE. You may have better luck in an AE forum for AE inquiries.

You might be able to do what you want in a 2D comp in Motion using the Sphere filter; or in a 3D comp you could assemble many small planes to form curve.

Otherwise, you could look at some of the inexpensive 3D apps such as:

http://www.kinemac.com/
http://cheetah3d.com/
http://erain.com/

Or you could download a 3D model from one of the free sites such as

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/

and see if there's a way to work with that.

Sean Huck wrote:
Rude.

Yeah, some people just can't seem to help it, obviously.

Anyway, this is possible in AE. I'd give the CC Cylinder effect a go - instead of CC Sphere. The trick though is the setup of your comp that you're going to apply the cylinder to. If, for example, you only have 3 images and apple the cylinder, the images will all be highly distorted, as the filter is going to make the edges of "image 1" and "image 3" touch each other.

The trick is to put some amount of empty space on either side of the images you want to warp. The more empty space the less drastic the distortion. Add a camera and you can put yourself inside the cylinder. Hope this makes sense. The key though is the empty space at the edges.

Good luck. Post back if you can't get it working.

Regarding pulling this off with AE, I still think it's possible. It requires some "trickery" perhaps and maybe even some clever math when using the CC cylinder. Or maybe I'm not clear on exactly what you're trying to achieve.

So to be a little more precise: as an example, let's say you have 3 panels of 720x480 video, each side-by-side, in a comp. That comp would be 2160 pixels wide. (720 x 3) You'd put this into another comp with size 720x480 and apply the CC Cylinder to this embedded comp. There's a problem. You mentioned it, I alluded to it. The left edge of video pane 1 is going to butt straight up against the right edge of video pane 3, once it's inside the cylinder. As you said, "it wraps the image completely into a cylinder". So the fix is to have a much wider comp than just 2160 pixels. It's a numbers game. You have to have enough horizontal width in the comp receiving the CC Cylinder to start eliminating the distortion.

Here's a simple movie showing my interpretation of your project. There are 2 comps: the yellow "video pane" and the blue "video panes". These are embedded into another comp. But both are very wide comps with the CC Cylinder applied to them. Here's a screenshot of what the blue panes really looks like. How does this example differ from what you're trying to achieve?

Hello,

I have been looking for this ages ago and when I look to your interpretation movie, i just realize you did accomplish what i was looking for. Is it too much asking for the motion file project you did in order to understand what you meant. I shall say my english is not good enough to have a good understanding of your plain text resume. I'm not too good with numbers as well 😉

Thanks

My apologies, i thought we were talking Motion and confused myself between CC cylinder and BCC cylinder. See my english not so good...

Message was edited by: DIGK

That is specifically what Zaxwerks 3D does. I believe it is a plugin for Motion and is often discounted on digitaljuice.com. Unfortunately, most of their products seem to be only for AE, but Stackwerks looks like it may do what you want and works on Motion.

Hello Sean,

Please accept my apology. I did not intend to be perceived as being rude. FWIW, I'm sorry.

Best regards,

try Magic 3D FX from Christoph Vonrhein
http://www.chv-plugins.com/cms/FxPlug/Magic3D/Magic-3D-FX.php

the Filmstrip 3D effect in "Twirl" mode might seem to be along the right lines