Animated Travel Map in 3D with Arrow in Camtasia | Advanced Tutorial

How to create an animated arrow on a map, pointing the location or a journey from one point to another - for example from point A to B, in Camtasia? It's quite easy and if you plan ahead you can achieve this effect.

In this video, we will take a regular old map screenshot and we will design an arrow starting from one city and going to another city. We design the arrow in Camtasia, using a technique I covered in other videos, using Media Matte effect to create complex shapes from elementary ones.

This arrow will appear as an arc across the map, from one location to another. The arrow we design in Camtasia can be moved to another place, it can be scaled, rotated and so on.

The arrow will have a drop shadow on the ground, mimicking a 3D arrow flying across the map through the air, touching down in the two locations in question.

Then we go further an animate the arrow, showing it originating in the first location and arriving on the second location in a time span we define.

We create the arrow with a gradient colour for an extra 3D effect.

After that, we animate the entire map with the arrow on it in 3D space, using Camtasia's rotation controls in the 3 axis: X, Y and Z. This creates a perspective/3D space illusion, which can be animated, to appear like the camera is changing angles, getting close to the start point, and then flying up into the second position.

Finally, to add more realism, we use a simple annotation in Camtasia's arsenal, to add blur and create a pseudo-depth of field effect, as if the camera focuses on the arrow and the two cities, and the rest of the map is blurred.

All in all, this video stretches Camtasia's basic editing and effect abilities to achieve an effect that appears as if it was created in a 3D program or in a more capable animation software, such as AfterEffects.

The only external asset used in this video is the map screenshot we captured from OpenStreetmap.org.

I hope you enjoy these tutorials, let me know if you have any questions.

Here are the chapters in this video:
00:00 Introduction
01:23 Importing the map
02:13 The region we will use
03:04 Allow for 3D movement
04:18 Creating the arrow
05:17 Annotation arrows are not useful
07:26 Create an arrow from separate shapes
10:43 Adjust components of shape
12:31 Creating arrowhead
14:14 Animating the arrow
18:42 Add drop shadow to the arrow
26:02 Add gradient colour to arrow
27:29 Animate the map in 3D
36:11 Add depth of field
47:17 Final result
47:41 Closing remarks

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