3D motion effect with 2D images

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Hi guys, I have a question that is bugging me for a very long time. Does anyone know what's the best way to create 3d motion effect with 2d images like shown in the videos below.

I've tried to find some nice tutorial but nether of them was very clear. I saw how they do that with blender but it was a bit confusing (mostly because I didn't worked in blender). I get the main idea and how it should be made but I wanted to know is there some nice and clean process though which this can be made (maybe in flash, after effects etc.). Almost all motion comics use this effect, and for me it looks very appealing if it's done right.

All suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.

Examples:

[Ai]

I'd be interested to find out for sure (I haven't really investigated this particular type of animation), but I'm fairly sure that these are all a camera panning through a series of separate scene containing billboards with nice detailed textures and a bit of lighting, IE a 3d scene with a bunch of planes and not much else.

I believe I've seen such an effect done in AE, but it looks like all the natural camera-motion stuff would be manually faked in that case.

[DawnBringer]

Is there something besides the parallax layers you are looking for?

[PixelPiledriver]

Read about parallax and understand the properties of a viewpoint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax

The basic idea:
Objects close to the view/camera move fast, objects further move slow.
In the examples given the camera moves, but the same is true for objects moving themselves.

I assume you are asking for an easy or automated way to achieve this.

A 3D program like MAX or Maya could work well.

AE def has a Z plane and camera allowing you to zoom and pan freely.

You can fake panning pretty quick and easily in Flash with tweening. --> panning is actually called crabbing in film, but whatever
Adjust the speeds of each layer accordingly.

Or you could code, or ask someone to code, a basic parallax setup to mess with.

It also helps to understand how actual camera shots work in films and stuff, so research that a bit.
A lot of whats done in stuff like this simulates ideas and concepts from that.

Or just take the basics of parallax and go crazy.
Make it up.
Best way to understand how to do this is to start doing it.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

@Ai I agree it's obvious that is camera movement trough 3d space with 2d elements I'm just interested in nice way to make this.

@DawnBringer Zooming in, zooming out, camera movement in different directions. I especially like effects in first two YT videos, but third one is closer to this forum and my possible usage of it.  I see that it's parallax but this looks a bit more related to camera than just layer movement.

@PPD You are right, I need to try it first. I thought why not to ask, maybe someone already made something similar. I think about this effect for very long time but somehow I never tried to make it cause I always had in mind that doing that in PS would be crazy.

Thank you guys.
--------------------------------------
While I was looking for blender tutorial I've mentioned before I found this which explain this roughly. I presumed it was AE. Now to see how 3D in AE works.

[PixelPiledriver]

I always had in mind that doing that in PS would be crazy.

You could use PS if you want.
But it would not be optimal.
If you want to create a video use something with a more robust timeline and composited animation focus.
Such as AE or Flash.

And yah that's AE in the video you just posted.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Doesn't seem complex, very user friendly. 

[32]

I've done this type of thing in AE before, you're right that it's dead simple. Just make sure you're aware of how point of interest and orientation work . Also be careful when you apply ease to camera movements, I've had AE do some unexpected things with that and any issues are amplified when its the camera doing something wrong. Use as few keys as possible is my advice, smoothness is top priority. You can edit paths with handles like bezier curves in AE which is particularly nice. Also be aware that there's no way that I could ever figure out to have a 3d composition so prepare for an impossible number of layers if your scene is very complex.

I'll also mention on top of those that others mentioned you can do this easily in Toon Boom Harmony but the camera isn't quite as user friendly.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Thank you 32, good points I will pay attention to smoothness.  I've tried to implement this 3d camera movement and it's very easy thing to do, the most important thing is positioning of planes (and also most time consuming). Plus I saw some effects on blur that depends on distance between camera and element. 

Also I've manage to contact creator of first video at the beginning of topic (The walking dead intro) and he gave me the link to creation process of his animation. Since I've started this topic to find out how it was made I think that it's a nice way to close it by posting this link.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-walking-dead-unofficial/

Thank you guys all, I really appreciate the help even if this wasn't directly related to pixel art.

[praneeth]

nice post