AEScripts GEOlayers 3

About this release

Animated maps are a standard requirement in news graphics, documentary and explainer work, and building one by hand is miserable: find a map, trace the coastline, place the labels, animate the camera and start again when the region changes. GEOlayers replaces all of that by pulling real geographic data into the composition as layers you can style and animate like anything else.

Map styles range from plain outlines through terrain, satellite imagery and fully custom cartography, and every element arrives as a separate controllable layer rather than a flat picture. Coastlines, borders, roads, water, labels and terrain can be recoloured, hidden and restyled independently so a map matches a brand rather than looking like a stock service.

Animation is where it saves the most time. Camera moves between locations are keyframed by picking places rather than by animating position and scale by hand, and the panel handles the projection and the zoom curve so a flight from a continent to a street stays smooth and correctly oriented. Paths animate along real routes, and points of interest attach to coordinates so they stay locked as the camera moves.

Data driven work is supported directly. Geographic data files load and render as styled shapes, so regions can be shaded by value, boundaries drawn from a dataset, and markers placed from a table of coordinates. Everything remains ordinary composition layers, so the usual effects, masks and expressions apply on top.

What it does

Real map data as layers

Coastlines, borders, roads, water and labels arrive separately and stay individually styleable.

Multiple map styles

Outline, terrain, satellite imagery and custom cartography from one panel.

Location based camera moves

Keyframe a flight by picking places, with projection and zoom curve handled for you.

Animated routes

Paths draw along real roads or great circles between points.

Coordinate locked markers

Points of interest stay attached to their location as the camera moves.

Geographic data import

Load data files to shade regions, draw boundaries or place markers from a table.

Changed in this version

• Faster rendering of high zoom terrain tiles.
• New cartography style presets added.
• Improved label placement at extreme zoom levels.
• Route animation gains elevation aware paths.
• Data import handles larger files without stalling.

System requirements

Install order

1. Close the compositing application before installing.
2. Unpack the archive and place the panel files in the host script and extension folders.
3. Allow unsigned extensions in the host preferences if the panel does not appear.
4. Open the panel once and set the tile cache location before building a map.

Worth knowing before you start

File details