Earth Zoom scale problem

Question

Hi there,
My first post on a Apple forum...quite a momentous occasion.
Basically I want to do a simple zoom in from an earth view into a city in Motion. I've researched it online and there is one tutorial which everyone points too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkvURxnIKsw
I followed the tutorial using around 15 images from Google. All good. The problem happened when I came to keyframe the zoom in. I need to zoom in around 4000000 percent to get to my city from my widest shot. So on playback the zoom starts absurdly fast and ends absurdly slow, even with adjusting the keyframe interpolation. I use exactly the same method as the tutorial but the difference is, he is only zooming in from a wide view of a city to a building and so only needing around 3000 percent. Much easier to handle.
After Effects tutorials get around the huge scale problem by 'parenting' the layers to the closest image (ie:the city) but i can't seem to find a way similar in Motion.
Any help much appreciated

Answer 1

The corollary in Motion to parenting in After Effects (in this tutorial) is grouping. The way they use grouping in that tutorial, you should be able to get the results you're looking for.
Personally, I don't think you need so many groups. I put two layers into one group (GROUP 1), and scaled the first layer down. Then I added a 2nd group (GROUP 2) below the first group with my next largest pic. Instead of scaling down the 2nd layer to match the 3rd, I scaled GROUP 1 to match the 3rd layer. Once they matched, I dropped the 3rd layer into GROUP 1 and added a 4th layer to GROUP 2. Repeat as necessary.
When you're finished you'll have all the layers into a single group which should be at a small scale. Then animate your group.
The real problem is that you don't have an exponential scaling of your group. To solve that problem, animate your scale with the exponential behavior. Make sure that your group is at its farthest point. Right-click the scale and choose Exponential. Go to the end of the behavior. In the behaviors tab, adjust the End value until you're zoomed in to your nearest point. Open the Keyframe Editor (CMD+8) to view your exponential curve. Adjust the End Offset value on the behavior to shorten the animation to the length you want.
You can also get exponential scaling with the Grow/Shrink Behavior. It's the same basic idea. Add it to your group and adjust the scale. Make sure that the increment is set to Natural Scale. You might even get better results from that.
Andy