It's crazy to me how long it's taken me to get to this workflow distinction, but I think it's going to be incredibly helpful for me going forward. I'll definitely do a tutorial on it at some point, but wanted to log the initial stages and discovery here first.
The problem:
Whenever I create tutorials, it's not usually one long recording underneath that I can simply scale up and zoom into. It's usually many different recordings, screenshots, and even composites to create a cohesive narrative. But then on top of that, I need the viewer to zoom in and see things close up. Here’s a recent example (without HandyCam) 👇
I've used 3D cameras a lot in the past, in 3D software and in After Effects, but I've never really considered using them for 2D zooms. For some reason I've always used null layers to zoom in and out. I have no idea why, and it now seems pretty naive.
Anyway, Handycam has been something that I've wanted to try out for ages and it's really fantastic. The basic premise is that it gives you very easy controls over a 3D camera, but you don't have to use 3D camera movement. You can simply zoom in and out and pan around — no one has to know your layers are 3D.
And then of course the bonus is that whenever you want, you can dip into 3D and bring in some of that sweet bokeh 😉.
Anyway, here's my initial rig and how I think I'm going to start working on Glide tutorials with it. Hopefully I'll make a proper tutorial on this soon on my channel!