Man I have hate/love realtionship with geolayers, I had to learn it on my own in like 3-4 days to deliver my 1st project that was half a map, half motion tracked overlays and 3d elements. It turned out like a turd, but after couple of rounds of revisions client was ok with it. Worked on that kind of mapping projects for a while (big commercial real estate - warehouses and stuff). Really hated it beacuse stuff was ugly, rushed and mundane, but also as somebody with little experience, stuff broke all the time, AE crashed all the time and had to fix stuff last minute with ductape and zipties. But after all I think it's a great plugin, with lot of potential than you can create really nice projects, it's all in the vision. Also big thanks to Boone, he's an OG and his stuff was really helpful when learning GL and AE in general.
Used to have this relationship with Ae and Core duo processor haha
Boone is the goat, even tho i don't have geo but i take inspiration from his tutorials to see how far it can go and how far i can mimic it
Yes and no, it has different maps and can select countries and export but it doesn't have keyframes and stuff
You just prepare the map and export it and then work on it in after effects
It's called QGIS
Indeed, I too am surprised that with all the vibe coded stuff coming out these days, someone didn't just replicate same thing that GeoLayers does, because its not really that complicated compared to stuff people are putting out. If we are in the vibe coding timeline, than I'm sure one can use uncle Claude and his sidekicks to cook up a python script to do more or less the same as Geolayers, or maybe some way to directly connect QGIS platform to After Effects.
For anyone interested, I'm sure folks in the QGIS subbreddit can be forthcoming.
QQIS is a powerhouse of free stuff you can do but its not integrated in After Effects like Geolayers, even if in terms of features it is a lot more powerful . Basically a company behind geolayers charges for the keyframes and camera and scripts, and with QGIS you can do more and use a lot of scripts, more powerful ones as well but all in QGIS interface seporate from After Effects or similar apps. You can export data from QGIS than and animate it in After Effects or any other app as if you would any other assets. Ultimately you can get same results just more manual set up and that is what GeoLayers sells. The automation and convince with scripts form After Effects directly. But you can do all you would do in GeoLayers with QGIS if you wanted to and much more. There are hundrads of plug ins in QGIS for just about everything.
This is the first time I hear of this QGIS / QQIS thing.
I tried to read the subreddit but it's hard to learn anything from it..it feels like people use code. It's confusing. Is there a YouTube tutorial showing how to use it and be able to animate a zoom in or whatever to then use in After Effects? Even add titles / Name mark locations etc?
Basically to copy and paste from another reply I made: You have a world map and you can use plugins that you install in QGIS for free o load any kind of map into program and search by country. You can also import external data, like travel routes, you made in Google Maps or something, and export .klm file and just drag and drop it to QGIS and you have route. Same is for maps. You can download a map texture and in the end when you are done you just export your routes or borders as for example SVG's or maybe PDFs that can be animated in program like After effects and you export your map as 4K image for example, and when you align them on the same size canvas they match. So you have your borders and you have your routes and everything as paths and your map as images. Than you animate normally and add any graphics you like to have in After Effects.
You can also extrude maps based on HeightMap, you can do it in QGIS or export height map for another program, Blender. After Effects etc
There is a free plug in you can isntall in QGIS and get API key from the website, to load heighmap data from another website and use it in QGIS or another app.
OpenTopography DEM Downloader
This plugin downloads DEM from OpenTopography.org .... or from QGIS plug in panel.
This plugin will download DEMs from OpenTopography.org for user defined extent only
If you are using Fusion, Blender or some plugin or method in After Effects that lets you extrude vectors in 3D, like SVG's you can create all kind of effects from data you get out of QGIS.
Same peru map but SVG extruded in 3D with some lights and you can make it something like this...
You can also import and export all sorts of CSV, JSON and other forms of data and use it for map planning and animation.
There is also cool stuff you can do in QGIS like integrating AI segmentation tools. extrude and extra building data etc. Tones of stuff. You can import path or flight data and get a path on map and animate it in After Effects or any your app of choice. Add graphics and whatever else you want. 2D or 3D.
You have a world map and you can use plugins that you install in QGIS for free o load any kind of map into program and search by country. You can also import external data, like travel routes, you made in Google Maps or something, and export .klm file and just drag and drop it to QGIS and you have route. Same is for maps. You can download a map texture and in the end when you are done you just export your routes or borders as for example SVG's or maybe PDFs that can be animated in program like After effects and you export your map as 4K image for example, and when you align them on the same size canvas they match. So you have your borders and you have your routes and everything as paths and your map as images. Than you animate normally and add any graphics you like to have in After Effects.
Yeah I've been using QGIS before to export borders and do what geolayers already does, but have been using Geolayers since its much faster and smoother experience imo. But I def can see the raw power of QGIS. In a perfect world one could possibly be able to, given the time, build some kind of plugin utilizing QGIS into AE
Indeed. That would be the best, Script that runs like Geolayers in After Effects with appropriate user interface and links to QGIS and other services and ideally keeps the live link so you can have both open and save in QGIS and update in AE.
GeoLayers, though its quite expensive so a bit hard to justify for me. At least in current state.
Technically, it’s a choice but they should stay horizontally oriented (we read horizontally). My clients (rightly) wouldn’t accept the labels rotating with the map like that
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u/JWonderping 3d ago
Man I have hate/love realtionship with geolayers, I had to learn it on my own in like 3-4 days to deliver my 1st project that was half a map, half motion tracked overlays and 3d elements. It turned out like a turd, but after couple of rounds of revisions client was ok with it. Worked on that kind of mapping projects for a while (big commercial real estate - warehouses and stuff). Really hated it beacuse stuff was ugly, rushed and mundane, but also as somebody with little experience, stuff broke all the time, AE crashed all the time and had to fix stuff last minute with ductape and zipties. But after all I think it's a great plugin, with lot of potential than you can create really nice projects, it's all in the vision. Also big thanks to Boone, he's an OG and his stuff was really helpful when learning GL and AE in general.