First, watch this video. It looks next-level! We are going to make a cinematic video like this today. I created this based on 3D animation, and I will try my best to explain it to you in detail. Think of this as a tutorial. I used a birthday video idea as an example to show you. Since today is Vijay sir’s birthday, I took it as a birthday concept. It turned out looking amazing. If you watch this video from the beginning to the end, most of your doubts will be cleared and you will get a good idea of how a 3D camera and animation work.

First, what we need for this video is around five to six character PNGs. It can be any character or object; having those is enough. After that, we can start editing. Watch the video until the end. To make this, you will need the Alight Motion app. If you don’t have it, I have shared it on my WhatsApp channel and Telegram. The Telegram link will start working tonight after 12 AM because it was banned until the 20th or 22nd. So it should start working after midnight. If you don’t have the patience to build it from scratch, I have also provided the project file in the description. You can use that. First, let me show you a demo of how I made it to give you an overview, and then I will show you a simple way to follow along. The project I am showing you is the exact one given in the description. You can check it out. I will click on this box and turn on the camera. After turning it on, you can see I placed some characters. I will explain that to you, but let’s start from the bottom layer to give you an idea.

I added everything at the very beginning so there wouldn’t be too much disturbance. I added a video in the background and then edited it using keyframe animation. There is text in the back, text in the front, and a character in the middle. It doesn’t strictly have to be a person; you can put whatever you like. After that, our character animation continues in 3D. It looks really good. At the end, I placed “Tamil Nadu CM” text, and from there, a small shake effect appears. That is all we need to do in this edit. If you want your edit to look highly attractive, try this method. Now, let’s start our main topic and begin editing. First, select your aspect ratio. I have chosen the 16:9 ratio—sorry, 9:16 ratio—and clicked “Create Project.” After that, tap the plus icon below, go to audio, and add your music or dialogue. I have chosen a separate audio track and am adding it here. As far as I know, this music is from a movie—either Tamil or Malayalam. I think it is from a Dulquer Salmaan movie called King of Kotha or something, but I am not entirely sure. No problem. I will provide this music track and the XML file, so give it a try.

As I mentioned earlier, we need some character PNGs. For these character photos, I removed the backgrounds using an app called PhotoRoom. It is available on the Play Store. You just upload a normal photo, and it removes the background for you. I have also posted them on Telegram and WhatsApp, so you can check them out there. For backgrounds, you can download various images from the Pinterest app. If you want to make a different style of video, you can try other backgrounds from there. Now, let’s start editing. First, I wanted to add a background image, but let’s do that later. Let’s place the characters first. Coming to the start of the timeline, I want to add a photo of someone sitting first. After adding it, go to “Move & Transform” and change its Z-value to around 5000 or 7000. Let’s make it 7000. Select X, Y, and Z, and make sure the Z-value is exactly positive 7000, not negative. After doing that, drag it to the end of the video—or you can adjust the duration later…

With the first layer at 7000, let’s add the second character photo. I will set this one to 6000 and move it slightly to the side. Then we will add the third character. I will set the third one to 5000. I am arranging them at 7000, 6000, 5000, and 4000 just to give you a clear concept. After 5000 is done, let’s add another photo for 4000 because we need to complete the character layout first. I am placing these characters just as an example to demonstrate the workflow. The next one is at 3000. So far, we have added five photos at 7000, 6000, 5000, 4000, and 3000. Next, let’s add a photo at 2000 as well to show you. I have placed the 2000 one. There is no strict rule that you must place them exactly like this, so arrange them how you like. After the 2000 layer, let’s add one final photo at 1000. You can add even more if you want. This is just for demonstration. Let’s add one last photo and keep its value at 0.

As you can see in “Move & Transform,” this last layer is at 0. Now go to the end of the timeline, long-press all these layers, and select the extension option so they all stretch perfectly to the end. Now that we have added our layers, tap the plus icon, go to media, and decide whether you want to add a background photo or a video. I want to add a small fire particles video. If you want this video, I will put it in the description, or you can leave a comment and I will send it to you. Now go to “Move & Transform” and set its value to 7000 or slightly above because the background needs to come from behind everything. Since a character is already at 7000, let’s set the video to 7300. Then go to “Scale” and increase the size as much as needed. Increasing the size helps hide any visible side cuts while adjusting. Now the background is added and set. Next, tap the plus icon, go to “Object & Element,” and add a camera layer. After adding it, click on the camera box option to turn the camera on. Now, follow along with this simple method so it isn’t too difficult.

At the very beginning, let’s add a keyframe and zoom in a little. Zoom in like this. You can see the camera position at the start. What we need to do next is zoom in on the background a bit. Add a keyframe at the start, then move to the 2-second or 4-second mark and keep zooming in. The characters will keep passing by. You can see the character placement moving forward. By doing this, our animation is set up. Let me show you from the beginning: first character, second character, third character, fourth, fifth, and the final one. Now you can add text behind them. Tap the plus icon, go to text, type “Happy Birthday,” and set its Z-value to 7000 as well so it appears clearly in the back. It appeared, but it is rotated, so adjust the rotation. You can style the text however you like. I am just using a simple text layer as an example because I don’t want to waste time. I will change the color to white and select a better font. Right, this looks good. You can drag this text layer to the end of the video. The text layout and the animation look absolutely perfect to me.

Instead of a plain animation, we also need motion blur or a focus blur effect. If you look at the bottom, the sharp cut edges of the photos are visible, so you should add a blur to fix that. To add a focus blur, go to the camera options, select this setting, and turn on “Focus Blur.” Once turned on, adjust the settings to make it look clean. Now let’s zoom in on this character layer a bit, and zoom in on the next one too. Now look, it comes out perfectly. Wherever the camera zooms in, the transition looks great. To prevent the sharp bottom cuts from showing, apply a smooth transition or effect. Select the cropped photo layer, go to effects, and add the “Wipe” effect. After adding it, change its angle, decrease the start/end values, and increase the feather setting. Look at that—the harsh cuts are no longer visible. If you copy and apply this same process to the rest of the photos, it will give you a much better result. You can continue doing the same for all layers.

Now you just need to align the transitions precisely as each character appears. Go to the second character position and adjust it, then do the same at the third character, the fourth character, the fifth, and the sixth. The keyframe animation looks really good here. You need to tweak the positioning manually; it doesn’t have to look exactly like mine. You can adjust your photos much better. For example, if a photo doesn’t look properly aligned, just zoom in a bit and re-center it. You can do this all the way to the end of the timeline. From there, you can continue adding more animations, like a shake effect. That’s pretty much it. If you have any other doubts, feel free to leave a comment. You can also add overlay videos or fire effects in the background. If you have any questions, let me know. The video length has gotten quite long. Jai Hind!

Full Project (Template)

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XML file

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Song link

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