How I Make My Maps

Film & Animation

How I Make My Maps

Map Making

I want to share with you how I create my maps, including all the fancy clips that go into them. To start with, it wasn't always this polished. Let’s take a walk down memory lane to 2012 when I created my very first map. As a 24-year-old foreign service officer in the field, my skills were rudimentary, evidenced by my first map attempt and efforts to sound cool and casual in my narration. Over the years, I've immersed myself in learning After Effects — the software I use to create these maps — and devoured countless tutorials to refine my workflow.

Fast forward through years of practice, jobs, and rejections, and you'll find that today my videos are a testament to persistence and passion. From working at a think tank in Washington DC to eventually contributing to Vox, my maps have always been a primary tool in the storytelling arsenal. I utilized maps to visualize data, represent historical trends, and creatively draw boundaries.

My Journey in Map Making

The real turning point came during the last season of the "Borders" series, specifically the borders of India segment. Managing physical maps from the partition and digitalizing them was a challenge that drove me to upgrade my workflow substantially. The result? A super polished map creation method I want to share in this video.

Workflow 1: The Old-School Way

Let me guide you through the original method I used for a long time, which doesn't require any plugins. This method relies on After Effects and a high-resolution file called "Jenkins," which contains detailed layers of all countries.

  1. Import the Jenkins File: I load this comprehensive Illustrator file into After Effects, ensuring it's either a composition or a single footage layer.

  2. Basic Animation: By creating a null object to act as a controller, I can anchor the map layers and animate with ease, adjusting zooms and pans directly in After Effects.

  3. Layer Adjustments: For instance, to highlight Iraq, I use Illustrator to copy the country shape and paste it into After Effects as a mask on a solid layer, ensuring it remains high resolution even when scaling.

Despite its efficiency, this old workflow could be cumbersome and limited in flexibility. This is where Geo Layers comes in.

Workflow 2: The Geo Layers Way

Geo Layers, although a $ 200 plugin, revolutionizes map making by allowing real-time integration and online data access.

  1. MapBox Studio Integration: Designing custom maps using MapBox Studio—a tool also used by prominent apps like Uber and Grubhub—is a game-changer. You can tweak everything from boundaries to labels before exporting it to Geo Layers within After Effects.

  2. Simplified Animation: Geo Layers lets you manage zoom, pan, tilt, and other camera functions with remarkable ease. The UI's search functionality allows you to pinpoint precise locations (like Basra in Iraq) effortlessly.

  3. Adding Annotations and Highlights: Features such as country shapes and labels can be dynamically added and are automatically anchored to your map, maintaining consistency through all transformations.

  4. Finalizing: The intense step where Geo Layers fetches high-resolution tiles based on your styles and precise zoom settings. The seamless integration with the Intel 11th Gen Evo processor ensures an incredibly smooth and rapid rendering process.

Performance and Efficiency

The Intel 11th Gen Evo processor provided remarkable computational speed and efficiency, handling my complex map workflows without hiccups. This advancement not only makes render times significantly faster but also streamlines multiple intensive applications running simultaneously.

Conclusion

Creating maps involves more than technical skills; it’s about storytelling and refining over time. From my clunky early attempts to leveraging advanced tools like Geo Layers, the journey has crafted a cleaner, more effective workflow.

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Keywords

  • After Effects
  • Geo Layers
  • Map Making
  • MapBox Studio
  • Intel 11th Gen Evo processor
  • Illustration File (Jenkins)
  • Animation
  • High Resolution
  • Storytelling

FAQ

  1. What software do you use to make maps?

    • I use After Effects, enhanced by various plugins, including Geo Layers.

  2. What is the Jenkins file?

    • The Jenkins file is a high-resolution Illustrator file containing layered maps of all countries.

  3. How does Geo Layers improve map making?

    • Geo Layers offers real-time integration with online data, simplifying animations, and allowing dynamic adjustments and annotations.

  4. What role does the Intel 11th Gen Evo processor play in this workflow?

    • The Intel 11th Gen Evo processor ensures a smooth, responsive experience, handling high-intensity tasks like rendering animations with ease.

  5. Where can I design custom map styles?

    • You can design custom map styles using MapBox Studio and integrate them into Geo Layers.

  6. Is the workflow suitable for beginners?

    • Yes, while the second workflow with Geo Layers involves some learning curve, it's well worth it for the efficiency and power it brings.

  7. Can we access the Jenkins file?

    • Yes, the Jenkins file is available for all of my patrons on Patreon.