AEScripts GEOlayers 3

Overview

Animated maps are one of those requests that sound trivial and are not. Every documentary, news package, travel film and corporate video eventually needs a map that moves from one place to another with a line drawn along the way, and building that by hand from stills is tedious, imprecise and looks it. This plugin makes the map itself a layer inside the compositor.

Map data is pulled in from tile services at whatever zoom level the shot requires, with a wide selection of styles from satellite imagery through to plain vector cartography, and the style is a parameter rather than a fixed choice, so the same animation can be reskinned to match a film's palette without rebuilding it. Terrain data can be brought in to give the map real elevation.

Movement is handled with proper geographic awareness. Camera position is set by coordinates or by searching for a place by name, and moving between two locations produces a correctly interpolated path rather than a linear slide across a flat image. Zoom, tilt and rotation are keyframable, and the plugin swaps tile levels automatically as the zoom changes so detail is always appropriate.

On top of the base map, the data layer is where the real work happens. Routes are drawn along real road, rail or flight paths with animated reveal, markers and labels are placed by coordinate and stay attached as the map moves, geographic boundaries can be styled and highlighted individually, and external data sets can be imported to drive colour, size or extrusion for genuine data visualisation.

Key Features

• Real map data pulled directly onto a compositor layer at any zoom level
• Wide style selection from satellite imagery to plain vector cartography
• Terrain elevation data for maps with real three dimensional relief
• Camera positioning by coordinate or by place name search
• Geographically correct interpolation when moving between two locations
• Keyframable zoom, tilt and rotation with automatic tile level swapping
• Route drawing along real road, rail and flight paths with animated reveal
• Markers and labels placed by coordinate that stay attached as the map moves
• Individually styleable geographic boundaries and regions
• External data import driving colour, size and extrusion for data visualisation

What Changed in This Build

• Faster tile fetching and caching on long map moves
• Additional map styles bundled
• Improved label placement so text avoids collisions during movement
• Route animation handles very long paths without precision loss

System Requirements

Processor	Intel or AMD 64-bit, 6 cores or more recommended
Memory	16 GB minimum for high zoom map work
Graphics	GPU with 4 GB VRAM
Storage	2 GB for install plus tile cache space
Host	A matching generation of the compositor for the plugin to register

Release Details

Full title	AEScripts GEOlayers 3
Version string	1.18.0
Publisher	AEScripts
Category	Video Editing
Licence	Full version, no term limit
Platform	Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit
Interface language	English
Archive size	186 MB
Mirrors	4 active, all reporting online
Listed	refreshed 3 months ago, checked again 40 minutes ago

Installation Notes

• Install after the host compositor so the plugin lands in the correct folder and registers.
• Give the tile cache plenty of room, high zoom sequences pull a great deal of data and recaching is slow.
• Prefetch tiles for a planned move before rendering rather than fetching during the render pass.

Before You Start

Read the notes above before running setup. Most of the problems people write in about are covered there, and almost all of them come down to an older version of the same software still being installed, a graphics driver that predates the release, or a security suite quarantining part of the package mid install.

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