• Adobe After Effects

  Bump Map on 3D layers

  Posted by Kat Messing on May 13, 2011 at 9:02 pm

  Hey everybody,

  I’m working on a project where the camera zooms down a 3D hall. I’ve simulated the hall/tunnel with the positioning of individual layers in 3D space. My “floor” texture extends well into the distance, and as the camera zooms along it it looks very flat. In this case, the texture on the floor is of a computer chip. I’ve looked at the videocopilot.net tutorial for applying bump maps to 2D layers, but I can’t seem to get the right effect in 3D. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could accomplish this? (Without buying expensive plugins, please-I’m a student living off of ramen noodles!)

  Thanks very much,

  ~Kat

  Darby Edelen replied 15 years, 4 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Tudor “ted” jelescu

  May 13, 2011 at 9:31 pm

  If you have CS5 then you have Free Form. You can apply a depth map to a 2d layer Using Free Form and position that in 3d space using the plugins controls to create the floor.
  Here’s a tutorial that can help you understand how Free Form works:
  https://library.creativecow.net/jelescu_tudor/3D-from-2D-image_AE/1

  Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
  Senior VFX Artist
• 

  Darby Edelen

  May 15, 2011 at 11:27 pm

  Well, you can approximate a bump map with the CC Glass effect (Effect > Stylize > CC Glass). There is an input for a bump map in the effect.

  You’ll probably want to set the Softness and the Displacement to 0 since these are for simulating the glass distortion. The Height will adjust the intensity of the effect.

  If you need the effect to actually respond to lights in your scene then you’ll need some expressions, and this technique will only allow you to link the effect to 1 light. In addition, this is a cheat so the specular highlight won’t travel with camera movement (only with light movement).

  To begin with you’ll want some of the Shading properties of the CC Glass effect set up as follows:

  Ambient : 100
  Diffuse : 100

  The others can be adjusted as you like.

  You can then apply the following expressions to the CC Glass effect.

  To Light Height under the Light section:

  md = 1000; //Maximum distance from the layer, play with this setting
  l = thisComp.layer(“Light 1”); //Your light layer
  pl = l.toWorld([0,0,0]);
  v = toWorldVec([0,0,1]);
  vl = pl – toWorld(anchorPoint);
  d = Math.abs(dot(vl, v));
  linear(d, 0, md, 0, 100);

  To the Light Position property:

  l = thisComp.layer(“Light 1”); //Your light layer
  pl = fromWorld(l.toWorld([0,0,0]));

  Darby Edelen

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