• Adobe After Effects

  Pointing to an object in a 3D precomp

  Posted by Pierpaolo Ferlaino on March 26, 2015 at 9:46 am

  Hi,
  I’m not sure it can be done and I hope I ‘m clear about what I’m trying to do.

  Basically, when I distribute objects in 3D space, in order to point the camera to a specific object I do like this:

  – link the camera to a 3D null
  – copy the position of the target layer
  – paste it to the position of the 3D null

  Now the camera is pointing at my target object…

  Can I do the same thing if these object are inside a precomp with collapse transformation on?

  I have a pre comp with my objects distributed in 3D space and I need to use different instances of this precomp but I would like my camera to point exactly at a some layers inside this precomp…

  I know I can do this by hand but I was looking for a more precise method… If it even exists…

  Pierpaolo Ferlaino replied 11 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Cassius Marques

  March 26, 2015 at 1:16 pm

  I’m assuming you want to get the current position of a layer to keyframe a camera animation. The simplest way would be to keyframe and animate your camera inside this precomp, then copy/paste the camera to the parent comp and compensate its transformations for any space/time discrepancies.

  You can also use expressions that access and translate any space coordinates of any layer inside any comp to any other comp. (e.g creating a null and “linking it” to the layer you need to address, so you can copy/paste as you’re used to.)
• 

  Pierpaolo Ferlaino

  April 3, 2015 at 9:56 am

  Yes. That is what I was trying to do…
  Many thanks…

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