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American Idol 3D stroke
Does anyone have a good idea of how the 3D stroke on the American Idol title sequence is done. I figure it’s Trapcode or equivalent. But my question is: how do they execute the bit where the multiple strokes sort of chase camera as the camera does a major dolly back in Z-Space. It seems to be a common effect but I’m having trouble replicating it. It seems to me your solid layer (masked for the 3D stroke) has to be absolutely enormous to cover such a big camera move (in my case something like 20,000 px across.) Could this be right???
Thanks.
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4 Replies
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You’re assuming that AE was used to create the stroke in the middle of a 3D CG environment.
https://www.dzine.tv/dzine/result.php?id1=61
https://www.mgla.org/summaries/2005_02.html
https://www.aerodrome.com/reel.htmAs of 2004, Aerodrome used Lightwave for 98% of their 3D work. Would they use Lightwave for the 3D objects but AE for the stroke, attempting to match LW and AE cameras using the Transmotion utility? I don’t know if they did, but I wouldn’t do it. I’d stay in Lightwave for the stroke.
(Though I find strokes easier to create in Cinema 4D.)
My point is, 3D apps are being used for graphics more often than in the past.
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You’re right. A bad assumption indeed. I don’t know LW at all (or any 3D apps for that matter) so I just assumed the did final treatments and such in AE. So, having said that I don’t know much about LW, is there a simple way to replicate it in AE with Trapdcode 3D stroke? I just want the “strokes chasing camera during a long dolly back” effect.
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Well, you could create a solid, create a mask in the shape you want, apply 3D stroke, rotate the stroke effect around the Y axis, then create a camera and move the camera back along the Z axis.
Your camera doesn’t have to move far: only the length of the stroke or so. And the masked solid doesn’t have to be huge – it can be whatever size you want, as long as the mask is not tall, but long. If you make the stroke thin, it can appear very long, relatively.
Of course, it all has to be in scale with the other layers in your comp.
Does that make sense?
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Yeah. I did that. I guess the scale of my other elements are just really big…. i.e the camera z move is something on the order of -25,000 px. That’s one big’ layer. I guess I was hoping there was a shortcut. Sounds like I’ll have to bite the bullet or downscale everything.
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