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Reflective Fade
First the setup: Picture you’re standing in a long hallway. You can see the floor, and side walls. The back wall is not visible (I did say it was a long hallway, right?)
Ok, in AE, I have a composition that’s the floor. I have some effects on it so it’s a comp on its own. The same for the side walls.
Now comes the fun part. In a new comp (let’s call it ‘hallway’), I have: the floor, tilted 90 degrees so it appears flat, the sidewalls that run each side of the floor. With me so far? Great!
Now, I have fly-ins that move from the back of the hallway towards the camera (you, standing in the hallway). This is the easy part. Each fly-in is a comp that’s already been created. But, the effect I want to achieve is the fly-in reflected on the floor. The reflection itself I’ve already done (copy the fly-in object comp, rotate -90 degrees, lower to floor level, change opacity, add gradient mask so it looks more realistic, done.) But, how to fade it in from the back to the front of the hallway as the layer is moving forward towards the camera?
Basically when the object flying in is way in the back and just becoming visible, the reflection shouldn’t be as decernable. However, as it moves closer and closer, the reflection should get more and more visible.
In my mind, I’m thinking of a gradient mask on the floor that the reflected layer rides underneath. The mask would be at its darkest further away (from the camera’s POV), and fading to transparency closer to the camera. But what I can’t figure out is how to do this. If I add the mask on the floor layer, it will fade the floor itself – not the desired effect.
Anyone have any suggestions here? Would a second floor layer right above the current one be the solution? Add the mask to this second layer, and have the reflection layer run in between the two floor ones?
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4 Replies
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could you just animate the opacity of the faux reflection layer?
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Hrm, perhaps. Although that would be changing the entire layer, as opposed to a gradient from further back to front. Correct?
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sorry, i think i may have misunder stood what you were looking for…
i was thinking that the reflection layer just needed to be less appearent (like maybe 15% opacity). then as the object moves closer the reflection just increased to maybe 50% opacity.
are you looking for more of a distortion effect.. like the bumps in the floor exagerate the distortion of the reflection when it is further away? i believe andrew kramer did a tutorial where a relfection of a photo was distorted by a watery floor texture that might be of some help. he had a nice way of projecting the texture in 3d to use as a dispacement map.
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
You can keyframe the opacity, or use an expression to tie it to your Z-axis. Pre-compose… Alternately, you might find some inspiration in this tutorial by Kramer…
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/reflections.php
Brian
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