• Adobe After Effects

  odd layer behaviour in 3d comp

  Posted by Adam Taylor on November 8, 2008 at 11:00 pm

  I’m having a strange effect happen when rendering a 3d comp in CS4.

  I have a logo that was created in Photoshop and sent to me as many layers full of style effect . I merged layers to get this down to 4 discrete layers with the effects baked in. I imported it into AE and animated a reveal using lighting effects, then i imported that project into a third project that has a 3d environment created entirely with AE.

  The problem occurs several seconds into the render, after the reveal has happened I move the camera up and around the logo until its out of frame. As the camera begins it moved, the layers of the logo change how they appear.

  To describe it would help to explain the layers – bottom layer=fabric texture, layer 2=union flag, layer 3=Shiny 3d text, top layer= gold braid edging. Its designed to look like a sew-on military patch.

  What happens when the camera move begins is the fabric texture suddenly appears to blend with the gold text layer, whereas prior to the move it was behind the text.

  I have checked that the layers are not shifting, in any of the comps or imported projects. There is no change to blending modes. I have even tried shifting the z-depth of the badges layers to try prevent the problem but nothing seems to work.

  If anyone could suggest what might be happening i would be really grateful!!

  I’m running AE CS4 on a 8core Macpro with 10gb ram, os 10.5.5 and an nvidia 8800 graphics card.

  thanks
  adam

  Adam Taylor
  Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
  Character Options Ltd
  Oldham, UK

  http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

  Adam Taylor replied 17 years, 10 months ago 25,164 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Adam Taylor

  November 11, 2008 at 9:22 am

  sorry Dave – its already in a pre-comp. Thats why i’m baffled by the result….its also why i tried putting small amounts of z-depth on the layers to try maintain that spatial distance.

  thanks for the suggestion though.

  adam

  Adam Taylor
  Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
  Character Options Ltd
  Oldham, UK

  http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk
• 

  Adam Taylor

  November 11, 2008 at 4:56 pm

  yes i know, but that doesn’t explain why the layer at the back suddenly becomes imprinted as a texture onto the top layer once the camera begins to move.

  I will be resorting to the pre-render option. I just wanted to get to the bottom of this problem so i cant try avoid it in future.

  regards
  Adam

  Adam Taylor
  Video Editor/Audio Mixer/ Compositor/Motion GFX/Barista
  Character Options Ltd
  Oldham, UK

  http://www.sculptedbliss.co.uk

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