Animate color changes of 3D Objects in After Effects

It is so cool these days that Adobe After Effects supports 3D objects directly. Being able to import GLB, GLFT and OBJ models makes animation so much easier. But if you are not a 3D model creator, making a colour change to a downloaded model is not something that you can do in AE. Except, you can.

There are a couple of different ways to apply effects to models and I break down what you need to do for each. Starting with the simplest option of an Adjustment Layer combined with a Track Matte. Then I compare this to using an Ambient Light as an additional light source set to a colour of your choosing. Personally I thought this yielded a better result.

Next, I take a look at remaking the textures using ‪@VideoCopilot‬ Element3D and to be honest, I think the result was a little disappointing compared to what you can now do natively. I still love Element3D, but on this occasion, it didn’t hold up in comparison. So finally, I demonstrate how to use ‪@BlenderOfficial‬ to create a 3D Luma Matte version of the model. If that sounds intimidating, don’t worry, I take you through just the steps you need and we leave the rest of the program to the 3D model artists.

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