3D blocks dancing to the music, and having an image/text on top?

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Not sure if there’s a solution for the way you build your 3d blocks.
It would be a simple solution with FreeForm Pro or ShapeShifter AE. It should work with the regular Free Form as well.
You can link the audio generated keyframes to the opacity of the depth maps used to extrude the blocks and you can texture with precomps that can have anything inside- color, text, animated text…

Just thought of a solution- not the easiest though- planar track with Mocha the top of the blocks and use corner pin data to stick on top a precomp of the shape with text over it.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Walter Soyka]

I’d reset the block’s position and rotation (except for the y-reversal), set a zero keyframe for extrusion, adjust the z-depth of the image so it sits one pixel above the block, just to get to a known-good state.

Next, parent the image to the block, then use an expression to modify the image’s anchor point in z-space (relative to the block, because it’s parented) according to the block’s extrusion.

Alt-click the image’s anchor point stopwatch and add this expression (changing “Shape Layer 1” for the name of your actual layer):

value - [0,0,thisComp.layer("Shape Layer 1").geometryOption.extrusionDepth]

Thereafter, you can move and reposition the block however you like and the image will follow along.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Todd Kopriva]

I just tried this and it works:

Use a text layer with the same extrusion settings and transformations as your shape layer (properties pickwhipped together for best results).

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Adam Lewen]

Thanks for replying!
Tudor, don’t have the plugins, planer track for corner pins is a way to go.
Walter, can’t wait to try the script, I will post back as soon as I do.
Todd, nice trick, so the the text extrusion will get “swallowed” in the larger box shape? will try it as well. (If I understood your meaning, a only a shape or a text layer could be used. I cannot extrude an rgb image, can I?)

Will post back.

Thanks!
Adam.

[Todd Kopriva]

Only text and shapes can be extruded.

In my example, I’m just exploiting the fact that these objects can intersect with one another in 3D space.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Adam Lewen]

Hey Guys!
Walter, your piece of code does exactly what I need! Thank you!
And thank you all for suggesting ideas!

Let me stretch the friendship here for a min, If I would wanna throw reflections on the cubes, the only way would be “texturing” the faces with reflection, right?

Thanks again.
Adam.