3D tumble not really 3D

[Ron Labbe]

Thanks…

Too bad! Now that they actually support 3D they should either create real 3D effects or at the very least not call these effects 3D when they’re not!

Appreciate the quick response. Now I guess I have to hand animate…

[Michael Szalapski]

AE can be used to create stereoscopic 3d, as evidenced by this article on turning Nosferatu into a stereoscopic 3d experience to bring it to a new audience. And there are a lot of tricks to making it look like it does 3d effects. But it is not a true 3d program. That would require a complete rewrite of the software and all the lovely compositing and either the motion graphics things it does would go away or the program would be extremely expensive.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Ron Labbe]

I have lots of experience with turning stills to stereoscopic 3D in Photoshop, but the Nosferatu clips are pretty rudimentary and I’m not sure After Effects is the best program for it (not that I would even attempt realistic movie conversion, a good still takes many hours!)

I don’t think it would be all that difficult to do a 3D tumble as an effect instead of the way it is now… I imaging if you can hand animate the layer you should be able to create it as an effect.

So, what plug-ins are available? Might there be effects that one can buy that are real 3D?

Man, Creative Cow is the place to be 🙂

(thanks)

[Keith Bradley]

What about the 3D glasses effect in AE? I once created a 3D box and made it tumble, used the 3D Glasses effect, put on the glasses and voila – 3D.
Keith Bradley

[Ron Labbe]

I know how to create anaglyphs or other forms of stereoscopic imaging. The concern here is as the subject line says… the 3D Tumble (and other “3D” effects) are not 3D, they don’t happen in z-space, but are only 2D illusions of z-space. I would hope that the 3D effects actually happen in all 3 axes (then I could use the “3D glasses” to output a tumbled layer that could be seen in 3D).

Currently I have two cameras set up for left and right views, I’m only interested in left and right output (which can later be combined in anaglyph)

[Kevin Camp]

i think you are confusing effects/plugins with presets and 3d effects with actual 3d layers…

the 3d tumble transition is a preset. it involves 2 effects, some expressions and a few expression controls. presets are limited to some degree. they can include effects and settings for various properties, but they cannot change many of the attributes of a layer, like enabling 3d (which would allow it to interact with other 3d layers in 3d space with a camera).

the effect that gives the 3d tumble it’s 3d-ness is basic 3d. however, this is a simulation of 3d space that is contained with in a single 2d layer. if you want it to react with a camera or other layers in 3d space, you’ll need to not use that preset, but make the layer itself 3d (check the 3d option for the layer in the time line), then use the layer’s rotation and position properties to animate the tumble. then it will be 3d and will react accordingly with other 3d layers and a camera.

there are some plugins/effects that are applied to 2d layers, but work with the 3d scene cameras in ae. cc cylinder is a simple one, if you apply cc cylinder to a layer, it wraps that layer around a cylinder. if you add a camera, you can move the camera around an the cylinder reacts accordingly. however, since it is restricted to 2d layer, if you have other 3d layers in the scene, the cylinder won’t appear in the correct space, it is limited to it’s layer order, as all 2d layers are.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[David Bogie]

That’s not an implementation of AE’s 3D space, it’s a fake effect.
It’s entirely possible to do true 3D using AE’s 2D shapes by creating two cameras with appropriate interocular and rendering each camera in separate passes.

However, AE is not a 3D modeler or 3D animation system and its limitations are clearly spelled out in Adobe’s promotional literature. Well. not so much as a list of “AE CANNOT DO THIS” as a list of what it can do and the omissions become important.

bogiesan

[Ron Labbe]

I know it’s a fake effect, from the days before AE supported z-space. Now that it does, I hope it will implement real 3D effects. I had a layer, made it 3D, and when I applied the 3D Tumble, I certainly expected the layer to fly around in 3D space (I have 2 cameras setup).

With the renewed interest in stereo, I hope AE will jump on this since it really shouldn’t be hard to add. (I’ve already notified the “wish list”)

thanks

[Chris Heuer]

It sounds like you have your answer, but yes, for the most part, anything you want to have true depth in stereo needs to be a 3D Layer. I did a commercial using all 3D layers and flying the camera through them. For fun, I created a second camera and combined the 2 outputs with the 3D glasses effect. It worked quite nicely! It sounds like you don’t even need that (3D glasses effect).

I’d love to hear your techniques for combining stereo images. I did that whole Nosferatu film, but I’m still just learning!

Chris

Chris Heuer
Freefall FX, LLC

[Ron Labbe]

Ah, you did the Nosferatu… brave soul! You have an idea of how hard it is to convert footage, like when he was behind a bunch of flowers, for example. Never mind transparencies, smoke, reflections~!

Of course there is a stereoscopic thread, but one way people are outputting stereo movies is via a side by side or over/under format for left eye/right eye. Then Stereoscopic Player (for example) utility will play in a multitude of formats, including anaglyph.