A decent 3D floor

[Darby Edelen]

[Virtual Light] “There’s no question that this IS a series of walls. Every other approach I utilized just plain wouldn’t work in AE’s 3D space.”

Indeed, I wasn’t criticizing your technique, it’s actually a very good one and I think a lot of people will find it useful.

I was just pointing out that the original poster asked about a floor, and I can’t be sure what he means by floor but I assumed it was the generally accepted sort of floor =)

Basically, your technique is fantastic for what you were accomplishing, but I’m not sure that it’s what the original poster was trying to accomplish… but we won’t know until we get more details =)

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Rob Wolf]

Original poster here…

When I say “floor”, I mean an infinite plane that fades out in the distance and gives the perception of a solid ground on which objects can stand.

Earlier in the thread, someone pointed out that these don’t exist in nature. Isn’t that why we use After Effects in the first place?

Thanks for all of your help so far,
Rob

[Virtual Light]

I’d love to know a simpler technique for accomplishing a real floor but, frankly, whether it’s a floor, ceiling or walls, there’s little that can be done in After Effects to make infinite “hallways”. The files have to be so large or scaled to such astronomical proportions that it becomes effectively impractical.

I’m assuming you would like to travel over the plane or at least “explore” the space you’ve created and this is where it gets sticky. It’s extremely difficult to place objects within such a large area that react predictably and aesthetically.

I’ve just finished a tabletop animatic and even that limited space presented similar challenges. Placing plates, glasses and other embellishments in the environment required some real cheating to get everything to behave properly.

Maybe someone has come up with the magic key for this process. I’d love to have them share it.

Jim

[Darby Edelen]

[Rob Wolf] “Earlier in the thread, someone pointed out that these don’t exist in nature. Isn’t that why we use After Effects in the first place?”

The sentiment I was trying to express was that compositing & effects in AE is often based on natural phenomena. Of course, there are those times when you want to do something entirely stylistic.

The Matrix’s armory comes to mind, but even then the movie usually concerns itself with providing a heightened ‘virtual’ reality that is still obviously connected/related to our own… I don’t want to get too theoretical on this whole thing, I’d rather help you find a solution for your problem, could you explain what you hope to do with an infinite plane?

An infinite plane in AE isn’t possible (it’s not really a 3D package), but the impression of one can be cheated if you know what you’re trying to accomplish. I usually use lighting, or a wall, or a feathered mask or a combination of all of these to obscure the edges of planes as I need it.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Rob Wolf]

Darby wrote:

“I usually use lighting, or a wall, or a feathered mask or a combination of all of these to obscure the edges of planes as I need it.”

Ok…now we’re getting somewhere. Can you be more specific? Post a project file?

Rob

[Darby Edelen]

Here’s an example of an AEP where I used a light to limit the amount of the plane that is visible. If you look closely you can still see a bit of a seam mostly due to the rotating lights. I could have made the plane a little larger or used more glow from the lights or depth of field to obscure it.

I turned most of the bells and whistles off for this example (depth of field, motion blur) and removed the box art, as I’m sure I don’t have the right to include it. The ‘texture’ of the table was also higher res at one point.

https://www.mediafire.com/?3dynyeudzu5