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adjustment layers to force order of 3d layers – breaks lights
hey guys,
so i use empty adjustment layers a lot when using 3d layers, in order to force the rendering order (Anrew Kramer had a tutorial on this for those who have no idea what I’m talking about). this has always worked well, but now i need some lights in the shot, and it appears that using an adjustment layer to force the render order of objects means that some of my layers are now not casting shadows – namely, anything above the adjustment layer is not casting a shadow onto anything below it in the timeline stack.
is there a workaround to force the render order while still maintaining the interactivity of lights?
my comp consists of a wall with various pictures on it, and each picture is broken into z-space so when the camera moves, you see parallax and the pictures look like they have depth. most of these pictures overlap, hence chopping “holes” for the z-depth layers to show through is tricky unless you force the render order and use track mattes.
after many experiments with stencil blend modes and collapsed precomps and track mattes, the method of track-matting each z-layer of an image, and then inserting a blank adjustment layer in between images, works best in order to have the illusion that each photograph is a “hole” into it’s own world with depth. just need those lights to cast shadows now, so each photo looks like it’s sitting slightly on top of the next.
fake shadows? it looks fake. my light is parented to my camera so it shines wherever the camera looks. if the camera moves, the shadows have to change, so i can’t just drop shadow them.any advice?
thanks,
scott. -
1 Reply
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If the 3D lights don’t work you could possibly use an expression to tie your drop shadow effect to the camera movement so the direction rotates round when your camera moves? Dunno what expression that would be. So i am, in fact, not much help.
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