After Effects + C4D workflow questions

[Michael Szalapski]

You can set a compositing tag on the screen and set it to output an object buffer. That can be used as a track matte to isolate the screen from any elements passing in front of it. An external compositing tag can also be applied to the screen which will create a null in After Effects.

– The Great Szalam
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[Maximilian Williamson]

Thanks so much! When I extract the data from c4d it throws that null right in. I may still be doing something wrong as the null always seems to be rotated 90 degrees on the x and 90 degrees on the y… but thanks!

[Walter Soyka]

[Maximilian Williamson] “I know there was a greyscale gorilla tutorial from a while back where he outputted a separate screen from C4D, but this workflow seems so linear now that Cineaware exists… there must be a better way no?”

Just building on Michael’s answer, you do this with two separate CINEWARE layers — one for the image of the phone, another for the screen’s object buffer.

You’ll also want to extract scene data in CINEWARE to get a null that follows the phone.

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
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[Walter Soyka]

Off-topic, but welcome back, Michael!

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

[Michael Szalapski]

Thanks, Walter! It’s really good to be back in my home pasture with the COW.

– 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.

[Jp Pelc]

When I did this for an iPhone 4, I just created a comp in AE with the iPhone’s dimensions, then rendered it out as animation and brought that into C4D and used it as the color texture on the screen. I am not too familiar with C4D though, so there might be a more efficient way.