bending in 3D space

[Mark Madsen]

i have read some other posts on the subject and the only good suggestion i’ve seen is CC Cylinder. is that built in or is that a plugin you have to buy? i’m on cs3

[David Bogie]

The Boris perspective filters allow you to set keyframes to elp simulate a rollup but it’s not physically real.

AE is a 2D application that shows flat layers in 3D space. It’s possible to roll up a scroll if it is made up of dozens of small layers. It’s usually far easier and cheaper to hire a good 3D animator.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Kevin Camp]

cc cylinder is included with cs3, you should find it in effects>perspective… to use it to create a scroll will take some ‘faking’ in ae.

cc cylinder takes layer and wraps it into a cylinder, it won’t let you uncurl it, or have it start flat and then curl it, or curl just a portion of a layer… its all or nothing. so if you need a flat portion of the scroll, that will need to be a separate layer that will need to lineup with the rolled portion(s).

also, it will only ‘wrap’ it around the vertical axis of the layer, so you may need find a way to rotate the layer prior to applying the cylinder effect depending on how you want your scroll to be oriented (you might try the transform effect (effects>distort), then the cylinder effect). and you’ll probably need the grow bounds effect (effects>utility) before the cylinder effect.

if you want the layers to move and then start wrapping into a scroll (say, starting at the bottom, moving upwards and wrapping into a scroll at the top), then you will need to do all the movement in a precomp, and have that precomp get sectioned up into other precomps that are used to create the flat areas and the rolled area(s) to give it that sort of effect…

as bogie mentioned, it might be much easier to do this in a 3d app. you could just model up a scroll, then animate a texture across it…

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Paul Conigliaro]

CC Cylinder is a pre-installed plug-in that you should already have. However, keep in mind that this plug-in will just produce a cylinder, not an unfurling scroll. But you could probably produce the effect with a second flat layer underneath that gets revealed as the cylinder rotates.

[Bret Williams]

You can fake the roll out pretty easy, but it won’t be in 3D space as others have mentioned. But if you’re just putting a slight angle on it, it shouldn’t be that noticeable if it goes by quick.

I recently had to do exactly what you’re trying to do for a project. I animated 3 properties of cc cylinder to fake it. I animated the position of the cylinder to move it across. I animated the size to make it smaller as it went across. And I rotated it to make it look like it was rolling. However I didn’t have any perspective on it, but it shouild be ok if it’s just a little.

Behind the cc cylinder layer I had another layer with an animated mask that was revealed as the cylinder rolled across. On that layer I added a little bit of a page turn to make it look like it was trying to curl back up for a second.

Simple stuff. I don’t use any plug ins that I can think of. Every time I’ve bought plugins, they seem to get incorporated into the app next time around!

Here’s the quicktime of the animation… https://www.bretwilliams.com/cowstuff/OLW%20Open%20v3.mov

[Bret Williams]

Oh, looks like I did do it in 3D space at the very end and it seems to work pretty well. But like I said, not much of an angle.

[David Bogie]

Good post, Bret, clean technique.

It’s possible to change the apparent perspective of the cylinder layer as it moves across the screen but it has to be done in the precomp.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Darby Edelen]

[david bogie] “It’s possible to change the apparent perspective of the cylinder layer as it moves across the screen but it has to be done in the precomp.”

CC Cylinder responds to 3D camera movements as well… The difficulty would be in lining up the 3D layer being revealed with the cylinder. This could be done manually or using expressions.

Darby Edelen

[Bret Williams]

Yeah, and I probably toyed with it, but I probably just left it as a precomp then made it a 3D layer to incorporate with the camera move.

I did recently use the shatter effect to do a 3D logo that moved with the camera. It was always in the foreground and didn’t have to interact with the background so it worked fine.

It’s pretty amazing what you can do with that shatter effect!