Bending or deforming a 2D image or layer in 3D space

[Walter Soyka]

Some clever application of CC Cylinder should do the trick.

Depending on your version of Ae, you may have Freeform bundled, which would also be a good choice.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

You can bend 2D layers in 3D using the ray-traced 3D renderer:
https://www.video2brain.com/en/lessons/bending-2d-layers

It’s limited, but it may be enough for you.

Walter’s tip about the CC Cylinder effect is also good.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Blake Goedde]

I unfortunately have CS5.5. I tried Walter’s tip and it produces too flat a look. I suppose I could keep trying, but I’m looking for some true 3D deformation. I guess AE doesn’t offer much of that by default

[Walter Soyka]

[Blake Goedde] “I unfortunately have CS5.5.”

Then you have FreeForm bundled. Try that.

[Blake Goedde] “I tried Walter’s tip and it produces too flat a look.”

You want the logo to wrap in 3D space and have depth? That’s a job for a full 3D application.

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

[Todd Kopriva]

> That’s a job for a full 3D application.

… and we include one of those now.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
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[Blake Goedde]

I’ve tried FreeForm as well. I feel like it could work, but I can’t seem to adjust in from any camera but the front. https://i.imgur.com/fRJrykn.png
If you saw the video from my first post, then that was rendered from the view on the left. The view on the right is just the top of the 3D composition and you can see the motion path I want the logo to bend around. My problem with using FreeForm is that I can’t seem to manipulate the grid or do anything other than highlight the grid points in the top view. I can warp the image using FreeForm all I want in the front view, but whenever I try to use it from the top view, which I guess is my “camera1,” then nothing budges.

https://i.imgur.com/fRJrykn.png

For some reason my links aren’t working in this forum

View post on imgur.com

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Here’s a tutorial that uses Free Form- maybe that will give you some pointers:

https://library.creativecow.net/jelescu_tudor/3D-from-2D-image_AE/1

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Chris Bobotis]

Digieffects FreeForm was bundled with CS 5.5 as well. Not CS6 (+later). FreeForm V2 is for CS6 and up (available at mettle.com)

Just guessing here but I think you may be applying FreeForm to an AE 3D layer. This is not a good idea as it would produce unexpected results. All 3D plug-ins should be used on AE 2D layers to work properly. This includes the Trapcode products, Element 3D and even AE’s own 3D plug-ins like Shatter. You can definitely do true 3D with all Mettle plug-ins for AE. There is no 2.5D trickery going on with our stuff. We run a full and robust 3D engine in our plug-ins.

HTH

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com