CC Sphere: pin 3D-layer to specific point on a sphere

[John Cuevas]

Create your CC sphere layer and set up the layer but leave it in the center of the comp.

Add a null object to your comp and turn on it’s 3d switch. Open the rotation properties of the Null, enable an expression for XYZ rotation and pick-whip it to the CC Sphere’s rotation and at the beginning of the expression add a minus sign(you want to the result to go backwards to match the rotation). Add and expression to the Null’s position and pick whip that to the CC Sphere Offset so if you move the sphere your controller will follow.

Enable 3d for the CC sphere layer and ignore any warnings. Now just parent the layer you want to orbit the sphere(pinned to the sphere) to the Null.

You can even add a camera to the scene if and keep the sphere layer by using cntl+alt+o and change the sphere layers orientation to “Orient to camera” to avoid the postcards in space look.

I made a quick example project where you can see the results with and without a camera.
4202_exampleproject.aep.zip

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[Stef Prein]

Hi John,

Thanks! That’s exactly what I’m looking for! And yes, I should have thought of this… I’m glad you did!

Cheers,

Stef Prein
director/motion designer at StudioFets.
Utrecht, The Netherlands
http://www.studiofets.com

[Nikolya Gousteau]

Hi John!

Thank you a lot for suggesting this solution. However, several things remain unclear for me:

1) When we pick-whip the Null position to CC Sphere offset, we want the Null to be “pinned” to the center of the Sphere, right? However when I watch your composition, this is not exactly so…
Here is a link to the rendered “Example project” comp from your project:
link
(I’ve just added a red circle to visualize the Null, and set the opacity of Sphere to 50 to reveal the Null)

2) Even when we turn off the animation of Sphere offset, if we try to place the Solid exactly on the surface of Sphere, there is a problem. Here is a link to a video-description of the problem:
link
To place the Solid on the surface, I just set its Z-position to -R, R being the radius of Sphere (note that Solid is pick-whipped to Null so its position is relative with respect to Null). What is wrong in this case?

Thank you in advance!

P.S. Here is a link to the project file: 4210_solutiondiscussion.aep.zip

[Nikolya Gousteau]

It appears that I’ve just solved the problem 2)

In the expression for Null position I wrote
temp = thisComp.layer("CC Sphere Layer").effect("CC Sphere")("Offset");
[temp[0], temp[1], 0]
instead of
temp = thisComp.layer("CC Sphere Layer").effect("CC Sphere")("Offset");
[temp[0], temp[1], temp[1]]

The question 1) remains.

[John Cuevas]

temp = thisComp.layer("CC Sphere Layer").effect("CC Sphere")("Offset");
[temp[0], temp[1], temp[1]]

The problem was in pick-whipping the null position to the offset. It escaped me that the z position is being fed the y-position value from the CC Sphere Layer(temp[1]). After Effects does this because there is no Z position value from the sphere, so the nulls z position by 243 pixels. That’s why everything was off.

The solution is to go to the null’s position property and right click on it and choose separate dimensions. Then individually select the x and y position of the null and link them to the sphere’s xy offset.

Sorry about the mistake, I previewed it quickly and thought I had caught everything.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

[Nikolya Gousteau]

That’s OK, at least now I understand better how CC Sphere works.

I’ve also experimented with camera, and came to conclusion that CC Sphere doesn’t treat the perspective the same way as After Effects.
I tried 15 mm camera and 200 mm camera, and CC Sphere doesn’t seem to be effected by this feature. But the solid layer is dramatically effected by it. Here is an illustration:

link

It appears that only 200 mm camera gives good result compatible with CC Sphere.

P.S. A link to the project file: 4212_solutiondiscussionfinal.aep.zip

[Paul Murphy]

This tutorial shows you how to link a 3D object to CC Sphere:
https://vimeo.com/126553140

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[Stef Prein]

Haha thanks! I had completely forgotten about this post.

Stef Prein
director / motion designer at StudioFets.
Utrecht, The Netherlands
http://www.studiofets.com