COW Tutorials: After Effects Create 3D Reflections

[Mike Clasby]

Very nice.

I loved the part about the Adjustment layer changing the rendering order, who’d a thunk? Great stuff. Thanks.

[Jim Zito]

Yes, very clever. I also like how you pick-whipped the text source to the reflection’s text source. Never woulda thought of that either. Nice job Andrew.

[Justin Productions]

Yeah, simply fantastic!

I was sure you’d be using a square mask and some feather for the reflection’s blur, but no, you used a transition! Even better! *haha*

Awesome.

Thx matte.

Justin Productions
Tangerin01@hotmail.com
Adobe After Effects 6.5 Professional

[Dino Muhic]

Indeed really nice tutorial!

But there’s one thing I would like to know: What do I have to do with the point light, so it doesn’t always point directly into the camera?
What I mean is, when you move the camera in the final comp the light shimmer on the floor layer is always a straight line to the camera. What i would like to do is, that the light reflection always stays the same….

is this possible?

Thank you

[Andrew Kramer]

Thanks guys, I’m glad you like this one. It’s definitely one of my fav’s.

Hey Cletus,
You can turn on the specular setting in the layer material options down or off (0%)and the light that comes at you will disappear. Personally I think that is what helps sell the effect creating a more reflective-like surface. But depending on what you are doing you can use any lighting you need. a spot, for example gives you more control over direction and such.

One more note that didn’t make it into the tutorial is that if you have a video layer not “black” text like in the tutorial, you may notice that the lighting needs to be changed because it is very dark since the light is behind it, but you can turn up the “light transmission” in the layer material properties and make sure you’re not casting shadows and it will create a “self illumination” basically the light behind will illuminate the front, so it is not dark. Another fix is to turn up the ambient light too, but that can change your lighting a lot and the look…

There is so much I considered to put in and leave out I could do another whole tutorial, but 20 minutes was already on the long side…

Cheers,
Andrew Kramer
https://www.videocopilot.net

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Hi Andrew, just curious as to why you didn’t just use Light Transmission for the reflection effect.

And just to clarify what soneone had posted earlier regarding Adjustment Layers resetting the rendering order – well it’s just not true. What’s happening with Andrew’s Adjustment Layer is that it is a 2D Layer. Placing it between 2 individual or groups of 3D layers results in each group being rendered seperately instead of at one go. This is true for all 2D layers and not just Adjustment Layers. A 3D Adjustment Layer will not affect the render pipeline. HTH.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Andrew Kramer]

Hey Rork,

I’ve used light transmission before but not create meaningful reflections… Light transmission is used to project light and color through objects and cast this light (like shadows) onto other 3D surfaces. Which may look like a reflection if the camera is on the opposite side of the light… , However, the result is locked onto the surface like a shadow so if the camera is moving around the object, the emission no longer “reflects” back to the camera but rather lays flat in connection with the light source like a shadow does. Reflections on the other hand are not stationary they “render” based on the cameras angle of view and will always “face” you. Perhaps the master Dan Ebberts could create an expression linking a light with a camera and making them orbit around an object, always opposite of each other so that the “light transmission” will “face” the camera. But I can’t think of a way it would perform like reflections do. Please let me know if I’m mistaken. I wish creating reflections WAS easier.

“And just to clarify what someone had posted earlier regarding Adjustment Layers resetting the rendering order

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

Excellent tutorial, Andrew. Nicely done. At first I thought there might be a simple way to include the text in the main comp (instead of precomposing) using the divider, but because it’s using the blurring map, which needs to reside over the text, it doesn’t seem possible.

A really cool tutorial and really useful.

Just a note to anyone curious- Andrew quickly mentions the metal property but doesn’t get too into it… my students often ask me what the 3D material charateristic called “Metal” does exactly. Metal objects in the real world reflect their own color when a white light is cast upon them – so a gold ring for example will reflect gold instead of white. Plastics, on the other hand reflect the light color, not their own – take a green highlighter and put it under a white light – you’ll see that it’s specular highlight is white not green.

Clearly that fish falls somewhere between metal and plastic – And somewhere between “big” and “mother of all creatures big and small!”

—————————————-
Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

[Andrew Kramer] “Perhaps the master Dan Ebberts could create an expression linking a light with a camera and making them orbit around an object, always opposite of each other so that the “light transmission” will “face” the camera. But I can’t think of a way it would perform like reflections do. Please let me know if I’m mistaken. I wish creating reflections WAS easier.”

Dan actually helped me out with some Expression for creating reflections in broadcastGEMs’ AE Pro Series Volume01. It works quite similar to yours – with the ramp for the falloff etc except that ours built-in some other features for scale etc. But I thought I may have an alternative for a future product version.

Once you’ve got the light, camera and layer in place, you can link the camera’s POI to the text layer’s position and then parent the light to the camera. Don’t know if this is true reflection but it does get the reflection in front, towards the camera at all times. I still like both methods though. At times I kinda prefer using ramp to create the falloff on a duplicate layer cos’ it looks more obvious and has easier controls for the reflection.

As for the fish, I sure hope that it’s edible.

Cheers
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files

[Andrew Kramer]

I thought there was a way to link those, sounds cool. Perhaps beyond my pick-whip mastery.

As for the fish, I hear Largemouth Bass are quite edible, but I bass fish for sport, so we let them go. As hard as it was.

However last monday, I went on a half day fishing trip off the coast of mexico and brought back a couple of 30 lb. Yellow tails, which were exceptional eats.
I have a great BBQ recipe if you’re interested 😉

Andrew