create a 3d plane from four 3d points (nulls)

[Dan Ebberts]

I’m not sure what you mean by “draw a plane” (expressions can’t create anything), but if you had nulls representing three corners (lets say upper left, lower left and lower right), you could use an expression like this to derive the orientation for a 3D solid(I haven’t tested this, but it should be close):


UL = thisComp.layer("UL").toWorld([0,0,0]);
LL = thisComp.layer("LL").toWorld([0,0,0]);
LR = thisComp.layer("LR").toWorld([0,0,0]);
u = normalize(LR-LL);
v = normalize(LL-UL);
w = cross(u,v);
sinb = clamp(w[0],-1,1);
b = Math.asin(sinb);
cosb = Math.cos(b);
if (Math.abs(cosb) > .0005){
c = -Math.atan2(v[0],u[0]);
a = -Math.atan2(w[1],w[2]);
}else{
a = Math.atan2(u[1],v[1]);
c = 0;
}
[radiansToDegrees(a),radiansToDegrees(b),radiansToDegrees(c)]


Dan

[Bradon Webb]

what about a script?

something where you can select your 3 locator null layers, then run script and it will generate a new solid that is sized and rotated exactly to fit on those 3 points?

seems possible. I have coded some stuff similar in 3D applications, but not familiar with AE scripting to know if something exists like this already.

if not seems like it should.

[Thor Sarup]

wow. 4 years later 🙂

but I agree. Should be simple if you know the math. If there’s a javascript-ish version out there it should be fairly easy to convert it to ExtendScript.

[Bradon Webb]

There is this:
https://aescripts.com/connect-layers/

which does a pretty good job, however I wish there was an option to create a solid layer with a mask rather than a shape layer.