Element 3D… Why doesn’t it look like the preview window?

[Walter Soyka]

The preview window is a place to see your textures on your model with some basic lighting to get a sense of how it will respond to light; it’s not a place to actually try to compose.

Why? Because that’s best done in the context of the rest of the scene. Other layers, the comp camera and comp lights will all have a big impact on your creative decisions, and these cannot be accurately duplicated in the Element preview window.

That said, your suggestion to export the preview camera back to Ae sounds interesting and would be worth submitting to Video Copilot.

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
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[Mark Dizz]

Walter I totally get what you are saying with other layers and lights having an effect on the element 3d object BUT it is still not the case with a fresh comp. Even if I have nothing in my comp but a source text layer and an Element 3D object of that text the preview window is still not consistent with the output.

Hopefully Kramer can do something about that because a lot of times I’m pretty satisfied with the preview only to realize I have more work to do after I okay it haha.

[Cassius Marques]

Mine look the same. Are you forgetting to turn on the same lightning presets that you’re using on the preview by any chance (under render settings -> lightning)? And turn off comp lights (or precompose E3D) if that’s messing things up.

Edit: My bad for rushing to a conclusion…re-reading I saw you are using the same settings. Just be sure you don’t have another lights though.

[Cheryl Teh]

I’m facing the same problem here..with element 3D in a fresh comp, and the color turned out lighter/toned down/faded at my comp

[Claude Rozsa]

Hi; I’m just having the same problem; I use E3D V2. I set my whole combination of objects in E3D preview, everything is ok and fine for me; I press OK to return to my fresh comp in AE and here I am with my E3D combination completely in a different place and if for any reason I have to go back to E3D after having adjusted in AE the elements, when I come back to AE after the alteration again everything is messed up. This is the case whether I link my camera or not to a group null in E3D.

Where is the flaw; what should be done? It messes everything in particular when you try to move the camera in AE; you have to set up again all your key frames! And it is horribly time consuming!

[Randy Cates]

I too experience this (all the time). I’ve noticed in other 3D Apps (LightWave and Cinema) they have free texture libraries (Chrome, glass etc) which you can download that also don’t look the same when you apply them as they do on the sample supplied with them.

I “believe” this can be attributed to the size of your model. Keep in mind the environment you assign is what’s reflected on your surfaces. If the model is really large you’ll get different reactions than if it’s really small. There’s got to be a sweet spot (size).

I think it would help if Video Co-pilot offered some idea of what the perfect model size should be in relation to the environmental maps they supply to get as close a representation in the comp window as we all see in the preview.

A few test renders with a variety of different sizes might answer this question. If you discover something – please share.

Time is not linear but rather an eternal now.