Getting this to work in 3D space?

[Filip Vandueren]

Hi Ian,

The recipe that would work best is to have the moving around layers in 3d,
but the lines (beam-filter) that connect them need to be applied to a 2D layer that is as big as the comp and is drawn on top of the 3d-layers.

The expression trick is that the 2d-layer needs to know what the equivalent position of the 3d-positions is in 2D.
(this is what’s called: a layer space transformation.)

Dan Ebberts has the theory all explained on his wonderful site ‘motionscript.com’:
https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/lst-lens-flare.html

basically where in 2D you normally would wind up with an expression like this:
thisComp.layer(“object 1”).position

you now need something like this:
thisComp.layer(“object 1”).toComp(thisComp.layer(“object 1”).anchorPoint);

Check out Dan’s Site
He can explain it best 😎

[Nathan Clark]

Hello, sorry to wake up a VERY old thread, but I am breaking my brain trying to get this to work in a slightly different way.

The 3d Nulls I would like to connect with the BEAM effect are in a precomp with collapse transform turned on.

I cant work out the method to get their 2d position in the main comp for the beam effect.

this is irritating me because I know it should be quite easy, my math brain is just useless at times!

Any support would be appreciated.

On Point Cloud Nine