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How to turn a layered piece of still art into a convincing 3D shot?
A lot of video game trailers use a technique where they take concept art or comic book-style drawings and turn them into robust, 3D-looking scenes. My prime example in this regard is this video:
Reveal Trailer – Official Destiny ViDoc: Pathways Out of Darkness
From 1:34 to 2:10, we see a series of concept art that looks almost like it’s come to life. It looks like there’s a lot more to it than just a parallax effect; it looks like the animators also used some kind of 3D warping technique to make it seem as if foreground elements had actual depth to them.
Prime examples being:
- 1:56: The soldier’s billowing cloak, and the slight turn of his head
- 2:00: The wall and all of its permutations.
- 2:11: The curvature of the floor, the solar rays in the sky, the light reflecting against the water
I realize this is probably a question with an extremely complex answer, but if anyone can at least point me in the right direction (simple explanations, preferred plug-ins, etc.), I’d really appreciate it. Even links to tutorials explaining the general process would be immensely helpful–I don’t know what this technique is called, so I have no idea what to look up.
Mainly, I want to know how to achieve the following things:
- Making a floor look like it’s extending outwards in 3D
- The tools used to rig a character with limbs so that they can move.
- Making a convincing skybox
Things I already know, but would like to improve my technique on:
- Parallax layering
- Keyframe curves and interpolation
- Particles
If it helps, one of the scenes I’ll likely be working with in the future can be seen here:
It’s a cartoon-style image, but I’m hoping to give it depth by (for example) making it seem as though the bridge is extending outwards towards the camera, so that a pan-up will look dramatic.
Thanks for your help!
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2 Replies
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Hi Nick!
If you google the right keywords you can find tons of free tutorial videos about 3D matte painting, camera mapping and set extensions, rigging a character in AE. Go for it! 😉
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If you do searches for “2.5D After Effects Tutorial” or “the kid stays in the picture effect” you will find a lot of good tutorials. Here’s a couple to help get you started:
https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/virtual_3d_photos/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVrYyX3bHI8
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
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