Light doesn’t appear

[Brian Holson]

Thanks Dave for your response. I do not see an option for “Accept Lights” The only properties available are Intensity, color, shadow darkness and diffusion.
I don’t have a box to turn on 3D for this layer, should I be able to do that?

[Brian Holson]

Scratch that last post. I looked at all layers and they all have accept lights turned on as the default setting. So what would my next step be?
In the tutorial, as soon as he creates the light layer the “floor” layer disappears and you can see the light and the light changes color to what was selected. Mine does not do that.

[Michael Szalapski]

He meant on the solid layer or footage layer. For you to see any effect from your lights, your layers must be set to accept lights. Dave is assuming you mean that you don’t see any change on your layers when you create the light.

I assumed that you meant you didn’t see the control points for the light in which case you need to make sure that the light is in a place where the camera is looking. Often when people are building a composition, they move the camera around and forget that when you add a layer it comes in at a certain place and not right in front of the comp camera.

If you mean that you don’t see a light bulb or lens flare where the light is, you will never see that unless you create it by linking a lens flare’s position to the light or by using a third party plugin like Lux. (Knoll Light Factory Pro just released a script that ties their lens flares to lights in AE very well and it’s amazing.)

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Walter Soyka]

[Brian Holson] “In the tutorial, as soon as he creates the light layer the “floor” layer disappears and you can see the light and the light changes color to what was selected. Mine does not do that.”

The floor layer must be 3D, and if you have any 2D layers in the mix, it can break the 3D render order.

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
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Brian Holson]

Thanks Walter, I do have the floor layer in 3D. I can see the light point but I’m getting no view of the light.

[Brian Holson]

Thanks Michael. That is correct, all the layers are accepting light and the camera is set in it’s default position. In the tutorial he adds a light and the “floor” accepts the light color and he can move the light around and it’s visible.

Here’s the link to see what I’m talking about. It’s the simple camera rig tutorial at the top. https://maltaannon.com/articles/after-effects/simple-camera-rig/

[Walter Soyka]

Can you post a screen shot showing your comp and AE user interface?

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
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Brian Holson]

Hope I did this right.

[Walter Soyka]

You’ve got Draft 3D turned on. Click the little button above the timeline with the cube and light icon to toggle it back off.

Draft 3D disables lights and other 3D features so your scene previews faster while you work.

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
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Brian Holson]

That did the trick! Thanks so much Walter!!! I had a feeling it was one button that I needed to click. I’m still learning AE and have a long way to go. 🙂