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placing a rendered 3D object (from Maya) in After Effects’ 3D space
I have successfully imported a Maya camera animation into After Effects 7.0 along with a bunch of 3D locators. I am using the locators to place 3D text layers so that I can have text labels that will hover over 3D objects that I am rendering in Maya. The problem I am trying to solve is placing the rendered footage from Maya into After Effects’ 3D space so that the text will appear in front of the object it is associated with, but then can disappear behind a footage layer of a different object that is closer to the camera.
I feel like expressions can do this work for me, but I’m not sure what elements I should be using. This is how I see the problem:
Imagine a static solar system (planets are not orbiting) where the camera moves in and around the planets. I will render out each planet separately from Maya with a corresponding alpha channel. The locators and camera animation from Maya allow me to place 3D text layers in After Effects that sync up with the rendered footage coming from Maya. There is a text label for each planet. However, if the Maya footage is left as a 2D layer, the rendered planet may or may not show up correctly in relation to the 3D text in After Effects (in front of vs. in back of). If the Maya footage is converted to a 3D layer, it needs to move in relation to the camera and scale dynamically (so as to always stay consistent with the camera’s image plane and fill the view), and also be placed an appropriate distance away from the camera in order to reside at the correct depth (so as to settle in front of objects farther away, but behind objects that are closer). I am sure that this can be figured out using vector geometry (linear algebra?), but I’m no math-whiz, and I don’t know which expression elements may do a lot of this work already.
Maybe the method I’m envisioning is completely off-base. Is there some other way to accomplish what I’m trying to do? I need to have geometry created in Maya, but I want to be able to do all the text stuff in After Effects. My last resort is to do everything in Maya, but I really want to leverage the strength of After Effects to do cool things with the text labels. Maybe the footage from Maya can remain a 2D layer, but maybe there is a way (using expressions?) to dynamically change the layer order so that things render correctly.
I love these kinds of challenges and look forward to learning more about how all this stuff works, but I certainly need help to get pointed in the right direction. Thanks in advance. 🙂
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2 Replies
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I think you’re approaching this the wrong way. Since you are going to use separately rendered elements anyway, why not use them as mattes for the text as well? Sure, it’s going to be a quite complex setup of comps nested in each other, but it’s much more doable than spending hours on cobbling up expressiosn (which can become quite complex for this kind of task) – ideally you only have to find the “transition points” and cut your various sub-comps together to maintain the illusion. also look into plugins such as CC Composite for this task to minimize the amount of layers and sub-comps needed. Even in a worst case scenario the only extra work you would probably need is rendering a few extra matte passes…
Mylenium
[Pour Myl
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Have you experimented with using a Z-Depth pass from Maya?
The downside is that Maya produces a non-antialiaed Z-Depth Image. But, it’s often usable.
Or, a simpler way without screwing around with Z-Depth is to isolate the object that needs to go in front/behind and put that in a render layer in Maya to output it separately. This could then be used as a simple track matte in AE.
Although not the world’s best tutorial, here’s something that may help you:
https://highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/rendering_lighting/shaders/209.html
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