race track composition

Adobe After Effects

race track composition

Posted by Sean Kimber on April 13, 2011 at 2:03 pm

Hey,

I’m having a strange problem that I thought would be simple. I’m attempting to create a “race track” graphic that I can have an AE camera “drive” along. I have no problem creating a curve in the road itself, using precomposition and bezier warp. However, I’m trying to create a barrier that would follow the road on the right side. Obviously, I have to have the barrier rotated on its y axis. Strangely enough, I can’t seem to figure out how to get it to curve with the road. The bezier warp doesn’t work by itself, because it just tries to warp it perpendicularly to the road. However, when I precompose the barrier into a nested comp and try to make it work that way, it doesn’t work either. I also tried precomposing the barrier with the road itself so the bezier warp would affect both of them. It distorts them strangely, though. Not sure what to do, and it’s such a simple composition that I don’t want to go through the hassle of learning a 3D program for this. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

-Sean

Sean Kimber replied 15 years, 4 months ago 2 Members · 6 Replies
6 Replies

Tudor “ted” jelescu
April 13, 2011 at 2:17 pm

Free Form has 3d distortion tools. You can use that to distort your barrier.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist
Sean Kimber
April 13, 2011 at 3:00 pm

Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I am working in After Effects CS3 (probably should have mentioned that in my original post), so I don’t have access to Free Form. Any other suggestions?
Tudor “ted” jelescu
April 13, 2011 at 6:27 pm

make it follow the curved track by building it from shorter pieces that are rotated and positioned in 3d to have their edges meet. It will not be round, but if you use enough pieces and motion blur it could give that impression.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist
Sean Kimber
April 13, 2011 at 6:47 pm

That’s not a bad idea. I’ll give it a shot. To be honest, I know After Effects isn’t designed as a 3D program per se, but I was surprised I had so much difficulty with such a simple task! Thanks for your help.
Tudor “ted” jelescu
April 13, 2011 at 8:59 pm

For further reference, when you upgrade and have the funds to get a really cool plugin that does wonders in AE in 3D space:

https://library.creativecow.net/jelescu_tudor/FreeForm-Pro-review/1

https://library.creativecow.net/jelescu_tudor/AE-3D-tunnels-FreeForm-Pro-1/1

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist
Sean Kimber
April 18, 2011 at 1:05 pm

Thanks for the suggestion. When and if I have the funds, I’ll definitely check them out. I guess in the meantime, I should probably learn Blender. 🙂

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