Shadow problem

Adobe After Effects

Shadow problem

Posted by Mike Mackenzie on January 5, 2013 at 5:47 pm

Ok, here’s a common problem that has been driving me nuts. I’ve seen several posts on this exact same issue, but none of the fixes have worked for me. Basically, shadows showing up in Custom Views but not Active Camera. Oddly enough the shadows are showing up during my render, although this doesn’t always happen. It would be a big help to have them viewable in Active Camera. I seem to encounter this problem frequently, even though my 3d setups tend to be fairly simple. Below is my project setup, am I doing anything wrong? there are no imported objects, layer styles, etc. Cast/receive shadows all set properly on objects and lights. Any help greatly appreciated!

The current simple setup is as follows, in order:
Layer 1: 3d precomp turned off
Layer 2: 3d solid turned off
Layer 3: .mov, guide layer, turned off
Layer 4: reflection layer, turned off (solid with Grid & blureffect), 3D
Layer5: camera
Layers 6-8 lights
Layer 9: camera orbit null 3d
Layer 10: Null (sliders for controlling material options for 3d shape layers), 3d
Layers 11-16 Shape layers (basically extruded squares) 3d
Layer 17: solid (shadow recipient) 3d

As a second question, are there any tutorials describing the various functions of AE material options? Playing around with them isn’t teaching me much, but I don’t seem able to generate the rich textures and gloss or matte looks I see in other AE work. Have looked for help on this without much luck.

Motion Graphics Designer / Art Director
Boston, MA

System:
Mountain Lion on SSD
2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800
18 GB RAM

Mike Mackenzie replied 13 years, 4 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
2 Replies

Todd Kopriva
January 5, 2013 at 5:55 pm

My guess is that you have one of your viewers set to Fast Draft mode, which doesn’t render shadows.

Regarding tutorials showing the 3D material options, see this:
https://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2012/05/free-3d-material-options-project-and-tutorials-for-after-effects-cs6.html

Toward the bottom of that page are links to videos that I made that walk through all of the new 3D features.

———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
After Effects quality engineering
After Effects team blog
———————————————————————————————————
Mike Mackenzie
January 5, 2013 at 6:16 pm

Very helpful, thank you so much!

Motion Graphics Designer / Art Director
Boston, MA

System:
Mountain Lion on SSD
2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800
18 GB RAM

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up

Creative Communities of the World Forums