ShapeExtruder and Motion Blur problem

[Victor Nash]

I usually use his plug in when Im doing simple Extruded Text. If you have lights, Motion Blur, & want to cast shadows while spinning 360, ….I’d advice setting it up another way for 3d. I have some ideas. Let me know and I’ll let you know how i’d set it up..

[John Dubya]

i am pretty much desperate for anything at this moment.
some people waited til the last minute to decide on the opening for the show and i have very little turn around…
anything advice would be greatly apreciated…

Jon Whaley
Graphic Artist

[Victor Nash]

Try this..

Create a Composition and Call it “On the Issues”, put that Text in there. Next, drag that Composition into another Composition and Call it “Extruded”. Turn on the 3d switch. Twirl down the Position value and “Alt click” on the position value and copy and paste this expression in there..

value +[0,0,index]

Next, create a Null layer and call it Effect Control. Add an Expression Slider effect to it. Add a Bevel Alpha Effect to the “Extruded” composition. “Alt Click” the amount of bevel and pick whip it to the value on the “Effect Control”s Expression slider.

Duplicate the Extruded Composition 20 times or so.
Go back up to your first layer and go under Material Options and make sure Cast Shadows is turned on. Having it checked for all of them will just increase render time.. it’s better to really just have one of the layers cast the shadows rather than all 20.. 🙂 Also make sure to turn on Motion Blur for all these layers

Take that Composition and Drag it yet into another Composition and call it Master (or whatever). Click the 3d switch as well as the collapse transforms switch. Add a Camera and a 3d Null and parent the Extruded Composition to the Null. Animate the Nulls Y value for your rotation. Depending on the look of the text feel free to adjust the amount of Bevel in the Effect Control.

Sometimes I like to unlink the scale value and animate the “Z” value for some interesting effects.. You also could decrease the brightness value for each of the Extruded Comps with an expression on the Brightness & Contrast Effect. Add this expression to the Brightness Value before you duplicate it 20 times or so.. (index-1) * (-4)
It will get darker over time, creating a really cool shading effect..

Ok this is too long 🙂
Let me know if this works out.
see yas

[John Dubya]

thanks for the help.

i had done something similar to the duplicating and null suggestion you gave for an earlier project a few months back when i was stuck using AE 6.5 For some reason decided not to do it that way for this project. dunno why. i guess i thought that the ShapeExtruder would have worked.

i was quickly running short on time so the solution i came up with an ran with was to render rbg & alpha, the spinning texts with motion blur and ShapeEtxruder. minus the white solid, then duplicated the rendered composition and gaussian blurred it and squished it to make it the shadow. that worked rather well.

i greatly appreciate your time, suggestion, and help on my issue.

Jon Whaley
Graphic Artist