[Brent Willett]

Hi Robert.

Alex is right. But unchecking the “Disappears Behind Objects” makes the flares render in front of the objects. This is useful in some cases, but I’m guessing that’s not what you’re looking for.

You can use a cone to get kind of the look you’re asking about. What I might recommend doing is to duplicate your light. Keep the first one exactly the way you have it, but on the second on, turn off “Casts Light” in the Object Controls window. This will keep the light from making your scene too bright, but you can still turn on a cone and the cone will be visible. So, turn on a cone and adjust the Spot Angle to be pretty wide, and also set the Brightness up pretty high. This will give you a pretty nice glow behind your objects. It’s not a perfect solution in all cases. But it works pretty well a lot of the time.

I’m with you, though. I wish there was another check box to have flares stay visible behind objects. That way you could get the cool bursts and rays from the flares shining out from behind your objects.

Brent

[Brent Willett]

Hi Robert.

By now, you might have gotten everything figured out. But I just posted a tutorial on motion tracking with 3D Flag that might be helpful.

Feel free to check it out here: https://youtu.be/Pg0ut0V_el4

Thanks!
Brent

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[Brent Willett]

Yay! That’s why you guys are the best!

Brent

[Brent Willett]

Hi Matt!

If you haven’t thought about it already, you should denote the F and f key shortcuts next to the menu commands in the “View” drop-down. I use those commands, but I didn’t realize they had keyboard shortcuts.

Good to know, though. Thanks for the tip!

Brent Willett

[Brent Willett]

Thanks for the update, Anastacia.

That’s a great endorsement too!

I don’t know if this applies to your situation, but one thing that might help in using After Effects nulls to control ProAnimator tracks is to keep the objects in the ProAnimator track at the starting center point (at least to begin with). The the track you assign to a null will jump to the position of the null in After Effects, however you won’t see any change in position in ProAnimator. It takes a little bit to get used to, since things aren’t necessarily in the same relative position in the ProAnimator setup window as they are in After Effects. If you need to adjust the position after it is parented, you can move it in ProAnimator. But most of the time, the whole process is easier if you start with everything that’s to be parented to an After Effects null at the zero point of the ProAnimator scene.

Brent

[Brent Willett]

Hi Robert.

I’d be happy to look at your video and try to see what might be causing you problems. When I try to play it, though, it gives a message that says “This Video is Private.”

As an example, I put together a video where I used the steps that I had outlined before to track some text from ProAnimator into the scene. It worked very well. Here it is:

After Effects camera tracking with ProAnimator text

The only thing I ran into that I didn’t mention before is that the camera tracker sometimes rotates the nulls to match the floor, but if you put the Orientation values back to zero, the text should be in the right place.

Let me know when your video is not private any more, and I’ll take a look at it.

Brent

[Brent Willett]

Hi Robert.

I’m sorry you’re still having some issues. I’m not sure off hand what might be giving you the problems.

I do see what you mean about the camera tracker nulls being very small, but I was able to bring the scale up on them (although it was a very high value, something like 1500%) and the ProAnimator text was then a reasonable size.

You should also be able to go into ProAnimator and scale up the track. Or you could even go into the text layer itself and make the size of the words bigger in the text window.

The only other thing I can think of is to make sure you have checked the box to use the comp camera. It’s the camera that will lock the ProAnimator elements to the scene. And don’t forget to click the Update Tracking button if you move or scale the null.

Otherwise, maybe Edward has some other insights. He’s an excellent resource for all things Zaxwerks. 🙂

Thanks,
Brent

[Brent Willett]

Hi Robert.

The image shouldn’t move between the ProAnimator setup window and After Effects as long as you are using the Main Camera in ProAnimator. Also, you need to make sure that the solid that ProAnimator is applied to is comp size. That could cause a shift if that solid isn’t comp size.

But, to get it to track with the table you’ll want to check “Use Comp Camera” on the ProAnimator effect.

You mentioned that you had already tracked the shot. If you used the built-in camera tracker in After Effects CS6 or CC then all you have to do is pick one of the points it gives you that’s the closest to where you want the text to be on your table and right click on it. Then choose the option to create a null and a camera.

When the camera is created, your text will jump somewhere else, but probably not actually on the table. However, it’s now locked to the scene. You could go into ProAnimator and move the text around to get it into the right position, but that means a lot of trial and error, going back and forth between After Effects and ProAnimator. There’s an easier way.

To get it in the right place, click on your ProAnimator layer and twirl down the little triangle next to “Trackers”. Now, click on the “External Tracker 1” drop down and choose the Track Null layer that the camera tracker created. Next, go into the ProAnimator setup window, and make sure your text is at position 0,0,0. Go to the Animation Controls panel. On the far left there’s a drop down box that says “No Parent,” click that and choose “External Tracker 1”. You won’t see anything happen in the preview window, but when you go back to After Effects, your text will be at the location of the null, which should be sitting on top of your table.

If you have your floor layers on separate tracks in ProAnimator, you’ll have to parent those to the External Tracker 1 too. There might be a little bit of adjusting you’ll have to do to get your text in exactly the right place. But at this point, you can move the null in After Effects, and the ProAnimator layers will move with it. You’ll just have to click on the “Update Tracking” button in the ProAnimator effect after you move the null.

That should do it.

Brent

[Brent Willett]

Hi Robert.

You can get exactly what you want if you use two floor layers.

Set your scene up just like Edward described, except on the first ground plane, make the material an Absolute Color and set the transparency to 100 (100% transparent). Then set your ray traced reflection settings how you want them. The cool thing is that with the material transparent, it still displays reflections.

Now, make a new ground plane, and put it’s Y position value at one less than your first ground plane (if the first one is at 0, make the second one at -1). Then apply a shadow catcher material to the second plane.

That’s it.

Here’s a quick example I put together:

Brent

[Brent Willett]

No problem.

I’m glad I could help.

Brent