[Darby Edelen]

Ohhhhh, Photoshop 3D! That changes everything 🙂

Photoshop 3D layers are not 3D layers, or at least they shouldn’t be. The way those layers work is by using a control null that defines the position/scale/orientation of the object. Use that null to move/scale/rotate your object and don’t enable the 3D switch on the photoshop layer. The photoshop layer must be a 2D layer in order to properly project the rendered 3D object onto the screen.

Also, the only AE releases that this feature currently exists in are CS5 and 5.5. It was removed from CS6 because the Photoshop 3D implementation changed significantly and has not made it to AE yet. So if you’re using any version but CS5 or 5.5 then your Photoshop 3D layer isn’t even really a Photoshop 3D layer.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

[Shaun Carollo] ”
Why is it that after I put the 3d camera into the scene, I can’t apply masks within the composition panel; there are no options under TrkMat anymore?”

Sounds like you’re working in a Raytraced 3D composition. Maybe switch back to the Standard 3D renderer if you don’t need raytracing. This is in Composition Settings > Advanced.

Also if you use Roland’s suggested workflow then Masks may do the trick and you won’t need to use Track Mattes.

Generally if I need to block out things I’m compositing into a 3D render I’ll use object passes or even a depth pass to matte the comp’d layers if I can get away with it.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

[Gene Felice] “When I scale it up to get it to the size I need, it gets larger but also moves forward in z-space.”

This should not happen unless you have set the anchor point to have a non-zero Z value. Check to make sure that you have the third component of your anchor point set to zero. Also make sure that you are, in fact, scaling as Roland suggested.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

I’ve yet to use C4D Lite so I can’t verify any solutions.

I’d recommend that you create the required folders in the same places as the full version expects them. In addition to the plugins folder in the C4D directory you might try going to Edit > Preferences in C4D Lite and clicking the “Open Preferences Folder…” button which will point you to an alternate location for the ‘plugins’ folder (indeed it may already exist there).

Like I said, I haven’t used C4D Lite but I would try the above. Also if you have access to a full version of C4D then that should work with AE in the same way that Lite does. I don’t know the details of how AE switches between Lite and more robust versions but I believe it’s documented.

You might also ask in the Cinema 4D forum.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

It’s hard to say without seeing an example of the footage but I would guess that your sign needs to be blurred a small amount. There’s really no such thing as perfectly sharp when capturing with a camera. Also, depending on the settings there may have been some in camera sharpening so you could sharpen the sign a bit after blurring it (sounds odd i know).

Other things to look into are matching the noise in the live footage as well as lens distortion (Distort > Optical Compensation).

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

It sounds to me like a lights/shadow issue. I’ve never used Element 3D so I’m not familiar with how it works with lights/shadows. Could you post some screenshots of your timeline and composition viewer? If possible include Top + Side + Front Views or a Custom View so that we can get a sense of the 3D layout of the lights and layers.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

[Gabriel Valkama] “I understand what a speed curve is, but I still can’t see logic in the sharp corner.”

Then as you know the speed graph must be flat between the two keyframes because the value is increasing linearly between them. The value on the left side of the first keyframe, however, is decelerating all the way up until the keyframe. Therefore, at the keyframe there is an inflection point where the value is no longer decelerating and is now increasing linearly.

I can’t see the logic in not having a sharp corner in that case*.

You’ve already found an option for eliminating the sharp corner, but you may not need to eliminate it. A sharp corner in the speed graph shouldn’t necessarily correspond to a hitch in the animation.

The only circumstance where I’ve ended up with a constant rate of change between Continuous Bezier keyframes is when I’ve converted them from a completely Linear animation (i.e. the speed graph was flat when I converted them). I could see how you might end up with a graph like yours if you had a flat speed graph, converted to Continuous Bezier, and then started changing the values. AE does not update the bezier handles of Continuous Bezier keyframes based on new values. Auto Bezier keyframe tangents will update based on changes to keyframe values.

Also remember that you can edit the Speed Graph directly in AE which is not possible in many other applications I’ve used.

*Note: If you pull the incoming tangent of the keyframe on the value graph out to the left you should notice that the speed graph ramps more into the flat section, but in order to get it to ramp perfectly into a flat line (constant rate of change) you’d have to draw that tangent out to an infinite length. So as you can see there is no way to not have a sharp corner if you’re transitioning directly into a constant rate of change. The option you found for removing the sharp corner is altering the rate of change between the keyframes so that it is no longer linear which allows for the acceleration to transition smoothly.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

The speed graph shows the rate of change of the value graph. Put another way: the speed graph is the derivative of the value graph.

When the value is increasing linearly (as it is between the two keyframes in your first picture) then the speed graph will be flat because the rate of change is constant.

Wherever the speed graph is not flat there is either acceleration (if the line is sloping upward to the right) or deceleration (if the line is sloping downward to the right) occurring.

So the sharp transition simply shows the point at which the value has stopped accelerating (foot entirely off the gas) but is still moving at a constant rate.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Generally I’d recommend using an Alpha Track Matte.

You could alternatively use a masked solid or shape layer with the continuously rasterize switch on as a matte with the Set Matte effect.

Darby Edelen

[Darby Edelen]

Depending on how dramatic you want the effect to be you might consider using the random() function instead of wiggle(). Something like this could work:

t = Math.round(random(5, 10));
r = value;
if(timeToFrames(time) % t == 0) r += 25;
r;

Since the call to random() is returning a value between 5 and 10 and the time in frames may not always be evenly divisible by the returned value this could result in a long stretch without flashing or several flashes in a row.

Otherwise you could modify a wiggle to do what you’re after with something like this:

w = wiggle(10, 1) - value;
linear(w, .6, .7, value, value + 25);

The ‘w’ variable will have a value that wiggles 10x a second between -1 and 1. You can then linearly interpolate across a small section of that range. The closer together the .6 and .7 values are the faster the transition from ‘value’ to ‘value + 25’. In addition, since the values are wiggling between -1 and 1 the closer to 1 those values are the less frequently a flash will occur. For example, changing the last line to:

linear(w, .8, .9, value, value + 25);

will flash very rarely while:

linear(w, 0, .1, value, value + 25);

will flash very frequently. The ‘sharpness’ of the flashes will be approximately the same.

Darby Edelen