[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi daveyg,

Assigning a layer (or precomp) to a layer is part of the process.

Now you need to be sure the material you’re applying to the object includes the layermap. You’ll want to either edit a material or create a new one and use the layermap popup to choose the layermap number you’ve assigned.

Then apply the material to the object, if you haven’t done so already. Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Matthew,

Be sure to uncheck the “use compression” box when you save your files. That should solve the problem.

Otherwise, filled solids are what Invigorator likes best. If you have text in the file, convert it to outlines.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

One way to do it…

Change the comp size to the resolution you want. Go to Composition>Composition settings to do that.

Change the solid to which Invigorator is applied to “comp size.” Select the solid Layer>Solid Settings> Make Comp size.

Then: Comp> Save File As>Photoshop Layers.

You can then further up-scale the file and perform other adjustments in Photoshop if you want.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi daveyg,

Depends on what you want for your grunge. I would use layermapping to create and apply the grunge material to the surface of your object. I would also create a bump map using a grayscale version of the same layermap.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Julian:

Put the blob movie, glow and shine into a precomp, then make the precomp your layermap. That’ll force AE to render all three effects before applying the movie to your object.

As for volumetric light, I would suggest Trapcode Lux as one way to get it done.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Julian.

You could create the whole thing with one custom bevel applied to a circle from Illustrator. I would create slightly smaller copy of that shape to place inside the first, to simulate the inner wall of the glass.

I would then create another shape inside the lamp and layermap a movie of the lava blob to it.

Sounds like a fun project — we’d love to see what you come up with.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Richard,

The key to convincing glass is the right amount of reflectivity, the right reflection map and highlight settings. Start with one of the glass-like presets and take it from there. I would suggest using a reflection map that includes colors in your scene. If your object walls have thickness (think coke bottle), you may want to put a smaller version of your object inside the normal-sized one to simulate an inner and outer wall.

The other thing you may want to consider is refraction or the bending of light as it passes through the object. Invigorator/ProAnimator don’t do this now – it would require raytraced rendering – but you may want to consider using other tools to distort the portion of your scene behind the object.

If the glass isn’t entirely smooth, you can try a very subtle bump map too.

As I think you can see, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Have fun experimenting – hope this helps.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Fred,

All of the versions of Invigorator and ProAnimator would model the coin in the same way and should be able to make a very believable coin.

The fastest way would be to create a simple coin shape with a power bevel edge and apply bump maps to each side for the artwork. You could also build the shapes on the faces of the coin using Illustrator.

I guess I’d have to see the file to give you more specific guidance. You can send it to me at jokerstrom 1 (at) mac. com.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Fred.

The huge difference is in how you animate the objects – whether we’re talking about 3D text or objects created with Illustrator.

ProAnimator is by far the best choice for getting very cool and complex motion out of your 3D text with minimal time and effort. I would absolutely choose it over Invigorator for what you’re doing.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Nicholas,

I suspect not. I can tell you that when you use PA or Invigorator inside of After Effects and choose the “use comp camera” option, what’s really happening is that Invig’s camera and the comp camera are mathmatically linked to mimic eachother’s movement. However, you do not get the depth of field (DOF) effect (parts in focus and parts not) you might expect the two actually exist in separate 3D spaces.

One thing you might find really interesting though is that you can use 3D data generated inside a ProAnimator project for other purposes. Essentially this amounts to importing a ProAanimator project into After Effects. You can import either the object data, camera data or both. This generates solids representing each of the object and keyframes representing their motion track. You can swap those solids for any other solid or precomp.

Hope this helps.

Jon