Steve Roberts
Forum Replies Created
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Regarding your other questions, I’ve found that:
a) different movements require different auto-orientation choices (duh).
b) a fair bit of experience and experimentation is necessary to know which orientation to use in which situation.
c) it’s good to use as few keyframes as possible.
d) I use multiple views quite often, and move the camera in a custom view as well as in the camera view, switching between them.Hope that helps,
Steve -
If you want a camera to follow a mask shape, it can only do so within the confines of one plane. To do that, highlight the mask’s shape property in the timeline, copy, select the camera’s position property, and paste.
If you then want the camera to move outside of that plane, you have to manually drag the camera’s position out of that plane.
If you use 3D stroke’s controls to twist and turn the original mask, those twists and turns cannot be translated into a mask or camera path. All that can be transferred or copied is the original mask.
Steve
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The images might be CMYK, not RGB. If you have Photoshop, you can convert them to RGB.
Steve
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You need to know what the camera is doing when you make those choices.
“Orient towards Point of Interest” means the camera is always pointing towards a point in space: the point of interest or POI. Select the layer in the timeline and hit A to show the XYZ position values of the POI. In the comp window, in one of the custom views, the POI is the thing the camera is aiming at. If you move the camera past the POI, it will flip so it is still looking at the POI.
“Orient along Path” is only useful when the camera is moving along a path — then the camera will look ahead along that path.
Different orientations are useful in different situations.
I’m assuming you read the manual on these issues?
If that doesn’t help you, read Rick Gerard’s camera tutorial on the COW. If you’re still stuck, search the COW (include the archives) on “gimbal lock”.
Steve
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Switching to camera view doesn’t cause you to lose resolution — something else is happening in your comp. Check to make sure you haven’t accidentally changed resolution or magnification for the comp.
Steve
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Take a look at your timeline to see if any layers begin or end where the screen turns black. I’m talking about lights, solids, footage, etc.
Also, try switching to another view then pulling back to see what’s going on in the 3D space.
Steve
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It sounds as if you should turn off the camera’s auto-orient feature. Save the project, then select the camera, then layer>transform>auto-orient.
Steve
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Nothing is true 3D in AE, technically. The AE space is made up of flat layers, and any 3D effects applied to a layer reside on that flat layer, like a movie of a 3D object on a movie screen. As long as that flat layer is left as a 2D layer, it will always be facing us, and we see the 3D “movie” as if it were real. Syncing the effect’s camera with AE’s camera completes the illusion.
I believe it was Chris who accurately described 3D Stroke as a string of discs flat-on to camera. The discs are arranged in a path on a 2D layer. Yes, it is still an illusion on a flat plane, but with a twist: the effect has a means of cutting itself behind objects at a certain Z-position, giving the illusion of being in 3D space. It works pretty well with simple setups.
One way is to duplicate your 3D stroke layer, then reduce the effect’s Z clip back parameter (under “camera”) for the front layer until the object in the middle is revealed. You might need to solo each 3D stroke layer to understand what is going on.
I can’t see it working with multiple moving objects, though you can try using an expression to tie the Z clip value to the moving object’s Z position. You’d probably need a dupe of the 3D stroke layer between each object layer … could get tricky.
Maybe it’s another one of those situations that call for a real 3D app. 🙂
Steve
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Nothing is true 3D in AE, technically. The AE space is made up of flat layers, and any 3D effects applied to a layer reside on that flat layer, like a movie of a 3D object on a movie screen. As long as that flat layer is left as a 2D layer, it will always be facing us, and we see the 3D “movie” as if it were real. Syncing the effect’s camera with AE’s camera completes the illusion.
I believe it was Chris who accurately described 3D Stroke as a string of discs flat-on to camera. The discs are arranged in a path on a 2D layer. Yes, it is still an illusion on a flat plane, but with a twist: the effect has a means of cutting itself behind objects at a certain Z-position, giving the illusion of being in 3D space. It works pretty well with simple setups.
One way is to duplicate your 3D stroke layer, then reduce the effect’s Z clip back parameter (under “camera”) for the front layer until the object in the middle is revealed. You might need to solo each 3D stroke layer to understand what is going on.
I can’t see it working with multiple moving objects, though you can try using an expression to tie the Z clip value to the moving object’s Z position. You’d probably need a dupe of the 3D stroke layer between each object layer … could get tricky.
Maybe it’s another one of those situations that call for a real 3D app. 🙂
Steve
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Here’s what I did:
1. add footage to comp.
2. create new solid above the footage layer.
3. Apply basic text to solid, with “composite on original” not selected. (You can do the same with the Path Text effect.)
4. Make the Modes panel visible (F4).
5. Set the mode for the solid to “Multiply”.Works for me …
Steve