Tutorial: Getting Started with the 3D Camera and Layers- 2
I’ve recently uploaded a tutorial to Toolfarm: Getting Started with the 3D Camera and Layers- 2. It’s for After Effects 7.0 and higher. I go into a little more detail about camera blur and depth of field, as well as other ideas for bringing life to still images. If you haven’t viewed the first tutorial, you can find it here.
If you have any questions about the projects and the technique, please post to Toolfarm’s Expert Forums and I’ll do my best to help.
New Tutorial on graymachine.com
So, I finally got around to a new tutorial. This is a lesson I’ve used in my seminars in the past, and it’s time to retire it. So, now you get it for free! This lesson discusses the AE Motion Tracker, and how to use it to integrate CG elements into a simple live action scene.
Click here to launch the tutorial.
Click here to download the footage to follow along.
3D Cube in AE
Making a cube in AE is easy and yet difficult at the same time. It’s difficult if you don’t have your settings right. I’ve found that a few things can really streamline the task.
First, make sure the sides of your cube are the same size. Yes, that ought to be obvious.
Second, it seems to be easier if you use even numbers and especially a size that the width and height are divisible by 4. That may all be in my head, but it really does seem simpler. Maybe it’s the values in the Position settings – it’s obvious if they’re spot on because you’ll have a whole number value, not something with a decimal point.
Third, and most important, work in square pixels! Set up both your comp and your layers as square pixels.
I’ve built the cube in one comp and placed it in another comp. I’ve clicked the continuous rasterization button so that I can still move it about in 3D space, seeing all my sides. The bonus here is that I do not have to worry about accidently clicking and moving any of my sides. Of course, I could lock them, but this is just more elegant.
I’ve also thrown another solid wall layer, a camera and a couple of lights to make it a little more exciting. Wheee.
Download project file (AE 7) | View movie sample (pops)
Also, LME Amazing Video Walls & Displays has some comps that do exactly this but are 10x cooler and with much more ease. Check out the gallery link on that page. I’m partway through a review of the product and I find it to be extremely useful, both for the comps and the stuff one can learn by reverse engineering it. I’ll get the review finished and up after the craziness that is NAB.
Controlling Focus Distance in AE
A friend of mine was asking about easier ways to control depth of field in After Effects.
Although it isn’t complicated, AE cameras measure depth of field with a single number, measured in pixels. So, it isn’t very easy to visualize and estimate when and where
objects are in focus, aside from scrubbing the “Focus Distance” control and trying to put objects in focus by trial and error.
But, expressions come to the rescue. If we want focus distance to be equal to the distance between the camera and and exact, controllable point, we can do this. If we create a Null and use this as the point that we want in focus, we can add an expression to the Focus Distance to be equal to the length in pixels between the camera and the Null. Fortunately, there’s an expression term, “length” that retrieves the absolute distance between the anchor points of any two objects, regardless of position, rotation, scale, etc.
In the example here, the Focus Distance expression is:
length(thisComp.layer(“focusControl”).position, position)
So, it is the length between two numbers, think here in terms of length(a,b). The first number, via pickwhip, is the position of a Null called “focusControl”. The second number is shown as ‘position’. Being that this expression is on the camera’s Focus Distance, “position” in this case refers to the position of the camera. And that’s it!!! The expression will dynamically update the focus distance to be the exact distance between the Null and the camera. Just put the Null where you want something to be in Focus.
You could also just use the camera’s Point of Interest, with the expression like this:
length(pointOfInterest, position)
But, I like the Null, myself. As I often turn off the Point of Interest on my AE cameras.
Download the Focus Control project here
