3D projects and animations in After Effects

You will rebuild this trailer in the course of the training.

Welcome to the 3D projects in After Effects training. In this introductory video training, we will discuss what we are going to do together and what it will be about.

In this live video training, I would like to introduce you to the briefing that we will use to create the rest of the practical project, as is usual for a customer project. I will also share my thoughts on the concept and explain what is happening and why.

At the beginning of a project with a real image, the first thing on the agenda is tracking. In this case with the 3D tracker built into After Effects.

To stabilize our source material in the first pass, we use the data from the 3D track to stabilize the camera movement.

With the new, smoothed camera in hand, stabilization must now be applied to our original footage. How we now compensate for this camera shake is shown here.

We also stabilize the shot with the stabilization plug-in integrated in After Effects. I'll explain exactly what happens behind the scenes and what you need to pay attention to.

To be able to work properly with the tracker data, the data must be exported and corrected a little for better use.

This is where the music plays. In order to adapt our shot to our music and time everything the way we want it, we have to do a little time remapping of the footage.

The main focus of the opener should be the jumping points. Here we start by building a system that allows us to animate with them as flexibly as possible.

To complete the last video training, we will now look at the visualization of the points. How we create the tail and the hit particles is explained in detail here.

It's getting serious and our points are discovering the set. I explain here how we can now work optimally with the set of tracking points and let the points jump through there.

As a motion designer, you are happy when a logo is available in vector format and not printed on stationery, for example. However, sometimes this is not enough and you have to prepare it again before animating it. I explain here how this can be done optimally in Adobe Illustrator.

Now movement comes into play and the structure of the logo is animated. I will show you again how this task can be accomplished efficiently.

Showtime: The logo takes its place and replaces our placeholder text. The bouncing dots also have to interact with our logo.

To better integrate the CG elements into the scene, we still need light. In this part, we create the light reflections exclusively using After Effects itself.

To add the icing on the cake, we could also let the light fall on the objects in the scene. But this requires a 3D program. How we export our scene to C4D Lite is shown here.

The objects still have to be reconstructed in the 3D software so that they can be illuminated. I will show you here what the workflow looks like and how we can model despite the limitations of Cinema 4D Lite.

In this video tutorial, we will focus on the first of the two shots and start tracking the rotating globe. We also use the 3D camera tracker for this, but this time in a slightly different way.

To make the dot jump across the globe, we first have to animate its path and move it across the globe to different places in the world. This is exactly what happens in this video training.

Now it's time to incorporate our bouncing point setup into this shot too, but there's a little something special waiting for us: the bouncing arcs should be perpendicular to the ball. We will discuss how to achieve this and finish the bouncing point here.

This point should also shed light on our earth. To do this, we leave After Effects and import our scene into Cinema 4D Lite to generate the light there.

To hint at the "time travel", we let our globe slowly turn orange from black and white and only then take on its real color. I show 2 variants for this: 2D in AE or even 3D with C4D Lite.

We have all the components together and are now giving the whole project that certain touch. With a little grading, we conclude the practical project here.

In this bonus part, I'll explain the expression that makes our points jump. In this part, we create our conditions for a point to jump along the path of another object.

In this bonus part, I'll explain the expression that makes our points jump. In this part, we now add a sine wave to our basic structure, which forms our jump arcs. We'll also write the expression for the hit particles, which are emitted whenever the dot touches the ground.

In this bonus part, I explain the expression we used to find the center of many individual null objects and the jump vector so that all jumps on the sphere are perpendicular to the surface of the sphere.

In this bonus part, I explain the XPresso circuit from Cinema 4D Lite, which allowed us to keep the light from AE following its path, but move it a little further away from the surface of the sphere so it doesn't collide with it.

I would like to give you an additional tip in this short video training.

When working with 3D in After Effects, it can sometimes be a big challenge to put things in the right place in 3D space. In this tip, I'll show you a simpler solution.

If you are working with real 3D scenes in After Effects, it is advisable to use it like a 3D program. I will show you which functions After Effects offers at this point here.

The more complex 3D scenes with light/shadows become, the better they usually look. But the RAM preview in After Effects takes longer and longer. In this quick tip, I'll show you a small but useful function that can save a lot of time.

Errors that cannot be explained are no fun. One of the most common errors when animating in 3D space is spatial interpolation. I explain what this is all about and how to deal with it here.

Motion blur always adds a little extra value to animations. After Effects has a beautiful 2D blur, but in 3D space it quickly leads to gradations. I'll show you how to avoid this here.

The flat layers in After Effects can sometimes be annoying and you may want to move around in 3D space, but the layer should always be visible from the front. How easy it is to do this is revealed here.

There is a small hack in After Effects for the Render Order for 3D scenes. This can be used to create reflections, for example, but if you use it by mistake, it can also make it impossible to cast shadows on other layers. I'll tell you what's behind it in this tip.

With the Creative Cloud version of After Effects, the software has gained a powerful tool for working in 3D space: snapping. I'll show you here how it works and how it can help you in your day-to-day work.

It sometimes happens that you want to add different content to both sides of a layer in After Effects. Here I show you how this can be done for slideshows in 3D space, for example.

Especially for the illumination of 3D scenes, but also for camera animation, you could always use something like the alignment or target tag from Cinema 4D. How such an automatic 3D alignment can be achieved in After Effects is explained here.

There are two types of cameras in After Effects, but hardly anyone knows about this little drop-down menu where you can switch between them. Here we look at what the two types are all about and what you can use each one for.

If the movement axes of a plane get in the way when you want to move it, it's worth taking a look at the different axis modes to make movements as easy as possible. I'll show you where these are hidden here.

A simple right-click, but several functions. What After Effects has to offer in terms of rigs for the camera and how to create them is explained here.

In this tip, I'll show you my favorite way of animating the camera using a very simple but effective rig, with which the camera always moves through the room in round curves. Why? It is only defined by rotations.

After Effects is a fantastic mixture of 2D and 3D program. That's why it's easy to get to the point where you want to combine the 2D and 3D worlds. For example, 2D effects in 3D space that can even cast shadows. In this quick tip, I'll tell you what possibilities there are.

To avoid packing all our layers into sub-compositions and duplicating them unnecessarily often, there are adjustment layers. This allows you to edit all footage below this layer. In this quick tip, I'll show you what you can do with them in conjunction with blending modes.

I would guess that 90% of After Effects projects are produced entirely in 8-bit. But what disadvantages this actually has and what 32 bit is all about is explained here.

The render list has some functions that probably more than half of After Effects users neither know nor use. And it is precisely these that I would like to present to you here.

Again and again you animate with and to music or a voiceover. Here are my tips for working with sound in After Effects.

Deactivated by default, but a lifesaver if the worst comes to the worst: auto-save. I'll explain where you can find this option here.

Proxies are a real speed booster when working with high-resolution footage or complex sub-compositions with content that takes a long time to render. In this quick tip, I'll tell you how to work with such proxies in After Effects.

If you have to move your project, want to continue working somewhere else, archive it or render it somewhere else, you must always ensure that you take all source files referenced within the project file with you, as these are not saved together with the After Effects file. After Effects provides a simple solution to this problem.

Everything revolves around the anchor point. In the truest sense of the word. Tips and tricks for changing this (even with animated objects), or the possibility of using several per object, are presented in this tip.

There are some really interesting options hidden behind the small icons on every After Effects window. I simply have to share what I found there with you.

A new feature in the Creative Cloud version of After Effects that those who have been using After Effects for a long time may not even be aware of: there are masks for effects and they can even be tracked on the image. I will show you how all this works here.

Shortcuts are the be-all and end-all of efficient computer work. Including those within the composition window in After Effects. A few seconds at each step, a few minutes a day, maybe even a week a year, leaves more time for other things :-)

I would like to know how many minutes a day you sit in front of your project and wait for the ram preview. Sometimes, even though this long wait isn't necessary. I'll show you here how you can shorten this time and thus speed up your work.

You could say that After Effects is a fold-out program. This means it offers a lot of options in as little space as possible. But sometimes you don't want to see everything in order to keep an overview of its properties. Here I'll show you my personal fold-out hits!

Hacking might be a bit of a stretch, but at least it almost feels like it. Some options in After Effects cannot be edited or unlocked via the user interface. What these are and how to do it anyway is presented here.

Rendering with multiple computers is particularly useful for more complex After Effects projects. This video training explains how network rendering works in AE, how to manage the renders and set up the clients.