From the course: After Effects Apprentice: 11 3D Space

Welcome - After Effects Tutorial

From the course: After Effects Apprentice: 11 3D Space

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Welcome

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- Hi, I'm Chris Meyer of Crish Design, and welcome to the After Effects Apprentice lesson on 3D space. Now, most graphics and video are both created and played back on 2D screens. Flat surfaces like your computer screen, your television, a movie theater screen, tablets, phones, et cetera. However, as you know, the real world has three dimensions. In addition to X and Y, there's a Z dimension. How close things are to you or how far away they are. And things move differently when they're in 3D space compared to just moving on a flat plain. After Effects has the ability to allow you to create in 3D space, and that's what we're going to be discussing in this lesson. I'm going to start by showing you the differences between working in 2D and in 3D, give you an idea of some of the effects of perspective and multiplaning, and also how to animate in 3D space using multiple views. Then Trish will show you how to create 3D cameras, how to manipulate and animate those cameras, and how to create orbit camera rigs. She'll also show you how to take advantage of auto-orientation, having layers always look at the camera, or have the camera always follow a path. I'll return then to show you about depth of field, where layers can be selectively in or out of focus, and then turn our attention to 3D lights. I'll show you how to create lights, animate them, create shadows, and work with light falloff where objects closer are lit more brightly than objects that are further away. I'll then discuss the brand new Ray-traced 3D Renderer introduced in After Effects CS6. This allows you to extrude and bevel layers, play with transparency and reflectivity, and even create environment maps that wrap around your world. There are also a series of sidebar movies at the end, and the differences between rotation and orientation, the different axis modes in After Effects to manipulate your 3D layers, the implications of scaling in 3D, and different preview strategies to speed up how you work. We also have a set of movies in this lesson about Photoshop integration, using Vanishing Point Exchange, the so-called dimensional stills technique where you cut up an image and then spread it out in 3D space, and also the legacy Photoshop 3D feature. It's no longer supported in After Effects CS6, but those of you with earlier versions and who don't have access to a 3D program might want to take advantage of it. 3D is a very deep subject. Initially it is a little hard to wrap your head around it. However, once you master it, it will really enhance your animations. It will just give them a further sense of realism, mystery, and just plain interest for the viewer. So with all that said, let's dive in and have some fun.

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