Extruding vectors

- [Instructor] Working with text and shape layers inside After Effects gives you the ability to extrude these vectors and create a real 3D object. This way you can use the power of Illustrator to design your graphics and then extrude them here inside After Effects. So, I'm going to use this second layer here in our Smartphone Composition to demonstrate it. So, I'm going to select it and then right click on it and from the Create subcategory option, I'm going to choose Create Shapes from Vector Layer. So, just be aware that you can't directly extrude the Illustrator layer, you must convert it to either a text or a vector layer here inside After Effects. After doing so, I'm going to convert this 2D layer to a 3D layer and then I'm going to click where it says Classic 3D near the word Renderer, then I'm going to switch it use the Cinema 4D engine and this will allow us to extrude and bevel text and shapes. I'm going to say OK over here and then I'm going to fold this layer down and under the Geometry Options, I have the Extrusion Options that I want change. So, I'm going to start by changing the Extrusion Depth to 200 in this case and I'm also going to zoom in so you can get a sense of what I'm doing. Now you can also access the different side in order to colorize your extrusions. So, to demonstrate it, I'm going to go back to the Contents where I have all the individual groups, those are the shapes that were constructed inside Illustrator and in order to define a different color or material to the side of this 3D shape, I can go to the Add menu and because we are working with a 3D shape and we are using the Cinema 4D renderer, we are getting these four new options which will allow us to add different properties to the four sides of this 3D shape. Now, even just going to select Side from here and go with Color, After Effects is going to yell at me and it will tell me that in order to apply this surface material option to multiple layer shapes at once, we need to put them inside a group. I'm going to say OK over here, I'm going to select all of those six groups by clicking on the first one, Shift clicking on the last one, in this case, Group Number Six and then I'm going to group them together by holding down Command and the letter G, this will be Control + G obviously on the PC side and now that I have just one group, I can go back to this Add menu and from the Side option, I can set a different color and now it's going to work. So, I'm going to sample let's say this orange color from the illustration that I already have and you can see how this is going to work. I'm going to zoom a little bit out and also hide the boundaries of the Shape Path Visibility just so it will be a little bit easier to see what I'm creating. Now if I want, I can also go to the Layer menu and under New, I can add a new light and this light is going to affect this 3D object, so it can cast shadows, you can change the light type, you can do a lot of other stuff but I'm just going to say OK over here and I'm going to move this light on its z-axis and maybe a little bit higher as well as to the right or to the left, just so you can see how it will affect our 3D object. You can also select the light here in the timeline, press T in order to see its intensity and maybe even raise it to be a little more bright. So, you can design it from this point however you like. But this is in a nutshell another design idea made easy thanks to the ability of After Effects to create shapes from vectors and then extrude and texture them using the Cinema 4D renderer