Manipulating 3D Models for Motion Graphic Designs
- Designing Motion Content with 3D Models
- Designing a 3D Product for Motion Design
- 3D Motion Design in After Effects
- Compositing with Additional Elements
- Rendering the 3D Motion Design
In this sample chapter from Adobe Creative 3D Workflows: A Designer's Guide to Adobe Substance 3D and Adobe Creative Cloud Integration by Joseph Labrecque, the focus is on Substance 3D Stager and Adobe After Effects with a new approach to designing 3D product models. The chapter details the process of creating a 3D model in Substance 3D Stager using assets from Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Express, and integrating this model into an After Effects composition using the Advanced 3D rendering engine. It also explores the creation of background elements with generative AI and Adobe Firefly, working with 3D text, and employing advanced lighting techniques using HDRi imagery, illustrating the convergence of multiple workflows, techniques, and software.
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
In this chapter, we return to Substance 3D Stager and Adobe After Effects for a different approach. We’ll be designing the 3D model of a product in Substance 3D Stager with assets created in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Express. We’ll use this 3D model in an After Effects composition alongside additional 3D and 2D content using the new Advanced 3D rendering engine.
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Designing Motion Content with 3D Models
In Chapter 5’s introduction to 3D in After Effects, we looked at two ways of working in 3D space. The first was through the manipulation of flat graphics in perspective to give the appearance of 3D, and the second was to use actual 3D models. After Effects is capable of dealing with both methods within the same composition.
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In this figure, you can see that After Effects shows both the 2D object and the 3D object as 3D layers in a single composition. Their appearance and the related controls inform you of their nature. The 2D object, when selected, exhibits a flat transformation rectangle around it, whereas the 3D object appears as though contained in a three-dimensional transformation cube. This difference is the projected volume of the object in 3D space.
This chapter focuses on native support for true 3D models and other aspects of the Advanced 3D render engine.
Exploring the Advanced 3D Render Engine
When you create a new composition, After Effects provides three choices of 3D rendering engine in the 3D Renderer tab of the Composition Settings dialog box.
Choose Composition > New Composition from the application menu to access this dialog box as part of the composition creation workflow, or choose Composition > Composition Settings with an existing composition selected.
Three tabs are available to you in this dialog box: Basic, Advanced, and 3D Renderer.
Choose 3D Renderer to select the rendering engine you’d like to use and to see the features that are supported by each engine.
Beginning with the release of Adobe After Effects 2024 (version 24.2), the following engines are available:
Classic 3D: The default rendering engine before the Advanced 3D engine became available. This renderer enables your 2D layers to be positioned in 3D space.
Advanced 3D: This rendering engine, which is the focus of this chapter, is new to After Effects after a long gestation in the public beta. When Advanced 3D is selected, you can use true 3D models and materials, environmental lighting and shadows, extruded shape and text content, and more advanced 3D workflows.
Cinema 4D: This rendering engine functions alongside the Cinema 4D Lite software application, which you can optionally install. This rendering engine enables the extrusion of shape and text elements.
In this chapter, you will use Advanced 3D as the 3D renderer. This is the default rendering engine, and it is automatically activated when creating a 3D layer or importing a 3D model.
Click the Options button on the 3D Renderer tab of the Composition Settings dialog box. The Advanced 3D Render Options dialog box displays.
From here, you can fine-tune the render performance for your hardware and project. The following properties are available:
Render Quality: A lower setting for this property makes editing your composition easier, while a higher value represents a greater degree of quality as you work.
You can set it from 1 to 300 with the associated slider control.
Shadows Resolution: The higher the MB value this is set to, the more realistic the shadows cast upon your 3D content will appear.
You can choose values of Half (2 MB), Full (16 MB), or Double (128 MB) from the drop-down.
Shadows Smoothness: The Smoothness property works alongside Render Quality and indicates how smooth the shadows appear as they are generated. A high setting can negatively affect performance while you work in the composition but will give smoother results.
Set this from 1 to 32 with the slider.
Shadows Casting Box Size: The casting box determines the area within which shadows are produced in your composition. Keeping this size only as large as needed will keep things from being too laggy, as it would be pointless to cast shadows in areas that are not visible, for example.
Shadows Casting Box Center: The casting box size is measured from this center point. Since you are working in 3D space, you must set the center across all three dimensions: X, Y, and Z.
Fit to Scene: This button will automatically set the Casting Box Size and Casting Box Center properties to match your composition content.
Only content capable of casting shadows is considered.
You can alternatively access the Advanced 3D Render Options dialog box from below the composition panel. Click the 3D Renderer drop-down and choose the Renderer Options list item.
This provides quicker access to make adjustments as you work, since it displays the dialog box immediately.
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Exploring the Major Features of the Advanced 3D Renderer
Now that you are familiar with how to activate the Advanced 3D renderer and tweak the options to your liking, let’s look at the major features enabled by this rendering engine in After Effects.
3D Model Support
One of the most important features of the new rendering engine is the ability to work with true 3D models in a composition. After Effects supports the GLB and GLTF formats for import and use in any composition using the Advanced 3D render engine.
GLB and GLTF are highly popular file formats and include not only the 3D meshes that form a model but also any materials and images placed on them.
HDRi Image-Based Lighting
High dynamic range imaging (HDRi) files are generally shot as equirectangular images and include extra information regarding lighting due to how HDR images are created. Using HDRi imagery in a composition enables you to use this lighting information as the source for environmental lights that have a direct effect on 3D layers and how they are lit in a scene.1
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You can gather HDRi images from several sources, including the Substance 3D Assets Collection or Adobe Stock (see Chapter 1). The image file in this figure was gathered from HDRI-HAVEN, which is a resource dedicated to making free, high-quality HDRi images available to 3D artists.
Camera and Light Extraction
Not only can GLB and GLTF files contain 3D models and related materials, but they can also hold information regarding cameras and lights. These cameras and lights can be extracted from imported 3D files of this kind and used as cameras and lights in a composition.
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To extract any lights that are present in a 3D model in your composition, select the layer with the 3D model and choose Layer > Light > Create Lights from 3D Model from the application menu.
To extract any cameras that are present in a 3D model in your composition, select the layer with the 3D model and choose Layer > Camera > Create Cameras from 3D Model from the application menu.
If the extracted lights and cameras include animation, keyframes will be placed on the timeline.
2D/3D Effect Workflows
It’s important to remember that you can combine 2D and 3D layers in the same composition. The Advanced 3D rendering engine enables effects that reference other layers to mingle across 2D and 3D space. This allows effects such as Displacement Map, Vector Blur, or Calculations to use a 3D model layer as a source to create highly stylized renders.
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We’ll explore much of this new Advanced 3D rendering feature set in the remainder of this chapter, but first let’s design a 3D model in Substance 3D Stager for the composition.