- 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
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Designing a 3D Product for Motion Design
Before you venture back into After Effects to explore the new Advanced 3D render engine, you’ll need access to a suitable 3D model to work with. As you saw in Chapter 6, you can use Substance 3D Stager to design models and export them in many different file formats, some of which can be used in an After Effects composition.
Creating a New Project
Launch Substance 3D Stager and create a new file to design a simple 3D model for export. You’ll use starter assets and a few custom decorative elements to form and brand the mesh.
Let’s create a new project to work with.
Click Create New on the home screen or choose File > New from the application menu.
This creates a fresh Substance 3D Stager project.
From the application menu, choose File > Save to display the Save As dialog box.
Browse to a location on your local file system that you will remember and name the file mosquito.ssg.
Click Save to save the project and return to your empty scene in Substance 3D Stager.
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You now have an empty Substance 3D Stager project ready to work with. This environment exists only for your 3D model design and export, so don’t be concerned about the environment or camera properties, since you will be exporting the model along with any applied design elements and not rendering the content.
Designing a Branded Product
Now that you have a clean project to work in, you need to identify a 3D model and then apply a set of chosen materials to it for greater realism.
Ensure that the Assets panel is activated and visible along the left side of the Substance 3D Stager interface. If it is not, click the Assets button
in the lower left of the interface to activate it.Next, you will choose a 3D model and select appropriate materials to place on the various mesh parts that form the model.
In the Starter Assets tab of the Assets panel, type tube in the search field at the top to display any assets that contain “tube” in their name.
If you do not see any models appear, be sure none of the filters below the search field are active.
Click the Cream tube model from the set of assets that appear.
The tube is added to the very center of your environment and appears as an entry in the Scene panel.
In the Scene panel, open the cream_tube mesh group to reveal the individual mesh parts that compose the model.
One mesh represents the tube body, and the other represents the tube cap. Each mesh can have its properties adjusted independently of the other.
In the cream_tube group, select the body_mesh object.
The body_mesh object is highlighted in the Scene panel, indicating that it is now selected.
Additionally, the visual model part in the environment exhibits a blue outline, and the Properties panel changes to display properties specific to the selected object.
The tube body includes a boring gray default material that you will change to something more realistic and interesting.
In the Starter Assets tab, search for the term plastic to display several materials.
Many starter assets are meant to exhibit the look of plastic in some way. Quite a lot of choices!
Scroll through the materials and locate the Shinny Plastic material. It appears as a reflective, deep orange material with subtle creases.
Click the material preview to apply it to the selected body_mesh object.
Notice that since only the body_mesh object was selected, the Shinny Plastic material is applied to that individual part of the overall model group. If the entire group were selected, the cap_mesh object would take on this appearance as well.
Select the cap_mesh object in the Scene panel.
In the Starter Assets tab, click the Hard Plastic material to apply it to the cap of the tube.
Since you did not change or clear out the previous search for “plastic,” you did not need to perform a fresh search.
The Hard Plastic material is applied to the cap_mesh object.
Adjusting Material Properties
You could leave these materials at their default appearance, of course, but the tube is a bit too orange for the overall design. To finish working with these materials, you will adjust the color of the Shinny Plastic material.
In the Scene panel, select the body_mesh object again and look at the Properties panel.
Click the Material tab in the Properties panel and ensure the Shinny Plastic material is selected to view the properties that you can adjust.
Many, many properties can be adjusted, and they differ greatly from material to material.
Scroll down in the Shinny Plastic section of the Substance properties until you locate the Color property, and then click it to display the color picker overlay. Adjust the color to more yellow and less orange.
I am using the value #C5870D, which can be entered into the Hex input box in the color picker overlay.
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With individual materials chosen, applied, and adjusted, the basic design for the cream tube model is complete.
It already looks very realistic with the softer, creased look of the tube body and the harder, duller appearance of the plastic cap. Applying a set of visually distinctive materials to a model in this way is a great method of achieving a realistic look for your design.
Applying Branding Assets to the Design
To complete the cream tube design, you will include specific branding assets in the After Effects composition. These branding assets include a pattern and a label.
The exercise files for this chapter include a file named pattern.png. You will apply this striped pattern, which was designed in Illustrator, across the body of the tube. It will give your 3D model more character and help visually align it with other products that are part of this campaign.
The exercise files for this chapter also include a file named label.png. This file is a label designed in Adobe Express specifically for the product itself, which is a skin cream that wards off bothersome mosquitoes in the warmer months.
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With both branding images in mind (and on-hand), you’ll now apply them to the cream tube 3D model.
Working with the Background Pattern
You will place the background pattern on the tube first and then place the label. Of course, you can always adjust the stacking order of these images afterward, but it is better to start in the proper placement order.
Return to the Substance 3D Stager mosquito.ssg project and select the body_mesh object in the cream_tube group from the Scene panel.
You will be applying image assets only to this mesh.
In the Properties panel, select the Material tab. The Shinny Plastic material should be selected, as it is the only material available.
Click the Place Image On Model button
below the Shinny Plastic material.A file browser dialog box appears.
Select the file pattern.png and click Open.
The image is mapped roughly onto the surface of the tube.
In the Properties panel, ensure the Graphic material is selected and change the Placement setting from Decal to Fill.
Decal placement treats the image asset like a sticker or label, while Fill placement stretches the image out across the entire mesh to fill every last bit.
Ensure you have the Select tool
chosen. A transform overlay will appear across the image applied to the object.
Adjust the following values of the image until you get an interesting result:
Position: Drag the image in the transform overlay.
Rotation: Drag the little circle that protrudes from the overlay.
Repeat: Drag the four squares around the overlay.
These properties can also be adjusted through the Offset and Repeat properties in the Properties panel when an image is selected in the Material tab.
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I used the settings shown in the image for my example.
Working with the Label
To complete the tube design, you will place the label image on the tube, overlaying both the material and the pattern image.
Select the Shinny Plastic material in the Material section of the Properties panel.
Click the Place Image On Model button
beneath the material.If a graphic is selected instead of the underlying material, the Place Image On Model button
will not appear.
In the file browser dialog box that appears, select the image file label.png and click Open.
The label image is placed on the tube as a decal, and a transform overlay appears around it.
Use the transform overlay to adjust the Position, Rotation, and Scale properties of the label so that it sits squarely on the front surface of the tube.
Adjust the camera view if necessary to change your view and achieve the ideal placement for the label. Chapter 6 covered how this can be done with the Orbit
, Pan 
, and Dolly 
tools.The 3D model design is now complete!
Switch the Ray Tracing toggle
to the active position to view the cream tube in a more realistic way.This renders a more realistic preview of the product, with all materials and images applied.
Notice that the label and pattern images conform to the creases and deviations across the tube because they were placed on the Shinny Plastic material. And Ray Tracing renders reflections and shadows in a much more complex and realistic manner.
Once you are finished admiring your work, switch the Ray Tracing toggle
to the inactive position.Ray Tracing takes much more computing power to render your content than the real-time preview render, so it should be used sparingly.
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Exporting 3D Models for After Effects
You are nearly finished with Substance 3D Stager and will soon move to After Effects to design motion content using your newly designed 3D model. The only thing left to do is export the design in a format that is compatible with the Advanced 3D render engine.
Choose File > Export > Scene from the application menu.
The Export Scene dialog box appears with the default settings.
After Effects supports only the 3D model formats GLB and GLTF in the Advanced 3D render engine. I suggest exporting as GLB, as this produces a single file instead of a collection of files (as GLTF would).
Select GLB from the Format drop-down.
The other settings in the dialog box work fine for our purposes, but if you need to, you can change the Save To location to something more accessible to you.
Click Export to complete the export process.
The export is saved as a GLB file in the location you specified.
If you ever choose to create a GLTF file, you will have a set of files to deal with instead of just one.
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Creating Simple 3D Motion in Substance 3D Stager
Before jumping back into After Effects, note that Substance 3D Stager also features a set of motion design tools, however simplistic.
To access a timeline that appears along the bottom of the interface, click the Timeline button 
in the lower left of the interface. Once animation is added to an object in your project, you can control the playback through the timeline controls.
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To add animation to an object, access the Properties panel with that object selected and then click the Animation tab to reveal the set of animation choices.
Substance 3D Stager includes two animation choices that are activated with a toggle switch: Orbit and Spin.
Orbit: Activates animation that enables one object to orbit another. This is very useful when applied to a camera or a light. You must also specify the target object it will orbit around.
Spin: A bit simpler than Orbit, this choice activates animation that spins the selected object around. This is best to use when you want to showcase all sides of an object.
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The animation choices share several properties:
Target Offset: This offsets your motion by a distance measured in centimeters along each of the three axes. The default is no offset at all, with each being a value of 0 cm.
Duration: This determines how long or short your animation is. The default is 3 seconds.
Rotation: Measured in degrees, this determines how much of a full 360° rotation is achieved across the given duration. The default is, of course, the full 360°.
Reverse: This checkbox reverses the direction of your motion when activated.
Easing: This set of common easing algorithms adds a bit of weight and dynamic physicality to the motion.
Of course, you want to have full control over any motion given to your 3D model, and that is where After Effects steps in.