How to use the NEW 3D WORKSPACE in After Effects

After Effects 24.1 is here and we got a  whole new dimension using dedicated 3D   related features such as native model import  alignment tools image based lightning and   High Fidelity GPU accelerated renders so in  this tutorial I'll show you how you can use   substance painter and Stager to texture and  prepare models and then export them to After   Effects where we can animate and render them  it's going to be a long in-depth tutorial and   as always there are chapter markers underneath  so feel free to skip to the part that you want   to see but if you want to get the full  story please stick around with me here   and I'll show you everything that you need to  know about these new exciting features let's go now a quick disclaimer before we'll start this  is version one of the new 3D experience in After   Effects meaning that although Adobe worked on  this for a couple of years it's still in its   infancy things are going to improve in the future  in terms of performance and render quality as well   as integration with the substance family you may  also wonder how it is compared to plugins like   element 3D helium or MIR well I'm going to share  with you my conclusion at the end of this video   after we'll see what's possible in this release  but I'm here to tell you that this is not going   to replace your 3D pipeline it can't compete with  dedicated 3D packages such as blender Cinema 40   and other tools there are limitations of what  you can achieve but it is a step in the right   direction and it will allow you to import and  animate real 3D models natively without living   The Familiar AE interface and from my experience  it's stable and ready for prime time so on a high   level note we are getting seven new things 3D  model import image based lightning Advanced 3D   renderer 2D and 3D integration animated lights and  cameras 3D snapping and 3D model driven effect now   I'm not going to cover everything in this tutorial  so there will be a follow up video very soon where   I'll focus on some of the other features such as  image based lighting integration between 2D and   3D layers and applying effects so stay tuned for  that and also let me know in the comments what   else would you like me to show you for now I'll  start by taking this steampunk watch that I got   from sketch FB there's a link in the description  I'll download the model and I'll open it inside   substance painter over here of course we can take  a look around the model and there are few layers   I'll get to these layers in a moment but for now  let's select the topmost layer and I'll search for   the word part which is going to isolate all the  particle brushes which is a great way to texture   a model for example if I take this glitter party  just to show an example and I'll brush over here   you can see how this works obviously this is not  what I want so maybe let's start with some broken   glass I'll raise the size over here to something a  bit bigger and then I'll start to click and every   time I'm clicking I'm painting with particles and  creating this broken glass texture on the model   and of course this is all 3D so we can get a sense  of how this works we can have more over here maybe   more over here and then let's switch to another  one this this organic strands and I'll click to   paint with this brush maybe raise the size of  it as well so we'll have bigger particles and   every time I'm clicking I'm basically destroying  this material using this particle brush so this   is really a cool way to work and of course this is  not going to be a substance tutorial so I'll click   again to stop the particles and I want to show  you how you can save and send it to After Effects   so I'll press command s and I'll save it in my  documents folder I'll call it steampunk watch and   now I'll go to the edit menu and from the send  to options we have a new command send to After   Effects you can configure how you want to send it  the default settings if I'll show you are to save   with the glb file format you can also also use  the gltf both of them are going to be respected by   after effects meaning that the materials are going  to be embedded inside the model and you can set   the output directory so I'll cancel out go again  to file send to send to After Effects and I'll   select send to After Effects it's going to process  everything that it needs it's also going to give   you a log if you want you can read it and if after  effects was not running it will also launch after   effects for you in my case I'll switch to After  Effects which is running in the background and we   can see that the steampunk watch model is ready  inside its own folder to be used so what I need   to do right now is just drag and drop it to create  a new composition out of this model I'll click on   make comp size and I'll click okay and then we  can take a look around this model as we can see   everything is working really nicely if I'll press  and hold the digit three I can track into the   model one is going to orbit around it and two of  course is pan under the cursor and as we can see   all the textures that I've created inside painter  are now embedded into this model and I can start   animating it however I want more excess I want to  separate those parts and animate the individual   objects inside After Effects so for that I'll  return back to painter and instead of sending   this to After Effects I'll choose file send to  and I'll use the third option send to substance   3D Stager now I love working with stagers this is  to my opinion one of the most intuitive and simple   3D apps to set up models clean them up and preview  the result so my plan is to use Stager to separate   the part of the model and this way I can animate  each one individually inside After Effects but   first we need to export each one of the models  so it will be combined later in the comp stage   over here in the import settings you can choose if  you want to include the unused materials as well   as generate UVS which I'm going to accept if you  don't want to see this dialogue box you can tick   the do not show again let's just click on import  wait a few moments and here we have our steampunk   watch inside Stager I'll press f to frame it and  I'm also going to open the folder to show you that   I already separated all the different objects so  we have access to the capup that I can switch on   and off and of course to see how this looks from  a better angle I'll hold the option Al on Windows   and orbit around this model and then I can show  you that I can take off this capup I can also   hide the glass to see inside the watch there  are other elements here such as the hour hand   the temperature needle you can see I'm switching  them on and off this is the hide needle hopefully   you can see it we're going to take a better look  at them once we are going to send them to afters   but I just want to show you that indeed we have  separated objects and this means that I can now   select the individual part and I can export them  to After Effects so for example I can select just   the body go to file export selected models and now  I can change the format to glb I will take off the   center models on export and this is because I  want to keep the 3D position of each one of the   different object because I'm planning to then  reassemble them inside after effect so wait it   will be clearer in a moment when we are going to  to import them to After Effects but for now I'm   just going to name this one watch body I'll save  it on the desktop for now and click export then   I'll select the cap and I'll do the same thing  because I want to animate it inside after effects   and my plan is to change its rotation X of course  I will also need to move the Anchor Point so I   will be able to open the cup and then of course  course animate the different elements such as   the hour hand the temperature needle the height  needle Etc so I'll repeat the same process going   to file export selected model this one is the cap  so I'm just going to name it cap and I'll save it   on the desktop click export and then I'll do the  same thing over and over again if you don't have   access to these substance apps you can use other  3D packages to to achieve the same results blender   Cinema 4D 3ds Max Maya or any other 3D package  that supports glb or gltf export should do the   job you can also by the way use the obj format  but then you'll need to manage the textures in   a separated folder so as I told you from version  24.1 of After Effects we can natively import 3D   models into their own compositions in a unified  3D space and this means that we can also integrate   it with 3D shapes and text but now let's import  all the 3D models that we've exported from Stager   and set them up for animation so back in After  Effects I'll do some housekeeping I'll rename   this composition one I'll take it outside of this  folder and I'm also going to delete this folder   we are going to repport all the materials and  reconstruct the steam pan watch so I'll press   delete and remove this one I'm also going to  press command K and change the comp settings   to 25 frames per second as well as change the  duration to 10 seconds and now I'm ready to bring   all the different components that I've exported  from Stager so I'll double click and I'll go to   the desktop and select all of the glb 3D objects  click open and everything is going to be imported   and placed inside its own folder now this is  not the way that I would like to work so I'll   command click on one of those files and then I'll  take all the rest and place them inside a single   folder I'll call this one 3D objects and then I  can delete all the unnecessary folders and this   is just going to give us a more tidier project  then I'll start with the watch body so I'll drag   and drop it to this composition and in this case  I don't want to use the make comp size and this   is because I want each one of the individual parts  to be at the same 3D position so don't be tempted   to click over here just click okay instead what  I'll do is switch from my active camera to custom   view one then I'll press and hold three to get  to the doly tool zoom out press and hold two and   this is going to allow me to pan this View and  maybe also press one and orbit I just want to   get a better angle so I can see what I'm doing  so something along these lines I think is going   to work for the first stage all right the next  one is the cap I'm just going to drag and drop   it over here and I'll click okay and you can see  that it will respect the same 3D coordinates all   right I'll switch off the visibility of the cup  and then I can just shift select all the other   models drag and drop them to the comp and click  okay a few times until everything is going to be   placed in the scene in its correct location and  of course we can switch on and off those layers   if you want to verify that everything is working  now the next thing is to select all the layers   and parent them to the watch body and this will  help us to move everything as a single group so   now just for the sake of demonstration you can see  that if I'm moving the watch all the other parts   are moving with it now the coupler is hidden  at the moment so let's just turn it back on   and what we need to do is move the Anchor Point  so we can animate its X rotation to create some   sort of an opening and to do this I'll switch to  the Pan behind tool and I can start to drag it and   notice that I'm getting some new 3D Al diamond  tools which is a new feature of this version so   I'll place it somewhere over here and then I'll  move just the xaxis and then I'll hold down the   option key this is going to give me a temporary  camera tool and now with the left Mouse button I   can orbit around the scene just to make sure that  indeed this is where it needs to be and it's not   so I will take it over here and then again I'll  check it from a different angle and you may need   to just fiddle with it and move it until it's in  the correct position so something like this looks   like it is working for us and to check how this  looks I can go to the X rotation and I can do this   number to open up the cup and see everything  which is underneath now to save some time I   already modified The Anchor Point for the rest  of the 3D layers and then I saved my progress in   a separated comp which I'm going to switch to now  and show you the animation process so I'll close   this composition and open up steampunk Watch Two  and now let's animate the different layers we'll   start with the capup so I'll create a key frame  for the X rotation at the beginning here and   then I'll go to 5 seconds and I can either use  the properties panel or because the properties   panel exposes this value here in the timeline I  can actually animate it from here so I'll set it to15 and then I'm also going to press F9 to easy  ease the motion now instead of waiting for after   effects to preview it which is not a big deal  I can actually switch to the draft 3D and the   new Advanced 3D renderer is basically a high  performance GPU powered engine and this means   that it will offer you high quality anti- eying  and transparency options using by the way the   fast draft mode which can display most of these  features in real time so I highly recommend to use   it when you are building your comp and animating  your 3D layers so after switching it to draft 3D   this is the preview again more or less the same  thing but now we can animate the other layers   so I'll leave the glass alone I'll select the  temperature needle I'll go to the beginning by   the way and just so we'll see what happens I'll  switch off the visibility of both the cup and the   glass layers and this will help us see better the  individual layers so in this case I would like to   animate the Y rotation over here now instead  of animating it using key frames I'm going to   option click on the stopwatch near the words wi  rotation in the properties panel which is going   to open it in the timeline as well as give me the  ability to type in something which is going to be   the wiggle expression so I'll start to type it  and after effects is going to finish the typing   for me inside the parenthesis I'll type in one  for the frequency and 150 for the magnitude and   then I'll press return or enter to accept it  and now if I press space bar you can see the   needle here for the temperature is just going to  wiggle around all right let's do something similar   for the hour hand I'll collapse this layer select  the hour hand again I'm after the Y rotation for   most of these layers so I'll option or Al click  to expose this value at the same time create an   expression for it this one is going to be the  time expression and I'll multiply it by 24 and   now this is how it looks all right I'll Poe the  playback I'll select the height needle and I'll   do the same thing so option clicking on the while  rotation and this one is going to get a different   expression just because I want to use this to show  you a few other ways to work so I'll go to the   beginning and first I'll use key frames to animate  it I'll start with the current value which is 150°   and then I'll go to 1 second and I'll highlight  the value type in30 and this is going to give us   this animation that stops after 1 second however  in the expression field we can start to type the   word Loop I'll select the loop out expression  and then I'll add double quotes and from the   options that after effects is offering us I'll  select the continue behavior and click outside   and this is just going going to continue the same  motion so if I want this motion to be quicker I   can just contract the key frames distance and  this going to just move this needle faster all   right the last one let's just close those two  select the compass needle and this one is also   going to get a wiggle expression so option click  on the Y rotation directly from the properties   panel start to type the W wiggle and over here  inside the appren is 2 comma 50 I think is going   to give us the desired values and as you can see  this is working like so if I'll bring back the   glass layer we can see through the glass and of  course we also have the capup animation which is   going to open up like so now in this composition  I can see that I forgot to parent everything to   the watch body so I'll select all the layers  and I'll PE equip the watch body meaning that   I can now move move the entire thing and as you  can see the animation is going to still work   all right I'll undo the last operation and I'll  click on the shy icon which is going to show us   that we have few other elements that I've placed  in this composition so I've duplicated The Watch   Body three times and each one of these copies  is scaled up as well as oriented in 3D space so   if I'll switch on the visibility of this one you  can see how this looks I'm going to zoom out and   then orbit around the scene just so you'll get a  sense of how I've constructed these three copies   this is another instance of the same 3D model  and here we have another one and if I'll hold   down the option key alt on Windows and click on  my left Mouse button you can see that we can move   inside this 3D space and of course we can zoom in  and out as well as create a camera and animate it   so again just to save some time I already did it  ahead of time so I will enable the camera that I   have in the scene as well as the null object  which is a camera orbit null so I'm using it   to control the camera now I'll click and hold on  this popup menu and switch to camera one so we are   now looking through the lens of this camera and  if I'll move the current time indicator you can   see how this works actually because we are using  draft 3D we can just preview it in real time by   pressing space bar to light everything we can use  the new environment light which will cast shadows   and create a realistic natural look by the way  you can also marry it with a 360° High dynamic   range image also known as hdri and this is going  to serve as a light source making all the objects   appear as though they are naturally belonging  together now I'll save these parts to another   another tutorial but in this video I'll show  you how to set up the environment light as well   as share a few tips regarding the shadow render  settings so here at the end of my composition I'll   go to the layer menu and under new I'll create a  new light from the light type options I'll select   an environment light and I'll make sure to tick  cast shadows and this is going to make all the   layers automatically cast Shadows one on top of  the other now you have control on the area which   After Effects is going to calculate the Shadows  within and to show you how this looks I'll click   okay and then to see those Shadows we'll need to  switch off draft 3D wait a few moments and if you   can't see anything this is probably due to the  fact that you need to define the renderer options   so I'll visit the renderer options from here over  here you can change the render quality by the way   this slider go all the way up to 300 but I found  out that the value around 50 usually yield very   good results then you can change the resolution of  your Shadow so I'll set mine to full and finally   you can use this button to fit the shadow box to  the scene so if I'll click on fit to scene it's   going to look at all of the layers and hopefully  you can see there is a pink box which is going to   tell us where the Shadows are going to be cast you  can also move the box center if you need to modify   it now my recommendation is not just to click on  this button because usually this is an Overkill   setting and it's going to bring your computer  computer on its knees so I recommend to start   with a value which is double the size of your  comp in my case I'm just going to type in 3,000   and then I'll tap to the X and this will refresh  the render since the preview checkbox is active   and now I can move the X Y and Z position of this  box so I'll start by typing in 1500 for the X and   then I'll tab to the Y type in 15 100 for the Y  and zero for the Z as you can see after a moment   after effects is going to show us this pink box  giving us an indication where those Shadows are   in the scene or where actually we are casting them  now if you want a smoother Shadow you can raise   the smoothness over here I'll leave it at three  because I think it looks good enough and then   I'll click okay another thing you can do is open  up the transform for the light and you can also   animate the light X and Y rotation so let's create  a key frame for X rotation at the end with this   value of zero and then let's go to the beginning  of this composition we'll need to wait for after   effects to catch up we can click and drag on  this value and it's going to update the render   view so I'll set it to -200 more or less and by  the way this is something that you can actually   preview using draft 3D so if I enable draft 3D  you can see that as I scrub these parameters I'm   getting a real time feedback from the advanced 3D  renderer and of course you also have the option   to tie it up with an hdri image which you can do  after bringing an HDR image over here and then   use this Source popup menu and this is something  that I'm going to cover in another tutorial but   for now I'm just going to preview in draft three  3D the motion of the light the animation of the   light and of course anytime I'll pose the playback  and switch off draft 3D after effect is going to   calculate the Shadows let's just check them in a  different place let's say over here at 4 seconds   just so you can see that the Shadows are being  casted in this case on the other 3D object so   this is again the before the draft 3D without the  shadows and this is with the shadows and now we   are ready to render it so I'll go to the beginning  I'll maximize the frame and I'll preview this composition so this is how you can use substance  painter and Stager to prepare and separate 3D   models and then import them to After Effects and  animate them here as I mentioned if you don't have   access to these substance apps you can still use  other 3D packages to achieve the same result now   as you can see the render quality looks decent but  cannnot compete with 3D professional engines such   as red shift octane EV or cyas it won't give you  the same results as unreal or V or Arnold not even   close it's more closer to element 3D Stardust  helium or mirr which are some plugins that are   available and arguably I would say it is not even  coming close to these guys however not everyone   can afford or the third party solution and  sometimes you just need a simple mograph mockup   tool that will later be improve in a dedicated  3D Suite now what I'm trying to say here is that   for the current built-in technology that we have  I think it's good enough now if you're willing   to invest time in crafting the textures inside  substance you can achieve even better results   the good news is that everything is happening  inside the familiar interface of after effect   and finally we can enjoy a real 3D unified space  that all the layers are interacting together now   as I mentioned in the outset of this tutorial  there are even more stuff that you can achieve   and I will cover them in an upcoming tutorial so  make sure to subscribe and turn on the Bell icon   to be notified until then thank you so much  for watching and I will see you in the next [Music] one

Channel: SternFX

Views: 12,808

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Id: Ed-uHqJMRnY

Length: 28min 39sec (1719 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023