Screen Replacement

[00:00:00] So, up until this point, we've been

[00:00:00] working with this phone screen and it's

[00:00:00] just off. It's just blank screen. And

[00:00:00] that's that's boring. We want to add we

[00:00:00] want to add some graphics here to the

[00:00:00] screen. So, let's look at how we can do

[00:00:00] a screen replacement here in After

[00:00:00] Effects. So, I can see what I'm doing.

[00:00:00] I'm going to come over to my timeline

[00:00:00] and I'm going to disable here the hard

[00:00:00] case. I'm going to start by going to

[00:00:00] layer and choosing a new solid. And

[00:00:00] we'll just call this screen for now. And

[00:00:00] we have our width and height. And this

[00:00:00] solid is going to have a specific aspect

[00:00:00] ratio that's going to match the aspect

[00:00:00] ratio of what the phone screen is. Now,

[00:00:00] I've kind of worked out the width and

[00:00:00] height ahead of time. So, I want this to

[00:00:00] be 380 by 840. And what I'm most

[00:00:00] concerned with is this frame aspect

[00:00:00] ratio at 045. Okay. So, that's going to

[00:00:00] work. Let's just give this a really

[00:00:00] bright value so we can see it. And we'll

[00:00:00] click okay. And now I have the solid

[00:00:00] here. Now, we want to make this a 3D

[00:00:00] layer. So, we're going to come over here

[00:00:00] and I'm going just going to tick the 3D

[00:00:00] object. And now we can see we have our

[00:00:00] screen again. Super super tiny. However,

[00:00:00] we are going to parent it to the phone.

[00:00:00] And same trick. We'll hit P on the

[00:00:00] keyboard to go to our position. And

[00:00:00] let's type in 0 0.

[00:00:00] And now we have the screen in position,

[00:00:00] but we just need to rotate it. So, if I

[00:00:00] jump over here to say like my left view,

[00:00:00] this is what we want to work with here.

[00:00:00] So, I can just grab this X handle, left

[00:00:00] click and drag. I'm going hold down

[00:00:00] shift and it'll snap. And I'm just going

[00:00:00] to snap it to 90°. And while I'm here in

[00:00:00] my left view, I'm just going to move

[00:00:00] this up on the Z-axis. What would be

[00:00:00] super helpful is if I just leftclick on

[00:00:00] this other view. And let's just change

[00:00:00] the view really quickly to my top view.

[00:00:00] So, now we can see our top view. We'll

[00:00:00] go back to the screen.

[00:00:00] Let's zoom in. And I'm again I'm going

[00:00:00] to push up on the Z-axis until the

[00:00:00] screen just fits right inside the phone

[00:00:00] like that. Okay, let's jump this over

[00:00:00] here to our top view. I'm going to zoom

[00:00:00] out and I can see that my screen overall

[00:00:00] is still pretty big, right? Because

[00:00:00] again, the phone is smaller than what

[00:00:00] this screen is. So, no problem. What I'm

[00:00:00] going to do here is just adjust the

[00:00:00] scale manually. I'll come in and just

[00:00:00] drag the scale until this just kind of

[00:00:00] matches up. Let's zoom in on it. Take a

[00:00:00] look. And now it's just a matter of

[00:00:00] going through this little process here

[00:00:00] just to fit the screen so that it

[00:00:00] actually covers the the 3D model phone

[00:00:00] screen. And this is looking pretty good.

[00:00:00] Let's see. For my scale, let's do you

[00:00:00] know what? Let's just do 20. Nah, let's

[00:00:00] go back down to 19%. That should do that

[00:00:00] should do fine. Okay. So now the big

[00:00:00] thing here is I just want to make sure

[00:00:00] again if I zoom in I just wanted to make

[00:00:00] sure I hit the space bar. I just wanted

[00:00:00] to make sure that the screen was fitting

[00:00:00] into the phone just under this beveled

[00:00:00] edge of the phone itself, the the the

[00:00:00] actual body of the phone. Okay. So, now

[00:00:00] we have this set. It's it's working.

[00:00:00] It's parented. But, you know, we do have

[00:00:00] this masking issue. And now I'll just

[00:00:00] come into the solid itself. I'm going to

[00:00:00] grab here the pen tool. And I'm just

[00:00:00] going to quickly create a mask. So here

[00:00:00] I'm just using the pen tool, creating a

[00:00:00] mask, adjusting the bezier handles. Uh

[00:00:00] just being careful that the edge is

[00:00:00] lining right up with the beveled edge of

[00:00:00] the phone. And that'll take care of the

[00:00:00] mask.

[00:00:00] So now that we have our screen and mask

[00:00:00] in place with the screen selected, I'm

[00:00:00] going to go to layer and I'm going to

[00:00:00] pre-ompose this layer. And we'll call

[00:00:00] this screen replacement. And we're going

[00:00:00] to leave all the attributes in the new

[00:00:00] comp. And so now I have a new

[00:00:00] composition. It's already parented to

[00:00:00] the phone. And if I double click, I can

[00:00:00] jump into this comp that's going to be

[00:00:00] set up with the aspect ratio that I need

[00:00:00] to match my screen replacement. So here

[00:00:00] in the footage, I have a graphic that

[00:00:00] was created by Robert, and it's a PSD

[00:00:00] file. If I drag and drop and place that

[00:00:00] here into my layer, and I'll just scale

[00:00:00] it down. So we get something like that.

[00:00:00] And now I have this UI that I'm going to

[00:00:00] use here for the screen. I could add an

[00:00:00] image, I could add video, but my case

[00:00:00] here, we'll just go with this image.

[00:00:00] Kind of a funny note, this content that

[00:00:00] I'm showing in this course was actually

[00:00:00] created by a session that Robert and I

[00:00:00] did at the Adobe Max keynote in 2024. So

[00:00:00] that's why you see Max Keynote West and

[00:00:00] Rob here. It's kind of funny. Okay, so

[00:00:00] there we have the UI. Uh, you know, I

[00:00:00] have this red screen back here. So with

[00:00:00] this selected, I'm going to go to my

[00:00:00] solid settings. And now I'm going to go

[00:00:00] ahead and turn this to black. And this

[00:00:00] will be nice. Kind of a black edge of

[00:00:00] the LCD. That's what that's going to

[00:00:00] represent. So I'll probably use that as

[00:00:00] well. Now I'll hit save. Before we jump

[00:00:00] over to the next comp, I want to show

[00:00:00] you something else that's pretty cool is

[00:00:00] if I come over here to window and I go

[00:00:00] to essential graphics. I can take this

[00:00:00] screen and just drag and drop and place

[00:00:00] it here into the panel. We'll call this

[00:00:00] uh we'll just call it screen. And what

[00:00:00] this is going to do is allow me to

[00:00:00] quickly change the screen graphic

[00:00:00] without having to jump in and out of

[00:00:00] comps here. I'll show you what I mean

[00:00:00] when we get over to the new comp. So,

[00:00:00] we'll save this. We'll jump back to our

[00:00:00] original comp. And here you can see we

[00:00:00] have our screen replacement. If I select

[00:00:00] the screen replacement in the properties

[00:00:00] panel under essential properties, look,

[00:00:00] I have this little input here. And if I

[00:00:00] had another image, I could simply drag

[00:00:00] and drop and just add it in here. Here's

[00:00:00] here's a cool option. If I grab that

[00:00:00] beach finalov and place it into here,

[00:00:00] look, I can have video in my screen

[00:00:00] replacement as well. Pretty cool. Now,

[00:00:00] we have a problem. The screen's upside

[00:00:00] down and it's flipped. So, we need to

[00:00:00] fix this. You know, a really quick way

[00:00:00] to fix it while I'm here is let's just

[00:00:00] rotate the comp. So, on the Z rotation,

[00:00:00] I'm going to set this to 180 so that

[00:00:00] it's going to rotate it so that it flips

[00:00:00] in the vertical, but now the horizontal

[00:00:00] is backwards. Another quick way to fix

[00:00:00] that, if we come over to the scale and

[00:00:00] I'm going to unlink it and then we have

[00:00:00] our X, Y, and Z. Let's take the X and

[00:00:00] just set it to negative 19. So it was 19

[00:00:00] before and I just set it to negative and

[00:00:00] that just flipped it. So that's just a

[00:00:00] quick way to set that up. All right, I

[00:00:00] don't need the essential graphics panel.

[00:00:00] We can close that. Let's go to a single

[00:00:00] view and let's look at this. Not in

[00:00:00] Draft 3D, but we're going to be looking

[00:00:00] at it from my active camera, which I am.

[00:00:00] I have my phone and it is parented to

[00:00:00] the right 3D object. Good. All right.

[00:00:00] So, I have my phone. Let's go ahead and

[00:00:00] scale this guy up now. So, we'll just

[00:00:00] scale using the property panel. So, I'll

[00:00:00] just do a quick little scale. Let's

[00:00:00] rotate this into place. And again, scale

[00:00:00] it up. Okay. Now, we don't see the hard

[00:00:00] case, but remember, I just had it turned

[00:00:00] off. So, we'll just enable the hard

[00:00:00] case. And now, here we have our screen

[00:00:00] replacement. We have the phone and the

[00:00:00] hard case. And if I start to scrub

[00:00:00] through the timeline, it's now sitting

[00:00:00] tracked into my footage because the

[00:00:00] phone is parented to that null. Now, one

[00:00:00] last thing we need to do for our screen.

[00:00:00] Let's select the screen comp. And if I

[00:00:00] take a look at the properties underneath

[00:00:00] material options, you'll see here that

[00:00:00] we have these options for cast, except

[00:00:00] shadows, and accept lights. For this

[00:00:00] screen, I want to take the accept lights

[00:00:00] and I want to switch this to off. So,

[00:00:00] that is what we want to do for having

[00:00:00] this work like as an actual lit panel,

[00:00:00] like an LCD or something like that. And

[00:00:00] speaking of this being like a panel,

[00:00:00] what we could do is just jump back into

[00:00:00] screen replacement and just duplicate

[00:00:00] this layer and change the blending mode

[00:00:00] to screen. And so now, if we jump back,

[00:00:00] you can see that uh that just kind of

[00:00:00] helps make it look like uh the screen is

[00:00:00] actually on. Now, we're going to adjust

[00:00:00] the lighting. So, what we'll do is we'll

[00:00:00] go to layer, choose new, and we're going

[00:00:00] to create a new light. Make sure that we

[00:00:00] have environment type. We'll leave

[00:00:00] intensity at 100 and cast shadows is

[00:00:00] enabled. Click okay. And so, here we

[00:00:00] have our light. Let's come over to our

[00:00:00] properties panel. Now, I do have this

[00:00:00] beach final EXR is already here in my

[00:00:00] scene. Again, this is what it looks

[00:00:00] like. Got the EXR. Let's just drag it

[00:00:00] towards the bottom. Go back to the light

[00:00:00] and in the properties panel for source,

[00:00:00] select beach final EXR. And so now we're

[00:00:00] starting to get some light here. We

[00:00:00] don't see our shadows really though. And

[00:00:00] so here's where we need to set that

[00:00:00] casting box size. Now in this case, we

[00:00:00] actually have this background. So what

[00:00:00] I'd like to do in this case is just make

[00:00:00] sure that the elements that I want to

[00:00:00] cast shadows, I want those to be visible

[00:00:00] before I set the casting box size. So,

[00:00:00] what I'll do is just come over here to

[00:00:00] phone. Let's solo this. And we'll solo

[00:00:00] the hard case. Let's come to advanced

[00:00:00] settings,

[00:00:00] render options,

[00:00:00] and I'm going to fit the casting box to

[00:00:00] scene. So, now it's just encompassing

[00:00:00] our 3D objects. We'll click okay. And

[00:00:00] then turn off here that solo. And now we

[00:00:00] can start to play around with the light

[00:00:00] rotation. Actually, before we do that,

[00:00:00] we need to set up our shadow cer so that

[00:00:00] we're casting shadows on this background

[00:00:00] video plate. So, just as we did

[00:00:00] previously, we're going to go to layer,

[00:00:00] new solid, and we'll just call this uh

[00:00:00] shadow catcher,

[00:00:00] and the color doesn't really matter, but

[00:00:00] I like to just kind of keep it this kind

[00:00:00] of default mid-graay. Uh comp size is

[00:00:00] fine. We'll click okay. And as you

[00:00:00] recall, we're going to turn this into a

[00:00:00] 3D layer. And just for organizational

[00:00:00] sake, I'm just going to drag this down

[00:00:00] so it's kind of below the phone. Uh,

[00:00:00] it's fine in this case. Again, it's all

[00:00:00] part of the 3D bin. Now, what I'm going

[00:00:00] to do is take this shadow catcher

[00:00:00] because I do need it to be tracked with

[00:00:00] our track null or I need it to be

[00:00:00] aligned with that. So, we're going to

[00:00:00] use our pick whip to parent to the track

[00:00:00] null. Hit the P key on the keyboard to

[00:00:00] go to position. Let's clear this out. 0

[00:00:00] 0 0

[00:00:00] on the XYZ.

[00:00:00] And then I'll grab my Xaxis handle and

[00:00:00] I'll hold down shift and I'm just going

[00:00:00] to snap rotate this to 90 degrees. There

[00:00:00] we go. And so now you can start to see

[00:00:00] that I do have my shadows casting. The

[00:00:00] plane is really small, but no problem.

[00:00:00] Now that we have it in our scene, we can

[00:00:00] just click these little handles here to

[00:00:00] scale this up. And so I just want this

[00:00:00] to kind of encompass the area that I'm

[00:00:00] going to be working with here. And just

[00:00:00] as we did previously, we are going to go

[00:00:00] to our material options. So we'll go to

[00:00:00] material options and we are going to

[00:00:00] tell accept shadows to only. And so now

[00:00:00] we have our shadow cast in the scene.

[00:00:00] Now, since we actually do have a

[00:00:00] background plate, what we can do is use

[00:00:00] the color sample, and let's just try to

[00:00:00] sample a value, like a shadow, a dark

[00:00:00] shadow value here in the actual back

[00:00:00] plate. So, I'm going to choose maybe

[00:00:00] something like this. And you can see

[00:00:00] where that, you know, adjusts the

[00:00:00] overall kind of value of our shadow. And

[00:00:00] that looks pretty good for now. Okay.

[00:00:00] So, we have that in place. We can keep

[00:00:00] tweaking with that. But just for now, I

[00:00:00] just needed to have some type of shadow

[00:00:00] so that I could kind of ground this

[00:00:00] phone or this this 3D object here into

[00:00:00] my scene. Again, it's really large. It's

[00:00:00] not really in perspective, but it's, you

[00:00:00] know, it's kind of part of this little

[00:00:00] fake ad that I'm putting together. Now,

[00:00:00] we can look at setting up the correct

[00:00:00] light direction. And to do that, I've

[00:00:00] added another 3D object here, this

[00:00:00] chrome sphere. So, let's just enable

[00:00:00] that here in my scene. And I'm going to

[00:00:00] uh well, I'll leave the phone on so we

[00:00:00] can see the shadows. So, this chrome

[00:00:00] sphere is metallic, completely

[00:00:00] reflective. And what this is doing is

[00:00:00] it's allowing me to see this that HDR

[00:00:00] background image. And I can see how my

[00:00:00] environment is, you know, being

[00:00:00] reflected here in this sphere. And I can

[00:00:00] actually see the directional or the sun

[00:00:00] itself, which is really cool. So, if I

[00:00:00] go to my environment light, what I'll do

[00:00:00] is start looking for like cues in the

[00:00:00] background plate. So you'll look through

[00:00:00] and just see like if I can tell where

[00:00:00] shadows are being casted, you know, like

[00:00:00] how long they are, that kind of stuff.

[00:00:00] And then I can also just come over here

[00:00:00] to my rotation. And as I start to change

[00:00:00] the rotation, you'll see not only do the

[00:00:00] shadows move, but I could see how the

[00:00:00] sun position is being is is in relation

[00:00:00] to the scene because of my chrome

[00:00:00] sphere. And this really helps in setting

[00:00:00] up a very accurate direction for the

[00:00:00] lighting here. So again, just looking at

[00:00:00] some visual cues to see what I can come

[00:00:00] up with. We'll do something like that. I

[00:00:00] could even play around with the X

[00:00:00] rotation as well

[00:00:00] if I wanted to kind of, you know, make

[00:00:00] these shadows not as long. So maybe I'll

[00:00:00] just kind of play with this too. Maybe

[00:00:00] something a little bit more like let's

[00:00:00] say like this.

[00:00:00] And yeah, there we go. Looks pretty

[00:00:00] good. Okay, so now that this is in

[00:00:00] place, I can just take the visibility

[00:00:00] option for this chrome layer. I'll just

[00:00:00] turn that off. And now I have the the

[00:00:00] phone and my shadow light direction is

[00:00:00] set up.

[00:00:00] So here's the scene with everything

[00:00:00] tracked. I'm in draft 3D mode and we now

[00:00:00] just want to work with the animation on

[00:00:00] the phone cover. So what we'll do is

[00:00:00] come over here to the hardcase animated

[00:00:00] layer and let's take a look at those

[00:00:00] animation options and we're going to set

[00:00:00] that to enable that animation track. And

[00:00:00] so now, just as we covered earlier, we

[00:00:00] are going to go to layer and we're going

[00:00:00] to go to time and enable time remapping.

[00:00:00] Now, what I'd like to do is have it to

[00:00:00] where it starts with the cover closed.

[00:00:00] And so I can see that's right at 1

[00:00:00] second. So we'll go back to our first

[00:00:00] key frame here, and I'll just type in

[00:00:00] 30. And that is going to close the

[00:00:00] cover. So now, as we scrub through the

[00:00:00] timeline, you can see that as the camera

[00:00:00] moves, the case opens. And now we just

[00:00:00] need to take the layer and just extend

[00:00:00] it here towards the end. So scrubbing a

[00:00:00] little further. I'd like to have it to

[00:00:00] where then the case folds back to close.

[00:00:00] So let's create another little hold key

[00:00:00] frame here. And then we'll scroll back

[00:00:00] towards the end. And what we'll do is

[00:00:00] set this back to 30. So that'll close.

[00:00:00] So now let's take a look at this

[00:00:00] animation. So we'll go through. You can

[00:00:00] see that the case opens, flips around,

[00:00:00] and then it closes