Working in 3D Space

[00:00:00] if you've ever struggled with

[00:00:00] positioning 2D layers in

[00:00:00] three-dimensional space don't sweat it

[00:00:00] because this is the video for you in

[00:00:00] this video we're going to actually add a

[00:00:00] light into our 3D scene and I'll show

[00:00:00] you how to interact within the 3D

[00:00:00] environment so that we can actually cast

[00:00:00] shadows and take our Graphics from good

[00:00:00] to great so let's go now we're going to

[00:00:00] divide this up into two sections the

[00:00:00] first half we're going to focus on the

[00:00:00] tools what they are and how they

[00:00:00] function and then the second half we're

[00:00:00] going to apply what we've learned to

[00:00:00] actually create a finished project with

[00:00:00] 2D text moving in 3D space with lights

[00:00:00] and shadows so to start let's create a

[00:00:00] new blank composition I'll go up under

[00:00:00] composition and choose new composition

[00:00:00] and let's go ahead and name this I'm

[00:00:00] going to call this camera sample we can

[00:00:00] leave it 1920 1080 at

[00:00:00] 23.976 frames per second for a duration

[00:00:00] of 10 seconds go ahead and click

[00:00:00] okay and let's go up to our tools panel

[00:00:00] and grab the text tool and I just want

[00:00:00] to add the number one into the scene and

[00:00:00] I'll just grab my selection tool to set

[00:00:00] that type you can choose whatever type

[00:00:00] face you want mine is bbus new and I set

[00:00:00] it to a setting of 300 pixels for size

[00:00:00] and I'll just position it roughly in the

[00:00:00] center of my scene I don't need it to be

[00:00:00] exact now I want to enable 3D on this

[00:00:00] layer so it exists in 3D space I know

[00:00:00] right now if I look in the properties

[00:00:00] panel it only has position X and Y so

[00:00:00] when I enable this you'll

[00:00:00] see when I have the layer selected here

[00:00:00] now I have X Y and Z I also have x y and

[00:00:00] Z rotation so just to toggle it off

[00:00:00] toggle it on you can see there's a big

[00:00:00] difference all right now I'm going to go

[00:00:00] up under layer and add a new camera into

[00:00:00] the scene when you add cameras into the

[00:00:00] scene we're going to start from the top

[00:00:00] down we could choose a one node camera

[00:00:00] or a two- node

[00:00:00] camera the difference is whether or not

[00:00:00] you have a point of Interest so let me

[00:00:00] show you really quickly I'm going to

[00:00:00] choose a two node camera and I'll choose

[00:00:00] the preset 50 mm these presets are

[00:00:00] designed to mimic the typical focal

[00:00:00] viewing angle of DSLR cameras so 50 mm

[00:00:00] is most similar to the human eye so I'll

[00:00:00] go ahead and choose that and then down

[00:00:00] here under

[00:00:00] units a lot of times it's set to

[00:00:00] millimeters I like using mine to pixels

[00:00:00] so a lot of times it's set up that way

[00:00:00] and then I can click okay so we have a

[00:00:00] camera in the scene I know it's in 3D

[00:00:00] space I can see this little widget here

[00:00:00] in the corner I could turn on draft 3D

[00:00:00] draft 3D can speed up playback of your

[00:00:00] 3D scenes by eliminating things like

[00:00:00] shadows and other details but obviously

[00:00:00] this scene is pretty simple so we really

[00:00:00] don't need it what I do want to do is go

[00:00:00] over here to the left side of the

[00:00:00] composition panel and make it a little

[00:00:00] bit larger so that I can see all of

[00:00:00] these additional dropdowns so here I'll

[00:00:00] turn off draft 3D

[00:00:00] the first one here this is your renderer

[00:00:00] and we're just worried about 2D layers

[00:00:00] in 3D space so we'll use classic 3D if

[00:00:00] we were importing 3D models we would

[00:00:00] want to use the advanced 3D

[00:00:00] renderer I'm going to go ahead and leave

[00:00:00] it to Classic 3D and then if you click

[00:00:00] on this drop down you can see what view

[00:00:00] we're using so we have one camera in the

[00:00:00] scene we're using the active camera if

[00:00:00] you have multiple cameras in your

[00:00:00] timeline whatever camera is at the top

[00:00:00] of the layer stack is the one that

[00:00:00] you're going to be looking at now I

[00:00:00] could say camera one it's going to give

[00:00:00] me the exact same view because there's

[00:00:00] only one camera in the scene these are

[00:00:00] called orthogonal views so I can view uh

[00:00:00] from the left or I can view from the

[00:00:00] right or I can view from the top and

[00:00:00] notice I'm not really seeing what's

[00:00:00] going on if I select layer one here you

[00:00:00] can see there's my layer in 3D space uh

[00:00:00] but there's no depth to it so I can't

[00:00:00] see any of that um The View I like to

[00:00:00] use when I'm not viewing through the

[00:00:00] camera is custom view one this is kind

[00:00:00] of like viewing from the rafters of a

[00:00:00] stage so if you're doing lighting or

[00:00:00] something on the stage it be like you

[00:00:00] were up on one of the sides of the

[00:00:00] rafters looking down so if I click on

[00:00:00] camera

[00:00:00] one I know this is a two node camera

[00:00:00] because I have this thing here which is

[00:00:00] the point of interest if I click cck on

[00:00:00] that and move it around I am changing

[00:00:00] what the camera's actually looking at

[00:00:00] now how do I see what the camera's

[00:00:00] looking at while I'm moving this well I

[00:00:00] can come to this last drop down here and

[00:00:00] say you know what I want to do two

[00:00:00] views and on the right I want to view

[00:00:00] things from Custom view one and on the

[00:00:00] left I want to view from the active

[00:00:00] camera so now when I select my camera

[00:00:00] layer here I can see my my point of

[00:00:00] Interest as I move around I can see what

[00:00:00] that's actually doing to the scene as I

[00:00:00] move things around okay now notice I

[00:00:00] can't see the camera I can press the

[00:00:00] comic key to zoom out and here this will

[00:00:00] give me the 3D Gizmo so I can reposition

[00:00:00] the camera so here if I zoom in on the

[00:00:00] camera you can see I'm zooming in on the

[00:00:00] number one no problem at all now if I

[00:00:00] have the camera selected here in the

[00:00:00] timeline and I just go to my properties

[00:00:00] panel and I drag on the X

[00:00:00] notice as I drag on the X and if I hold

[00:00:00] down shift as I drag it'll it'll move 10

[00:00:00] times faster notice as I drag it is

[00:00:00] staying pointed at the point of Interest

[00:00:00] okay that is a two node camera now I'm

[00:00:00] going to go back up here and just

[00:00:00] doubleclick on this camera to open up

[00:00:00] the type and I'll change it to a one

[00:00:00] node camera now there is no point of

[00:00:00] interest and when I click okay if I move

[00:00:00] on the X a

[00:00:00] notice it's just staying perfectly

[00:00:00] parallel to the actual number itself

[00:00:00] okay this functions a little more like a

[00:00:00] traditional camera would if I were just

[00:00:00] moving this camera around um or let's

[00:00:00] say I wanted to rotate this camera I

[00:00:00] could hover on these little circles on

[00:00:00] these axis

[00:00:00] handles and I could rotate the camera up

[00:00:00] and down notice when I rotate this with

[00:00:00] no point of Interest it's just really

[00:00:00] changing the angle of view pretty easily

[00:00:00] and pretty quickly

[00:00:00] okay so I just wanted you to understand

[00:00:00] the fundamentals of a one- node camera

[00:00:00] and a two node camera and the fact that

[00:00:00] we have these additional dropdowns here

[00:00:00] so you can change how you're viewing

[00:00:00] things in the scene I showed you one

[00:00:00] View and two view you can even do four

[00:00:00] views and view it from many different

[00:00:00] angles if you like but uh I tend to use

[00:00:00] one view or two view when I am working

[00:00:00] in my system if I say one view it's

[00:00:00] going to go ahead and choose one View

[00:00:00] and notice in the upper left it's

[00:00:00] showing me what I'm actually using I can

[00:00:00] come up here and I could say yeah I just

[00:00:00] want to see the active camera and if I

[00:00:00] need to resize this panel I could use

[00:00:00] period and comma but I could also press

[00:00:00] shift in the forward slash key or the

[00:00:00] question mark key and that will

[00:00:00] automatically reframe and fit the view

[00:00:00] to to what it is that I'm actually

[00:00:00] looking at so that's it for cameras now

[00:00:00] let's jump back to our 2D layers in 3D

[00:00:00] space so we can look at this first off I

[00:00:00] have my 3D camera tracker notice I have

[00:00:00] position orientation XYZ rotation I do

[00:00:00] not have a point of Interest so if I

[00:00:00] double click on this layer you guessed

[00:00:00] it it's a one node camera all

[00:00:00] right now depth of field has been

[00:00:00] enabled on this camera so when I scrub

[00:00:00] you'll notice the type actually goes in

[00:00:00] and out of focus now I want to do

[00:00:00] multiple things here the first thing I

[00:00:00] want to do is add a shadow to this text

[00:00:00] notice when the runner is running I can

[00:00:00] see a shadow here but this text no

[00:00:00] Shadow so let's add a light to the

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

[00:00:00] choose new light now there are four

[00:00:00] different kinds of Lights I could choose

[00:00:00] from with the classic 3D renderer I want

[00:00:00] to choose a point light okay a point

[00:00:00] light is sort of like a light bulb in a

[00:00:00] lamp that doesn't have a lampshade on

[00:00:00] okay I could choose the

[00:00:00] falloff and cast

[00:00:00] Shadows so the falloff is how fast or

[00:00:00] how quickly the light will fall away I'm

[00:00:00] going to choose smooth and it has a

[00:00:00] radius of 500 pixels and then a fall off

[00:00:00] of 500 so if this light is 1,01 pixels

[00:00:00] away from something it's not going to

[00:00:00] affect that because the farthest this

[00:00:00] light could reach would be 1,000 pixels

[00:00:00] okay at radius 51 52 5003 the light

[00:00:00] starts getting more and more dim until

[00:00:00] it falls off at 1,000 pixels away I'm

[00:00:00] going to leave cast Shadows on and I do

[00:00:00] want Shadow Darkness at 100% so I can

[00:00:00] see what's happening and I want the

[00:00:00] Fusion at0 pixels I'm going to leave

[00:00:00] this setup as Point light one and I'll

[00:00:00] click okay now that's been added into

[00:00:00] the scene I have no idea where it is but

[00:00:00] I do want to position it right at my

[00:00:00] text so I'm going to use this neat

[00:00:00] shortcut that I love if you hold down

[00:00:00] the shift key and then go to the parent

[00:00:00] and Link column and click on the P Whip

[00:00:00] and point it at the word or the layer

[00:00:00] where you would like the light to go it

[00:00:00] will automatically move to that position

[00:00:00] if you hold down shift then when I let

[00:00:00] go of my

[00:00:00] mouse and then let go of shift you can

[00:00:00] see my light is at the Anchor Point of

[00:00:00] the word I'm going to hover over the

[00:00:00] z-axis handle here in order to

[00:00:00] reposition the light and that didn't

[00:00:00] work very well so I'll just undo that

[00:00:00] you know what I'll hover over the Y AIS

[00:00:00] and I'll move this light up in the scene

[00:00:00] and I might want to move it back so here

[00:00:00] on the POS position I do want to move it

[00:00:00] on the z-axis if I move it in front I'm

[00:00:00] actually going to illuminate the text if

[00:00:00] I move it behind it's going to cast

[00:00:00] shadows in the other direction and you

[00:00:00] know what I need to position this over

[00:00:00] towards the right now I know this is

[00:00:00] behind the

[00:00:00] text what I want to see happen is I

[00:00:00] don't want the light to actually

[00:00:00] illuminate this text at all or be

[00:00:00] responsible for Illuminating the text so

[00:00:00] if I select

[00:00:00] the textt layer and I press AA on my

[00:00:00] keyboards on my keyboard I can adjust

[00:00:00] the material options so here I don't

[00:00:00] want it I do not want it to accept

[00:00:00] lights so when I turn that off I get the

[00:00:00] white back okay but I do want it to cast

[00:00:00] Shadows so I need to turn that

[00:00:00] on even though I've turned this on I

[00:00:00] need a place for these Shadows to

[00:00:00] appear I added this track solid a very

[00:00:00] long time ago but when I turn on the

[00:00:00] track solid here and I select that layer

[00:00:00] and press a a under my material options

[00:00:00] it is accepting Shadows see how I see

[00:00:00] that I can see the Shadows here now I

[00:00:00] want it to accept the

[00:00:00] Shadows only not just the light I don't

[00:00:00] want to see the layer I only want to see

[00:00:00] the Shadows so if I click on that one

[00:00:00] more time it goes to only and so now I'm

[00:00:00] only seeing the shadows and of course

[00:00:00] the edges of the Shadow will get cut off

[00:00:00] based on the size of the solid so I can

[00:00:00] press s to open up my scale and I can

[00:00:00] just scale up this solid and now I have

[00:00:00] the Shadows going off in the

[00:00:00] distance

[00:00:00] now I'm seeing my Shadows now if I

[00:00:00] select my point light and I start moving

[00:00:00] it around like let's say I want to move

[00:00:00] it further back in the scene as I move

[00:00:00] it further back in the scene you can see

[00:00:00] I'm getting

[00:00:00] much closer to what the runner is

[00:00:00] projecting if I want the darkness to be

[00:00:00] a little lighter I can go ahead and

[00:00:00] bring the darkness down like

[00:00:00] so and now I can better match what we're

[00:00:00] actually seeing from the

[00:00:00] runner okay and of course I can adjust

[00:00:00] on the X or the adjust on the X to to

[00:00:00] have the angle be different but I kind

[00:00:00] of like how this is looking so now if I

[00:00:00] scrub through you can see I not only

[00:00:00] have text but I have a nice shadow on

[00:00:00] that

[00:00:00] text now as I scrub through you can see

[00:00:00] the shadow on the runner but I could

[00:00:00] adjust whether that Shadows on them much

[00:00:00] more easily then having to rotoscope

[00:00:00] them I could just reposition this on the

[00:00:00] x- axis so I'm going to scrub on the X

[00:00:00] so it's just a little bit off to the

[00:00:00] side like so and so now when we see the

[00:00:00] runner she's going to run right past

[00:00:00] and we're not going to have any issues

[00:00:00] there and we still have a pretty good

[00:00:00] strong Shadow on that word okay so now

[00:00:00] that we've added the lights in the

[00:00:00] shadow I want to have two more words

[00:00:00] added into the scene to do that I'm

[00:00:00] going to use this exact same setup and

[00:00:00] just reposition it in 3D space so what I

[00:00:00] need to do is use parenting so what I

[00:00:00] want to have happen I want the point

[00:00:00] light to

[00:00:00] follow the text layer and I want the

[00:00:00] shadow to follow the point light okay so

[00:00:00] this is already following the text layer

[00:00:00] and the shadow I want to follow the

[00:00:00] point

[00:00:00] light okay so now if I grab my text

[00:00:00] layer and anytime I move it the light

[00:00:00] and the shadow is going to move with

[00:00:00] this text layer so if I move it on the

[00:00:00] z-axis notice everything is moving all

[00:00:00] tied together exactly the way that I

[00:00:00] want

[00:00:00] okay now when you're repositioning

[00:00:00] layers in 3D space you have this thing

[00:00:00] here and these are the multiple views

[00:00:00] there is uh the local axis mode and then

[00:00:00] World axis mode and then this axis is

[00:00:00] based on where you are viewing the scene

[00:00:00] from so I going to duplicate these three

[00:00:00] layers by selecting them all I'm

[00:00:00] pressing command D or controll D

[00:00:00] depending on whether you're on Mac or

[00:00:00] Windows and I'll reposition these layers

[00:00:00] to the top of the layer stack and I want

[00:00:00] to make sure everything is following

[00:00:00] everything accordingly so notice the

[00:00:00] point light is following Layer Two and

[00:00:00] the track solid here is following the

[00:00:00] point light so now I know this is going

[00:00:00] to move exactly the way that I want and

[00:00:00] I want this to move further down the

[00:00:00] track say to something like this and so

[00:00:00] I'm going to look at that axis if I say

[00:00:00] World axis let's see what that does in

[00:00:00] changing

[00:00:00] this oh it's not that different if I do

[00:00:00] my view yeah you know what I'll just

[00:00:00] leave it set to its local position and

[00:00:00] I'll move it along the z-axis like this

[00:00:00] so now it's closer to where we want and

[00:00:00] then I'll just move it on the xaxis so

[00:00:00] it has to come back over here and this

[00:00:00] will be my next

[00:00:00] word so for this word I want it to say

[00:00:00] sweat okay and then we could repeat this

[00:00:00] process one more time I'll move down the

[00:00:00] timeline

[00:00:00] here and the last one I want it to be

[00:00:00] heart so I'll select all three duplicate

[00:00:00] move this to the top of the layer stack

[00:00:00] here making sure all my parenting works

[00:00:00] and I'll just call this heart

[00:00:00] okay and I did that in upper lower so I

[00:00:00] could say you know what I want it to be

[00:00:00] in all caps over here in the text

[00:00:00] options and with this once again I'll

[00:00:00] just hover over the Z axis I'll slide it

[00:00:00] out and then I'll slide it over I could

[00:00:00] slide it a little further down there we

[00:00:00] go heart

[00:00:00] okay and so now now I have that last one

[00:00:00] so if I really want to kind of

[00:00:00] accentuate this one thing that I could

[00:00:00] do is animate the opacity of the words

[00:00:00] as they go off in the distance so

[00:00:00] there's a little bit more pop between

[00:00:00] the words as they're overlapping each

[00:00:00] other but the most important thing that

[00:00:00] you get out of this specific tutorial is

[00:00:00] the understanding of how to position

[00:00:00] things in 3D space how to add lights uh

[00:00:00] what the different cameras are and how

[00:00:00] to add shadows and adjust your material

[00:00:00] options so you can get something that

[00:00:00] you really enjoy