Main Concepts:

These are the features and concepts we will be focusing on in this project:

• Auto-Orient Camera along Path

• Expressing the Light Position

• Auto-Orient Light along Path

• Multiple view windows

• Pixel Aspect Ratio correction

• Auto-Orient layers toward Camera

• Creating a 3D layer

• Adding camera roll

• Depth of Field & Focus Distance

• Field rendering

• Adding Output Modules

• Rendering a separate fill and matte

• Rendering with straight alpha

Requirements:

After Effects 5.0 or later standard version.

(Rendering techniques in Part 4 are applicable to all versions.)

Getting Started:

Inside the Tutorials master folder on the accompanying CD, locate and copy the folder 09_Planets to your hard drive.

In the folder Final Movie inside this main folder, double-click on and play Planets.mov.

Inside the Project folder you ll find the finished After Effects project file Planets_5.aep. Open the project file this is your starting point; we suggest you save under a new name after each major section.

Overview

This tutorial serves two purposes: to teach some additional tricks that help manage layers in 3D space, and to prepare elements that will be used in the next tutorial. You will animate a 3D camera through a number of objects flat art of fanciful planets arranged at varying distances in Z space. The camera and light will both auto-orient along the path they re traveling, and the flat objects will auto-orient toward the camera as it flies past to help maintain...