If you’re looking to improve your Adobe After Effects workflow, you’ll eventually need to start dealing with the Z-axis, allowing you to manipulate an object’s 3D depth.
This opens up a range of new visuals and styles for you to work with, but also creates its own sets of limitations and considerations.
In this article, we will cover how to enable and work with 3D layers, as well as how to add and animate 3D cameras to create dynamic movements. A scenario in which we animate and move text in a 3D space will also be examined.
Let’s jump in!
How to Enable and Animate 3D Layers
Within your composition, you can toggle your layers in your timeline to enable them as 3D.
This is a very straightforward process. Simply find the Cube icon for your layers in your timeline, and click the box underneath it to enable 3D for that layer.
Once this has been done, you likely won’t see any immediate changes. However, if you navigate to your position, scale, and rotation parameters in your layer, you’ll see that a third set of adjustable numbers has appeared.
These new numbers now dictate your rotation, position, and scale on the Z-axis in the 3D space. Just as with your other parameters, they can be keyframes to allow for animation and manipulation.
As an example, let’s create a composition and a text layer with some words.
Once that’s done, enable the 3D layer. Note that if you’re planning to use the Align tool to ensure your layer is perfectly centered, you’ll need to do this before enabling 3D. This is because the Align tool only works on 2D layers.
Now that our text layer is a 3D layer, we can move it in the 3D space along the Z-Axis. So, let’s have the text move “toward the screen.”
First, we’ll set our Z-Axis parameter. By default, it’s set to zero. Let’s set it to 200.
Now, we’ll navigate two seconds down our timeline, and set our Z-axis value to –200.
With this change, we should now see the text move “towards” the screen.
What Are 3D Cameras?
We have successfully animated an object in the 3D space in After Effects. But what if you have multiple objects, and want to create a sense of the viewer moving towards or away from them?
You could simply animate each individual element to move towards you, but that would be considerably time-intensive and not particularly efficient. This is where you would use a 3D camera.
If you use 3D software such as Cinema 4D or Blender, it’s likely that you’ve used 3D cameras before. If you’ve ever played a computer game, you’ve also experienced a 3D camera that moves your view around in a 3D world.
This all may seem complex at first, but 3D cameras function just like a real camera would. They give you a field of view that can be manipulated and moved in a 3D space.
Let’s work on an example.
Setting Up a 3D Camera
To get started, create several 3D text layers, and position them sequentially down the Z-Axis.
In this example, a gap of 3,000 pixels between each layer has been used. The first layer sits at zero, the next at 3,000, the next at 6,000, and so on.
Now, it’s time to create a 3D camera by clicking Layer > New > Camera, upon which you’ll see a window to adjust settings for your new camera layer. These come in two types: One Node and Two Node.
The One-Node camera is designed to operate and emulate a real-world camera as closely as possible, and the point of focus is designated manually by the movement of the camera.
A Two-Node camera is designed to follow a single point of interest, making it ideal for orbiting or following an object in motion.
In this scenario, the One-Node camera will be used. You will notice a number of additional settings in the window, such as Zoom, Angle of View, Enable Depth of Field, and Focal Length.
These are intended to mirror real-world camera settings. If you’re savvy with how these work, feel free to play around with them. If not, you can choose a series of presets in the top right corner.
We’re going to select the 35mm preset for now. Now that our camera layer is set up and in the scene, you won’t see much of a difference at first.
Using 3D Camera Navigation
There are two methods by which you can adjust and animate the view of the camera. The most accurate is by inputting different Position values in the Transform settings for the camera layer. You can then keyframe as you would when animating any other layer.
As you move the camera, you’ll notice that all the other 3D objects in your scene will move in relation to it. Note that the camera will not affect 2D layers.
So, let’s set our camera to move on the Z-axis from zero to 9,000 over a four-second interval, and keyframe our movement.
There you have it! If you’ve got it set up correctly, the words should push “towards” you, “through” the field of view, and “behind” the viewer.
Other Ways to Move the 3D Camera
If you’d rather be a bit more experimental, and less numbers-driven with your camera, there are other means to move, navigate and adjust. The Orbit, Pan, and Dolly tools at the top of the toolbar let you do this.
Using these, you can click and drag to move from side-to-side (Pan), rotate around (Orbit), and zoom in and out (Dolly). These controls are less accurate than inputting numbers, but they’re great for planning your rough camera movements and animations.
Practice Leads to Perfection
You should now be able to create and animate 3D layers along the Z-axis, and also work with 3D cameras to navigate with multiple 3D objects.
If you enjoy working in a 3D space, you may want to explore the more advanced possibilities that a more dedicated piece of 3D software, such as Blender, can offer.