Figure 7 shows a spot light and a point light. Having worked in 3DS Max, Lightwave 3D, Maya, Cinema 4D, and the open source free 3D package Blender, I’ve used a lot of different kinds of 3D lights and 3D cameras.
The 3D lighting controls and 3D camera controls in earlier versions of After Effects were counter-intuitive to those familiar with true 3D packages. In CS4 this situation has been significantly improved, making it much easier for an animator to move back and forth between 3D packages and After Effects.
When manipulating the spotlight in CS4, you can grab the target point and move it in 3D space, and the light follows – or you can move the light itself and the target moves. As you can see in Figure 7, the light works realistically to illuminate the car model.
What’s missing from the lighting? Visual falloff guides. It would help to have a second ring showing the “light cone” and it’s falloff extent.
AE CS4 introduces a new “Universal Camera” and a Unified Camera tool. When a Photoshop 3D layer is imported, AE creates a new Universal Camera in the comp that matches the position and orientation of the Photoshop 3D camera, however any camera animation information is not carried forward. The Unified Camera tool works with a 3 button mouse and operates like industry standard 3D packages. Perhaps the biggest change in the new camera is that X, Y, and Z parameters can be animated independently, just as they are in most 3D packages. This makes it easier to create more sophisticated camera moves, because you can animate the camera in one axis at a time without accidentally placing a keyframe in one of the other axes, spoiling the animation.
The biggest change in the After Effects' user interface is the addition of two small text search boxes at the top of the Project panel and the Timeline panel.
When I first heard about this feature I could not imagine using it. Why in the world would I want to type in the name of an effect I've applied, when I can so easily slip the mouse down the cascading menus and find the effect I want?
After playing with text search for a few minutes, it completely transformed the way I use After Effects. It’s so much easier.
Project Panel Text Search
Figure 9 shows the text search in the Project Panel. In this case I am looking for some assets for a comp. (And yes, we skipped Figure 8. Good job at paying attention!) I remember that it has a “19” in it. And sure enough, AE drills down into a folder inside the project and brings up a list of photo files. I know that I want the one with a ‘3’ in it. I just skip a space and type the number 3, and immediately, only that item remains in the list. It was faster for me to type the extra keys than to mouse over the list.
