Auto Orient
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So how can we solve this problem? How can we get the planet to always face the camera to give the illusion that there is depth to the layer instead of a flat plane?
One solution might be to animate the rotation property of the planet layer to correspond to the angle of the camera, but this becomes rather tedious, especially if the camera is moving around a lot. A creative person might be able to write an expression (lookAt(position, thisComp.layer(1).position) ) that would cause a layer to always point toward another layer in the Timeline, but that is overkill for this exercise. [an error occurred while processing this directive]The best (and easiest solution) is to use Auto-Orient. To apply Auto -Orient to a 3D layer, simply select the layer in the Timeline and from the Layer Menu, choose Transform>Auto-Orient.
There are a couple of different ways you can use Auto-Orient:
The first is to Orient Along Path. While this is not used in this exercise, it is very handy when you are trying to get a layer to follow a path without having to create a great many rotation and position keyframes.
For example, if you created a rectangular solid in After Effects and animated it from the upper left corner to the upper right corner, and then to the lower right corner of the Composition, you would have to animate the Rotation Property for the layer to keep it from sliding sideways as it rounds the corner.
To make it worse, if you then adjusted the Position keyframes of the layer, you would then have to go and readjust the Rotation keyframes to match.
By applying Auto-Orient Along Path, the solid layer will follow the path and rotate when necessary.
If you applied Orient Along Path to a Camera or Light layer, you could easily (and quickly) create a moving POV shot.
Another choice with Auto-Orient is one that can be applied to a Camera or Light layer and is especially useful if you want to always look at a particular point in your composition. By default, Orient Towards Point of Interest is selected when you add a Camera or Light layer. With this option turned on, you can animate the Position property of the layer and the Camera or Light layer will always point toward the Point of Interest. You can think of Point of Interest as the Anchor Point for the layer – in fact POI can be accessed for a Camera or Light by using the same keyboard shortcut that you would to access the Anchor Point for any regular layer (A).
Personally, I like using Orient Towards Point of Interest to quickly position Lights in After Effects because it makes moving the items around so easy.
Finally, you can orient 3D layers Towards Camera so the layer is always pointing at the camera in the scene. And this is the key to creating a 3D looking ball from a 2D layer.
When Orient Towards Camera is applied to our tiny Jupiter layer and make a RAM Preview the composition instantly has more depth and is more believable.
Unfortunately, this effect really works best with spherical shapes, but is key for our particle effect we are building. By taking a small white solid, applying an Oval Mask, Feathering the mask and turning on Orient Toward Camera, we create a point of light that the camera can orbit and give the illusion that it is a sphere.
In the next installment of this exercise, I’ll show you how to use a freebie in After Effects 6.0 to distribute a thousand points of light in 3D space (okay, actually it will only be around 100, but you get the idea). And, if you are good, I’ll show you how I created the virtual set for the background of this exercise.
When not working deep in the labs of the DMN Central Division testing the latest and greatest software/hardware products Stephen Schleicher can be found at the local university teaching a few courses on video and web production. He can be reached at schleicher@mindspring.com. You can also visit him on the web at www.mindspring.com/~schleicher
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