Creative tools
3D layers, models, cameras and lights
Turn layers 3D to place them in depth, make text and shapes solid, add 3D models and primitive shapes, look at them through a camera you can move, aim, focus and animate, light them with shadows and HDR images, finish them with tone mapping, bloom and ambient occlusion, and rig cameras and layers on 3D nulls.
3D layers
Any visual layer, compound clip or null can be 3D. Select it and turn on 3D layer in the Layer section of the inspector. Its 3D transform section then adds Z position (positive moves it away from you), X rotation and Y rotation, Orientation X/Y/Z and Anchor Z (how far behind the layer it turns about). Each has a keyframe diamond, and a position path that moves in depth curves through 3D.
- Without a camera, 3D layers are seen by the default view: a 50 mm lens one zoom in front of the canvas, so a layer at Z 0 keeps its size.
- Neighbouring 3D layers in the stack sort by depth, nearest in front, and layers that pass through each other are cut where they meet.
- A 2D layer between them, or a layer that mixes with what is beneath it (an adjustment layer, a blend mode, a track matte), draws at its place in the stack and splits the 3D layers into groups that sort on their own. Keep titles that must stay flat above your 3D layers.
- Effects, layer styles and puppet pins apply on the layer itself, before it turns in depth. A group with Draw as one turns in depth as one picture.
- Mask points, puppet pins and text paths are edited on a 3D layer as on a flat one: they land where you click on its surface, however it is turned.
- Orientation keys turn the shortest way between keyframes.
3D models
Bring in glTF models: a .glb file, or a .gltf picked together with its .bin and texture files (they are packed into one model file in your project). Click Add › 3D object in the timeline toolbar and choose Model…, or import the file into Assets and drag it onto the timeline. Draco and meshopt compressed models and Basis Universal (KTX2) textures are supported.
- A new model lands on a new top track at the playhead, centred, with its taller side half the frame's height. Its width, height and depth are its box in pixels, and it turns about its pivot: the box centre, its bottom or the model's own origin.
- Until a light shines in the scene, models are lit by a soft studio light, so they look right from the start. Once lights shine, models take them like any 3D layer: their Material Options decide whether a model casts and accepts shadows, or shows only the shadows on it.
- A model with an animation plays it like a video plays: choose the Animation and whether it Loops, plays Once and holds its last pose, or goes Ping-pong. Trim, split, speed, reverse and time remap work as they do on a video.
- Each material can take a colourway: a Base colour, Metalness, Roughness and Glow, each with its own keyframes. Screen shows a compound clip on the material, for a phone or laptop screen.
- Morph targets (shapes a model can blend into) are listed with their weights. Key a weight to take over from the animation.
- Files that are too large (over 128 MB, 4 million triangles or 8,192-pixel textures), that need an extension the editor does not read, or that point at files on the web are refused with the reason.
Primitive shapes
Click Add › 3D object in the timeline toolbar and choose a shape: Box, Sphere, Plane, Cylinder, Torus or Cone. It lands on a new top track at the playhead, a third of the frame's height, and is lit like a model.
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Shape | Change the shape at any time. A box takes a Corner radius; round shapes take Segments (how smooth they are); a cylinder takes a Top radius (0 makes a cone) and a torus its Tube thickness. |
| Colour / Metalness / Roughness | The surface, as a real material: metal reflects its surroundings in its own colour, and rough surfaces spread their highlights. Each can be keyframed. |
| Glow / Glow colour | Light the shape gives off itself, unaffected by the lights. |
| Image | Wraps an image from Assets around the shape, in its own colours. |
| Both sides | Draws the inside too, for a plane seen from behind. |
Solid text and shapes
A 3D text or shape layer can be made solid, as Cinema 4D's renderer extrudes it in After Effects. Select it and turn on Extrude in its Geometry section. The face stays where the flat layer was and the solid runs back from it.
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Extrusion depth | How deep the solid is, in pixels. Keyframe it to grow the layer out of the frame. |
| Bevel style / Bevel depth | Angular, Convex (rounded out) or Concave (rounded in) edges, and how far they reach. A bevel is held to half the depth and to the thinnest part of the outline. |
| Hole bevel depth | How much of the bevel the holes of letters like o and A take, in percent. |
| Bevel segments | How smooth a rounded bevel is. |
| Side, bevel and back colour | Each face's colour; the front is the layer's own fill. Each can be keyframed. |
| Per-character 3D | Text only: each letter becomes its own 3D object, so text animators move and turn letters in the scene's depth, seen by the camera and lit by the lights. Animators on solid text can also change the Front, Bevel and Side colours. |
- A shape extrudes its filled outline with its holes, filled exactly as it is drawn flat. Its stroke extrudes too, as a band in the stroke's colour beside the fill, so a line drawing with no fill becomes solid lines. An imported SVG is made of shape layers, so extrude each of them.
- Turn the layer or move the camera to see its depth: seen straight on, a solid looks flat.
- A text with more than 2,000 letters, a character its font has no outline for (an emoji), an outline too complex to build, or a dashed, trimmed or tapered stroke stays flat, and the Geometry section says why. The text's background plate stays flat.
- A large outline can take a moment to build. The preview shows the layer flat (or at its last depth and bevel while you change them) until it is ready; an export always waits for it.
Add a camera
- Click Add › 3D object in the timeline toolbar and choose a lens, from 15 mm (wide) to 200 mm (long).
- The camera lands on a new top track, as long as your timeline, and selected. It starts where the default view stands, so nothing on screen changes until you move it.
- Move it with Position X/Y in the Camera section and Z position in its 3D transform, and aim it with Point of interest X/Y/Z.
The topmost camera in its time range sees the frame. To cut between cameras, put them on different tracks and trim them, as you would cut between clips. The Camera section says whether the selected camera sees the frame at the playhead.
Camera settings
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Type | Two-node aims at its point of interest; One-node points the way its orientation and rotations turn it. |
| Preset / Zoom | A lens from 15 to 200 mm on a 36 mm film. Zoom is the distance, in pixels, at which a layer shows at its own size; it can be keyframed for a zoom or a push. |
| Angle of view / Focal length | The same lens read another way; changing either sets the zoom. |
| Film size / Measure film | The film the focal length is measured on (36 mm by default), horizontally, vertically or diagonally. |
| Auto-orient | Towards point of interest (the two-node default), Along path to face where it is moving, or Off. |
| Position / Point of interest | Where the camera stands and what it looks at, in pixels from the canvas center, with Z for depth. Each can be keyframed. |
Depth of field
Turn on Depth of field in a camera's Depth of field section to blur what lies in front of or behind the plane in focus, as a real lens does. Layers in front of the focus blur over what lies behind them, and out-of-focus highlights take the shape of the iris.
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Lock focus to zoom | On by default: the plane in focus follows the zoom, so a layer at its own size stays sharp. Turn it off to set Focus distance, in pixels in front of the camera. |
| Focus on layer | Pick a 3D layer to put it in focus at the playhead: the focus distance becomes its depth from the camera. |
| Aperture / F-stop | How wide the lens opens, in pixels, and the same read as an f-stop: the zoom divided by the aperture, both in pixels, as After Effects reads it. It is not a photographic f-number (f/2.8 on a 50 mm lens opens about 950 pixels and blurs everything). A lower f-stop blurs more. |
| Blur level | Scales every blur; 100% is the lens as set. |
| Iris shape / Rotation / Roundness / Aspect ratio / Diffraction fringe | The shape of out-of-focus highlights: a fast rectangle (the default), a triangle to a decagon, or round; turned, rounded, stretched, and brighter at the rim with a fringe. |
| Highlight gain / Threshold / Saturation | Brightens highlights above the threshold as they blur, so out-of-focus lights stay bright, keeping as much of their color as the saturation says. |
Add lights
- Click Add › 3D object in the timeline toolbar and choose Spot, Point, Directional, Ambient or Environment under Light.
- The light lands on a new top track, as long as your timeline, and selected. It starts above, to the left of and in front of the canvas, and a spot or directional light aims at its center.
- From now on every 3D layer in that timeline is lit by the timeline's lights. 2D layers are never lit.
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Type | Spot shines a cone, Point shines every way from one place, Directional shines from very far away in one direction, as the sun does, Ambient lights everything evenly with no direction or shadows, and Environment lights the scene from all around with an image (see below). |
| Color / Intensity | The light's color and strength in percent. Intensity can go above 100 or below 0; a negative light takes light away. |
| Cone angle / Cone feather | For a spot light, how wide its cone is and how softly its edge fades. |
| Falloff / Radius / Falloff distance | For spot and point lights. None keeps the light even at every distance. Smooth fades it from the radius to zero over the falloff distance. Inverse square fades it with the square of the distance beyond the radius, as real light does. |
| Casts shadows / Shadow darkness / Shadow diffusion | Spot, point and directional lights can cast shadows. Darkness sets how dark they are; diffusion, in pixels, how soft their edges are. |
| Only layers below | Lights only the layers on tracks below the light, as an adjustment layer does. |
| Position / Point of interest / Auto-orient | Where the light stands and what it shines at, as for a camera. Every number and the color can be keyframed. |
Material options
While a timeline has a light, each 3D layer's inspector shows Material options, which set how it takes the light. Every number can be keyframed.
| Option | Notes |
|---|---|
| Casts shadows | On throws the layer's shadow onto layers that accept shadows. Only throws its shadow while the layer itself stays hidden. Off by default. |
| Light transmission | How much light passes through the layer: above 0 its shadow takes the layer's colors, like light through stained glass. |
| Accepts shadows | On by default. Only hides the layer and keeps just the shadows that fall on it, so you can lay a shadow onto the footage beneath. |
| Accepts lights | Off shows the layer in its own colors, unlit. |
| Ambient / Diffuse | How much the layer takes from ambient lights, and from lights that shine on its face. |
| Specular intensity / Shininess / Metal | The highlight a light leaves on the layer, how tight that highlight is, and how much of the layer's own color it takes. |
Shadow quality and softness are set for each timeline in the Canvas panel's 3D section, with its other render settings (see Finishing below); the shadow settings show while it has a light. The main timeline's are the project's. A sequence keeps its own once you change them there; a composition without its own uses the project's, so it looks the same nested or on its own. Shadow quality (Low, Medium or High) sets how sharp shadows are, and Shadow filter chooses Percentage-closer (the default) or Variance, which is smoother on wide soft shadows but can lighten the inside of thin casters.
Environment light
An Environment light surrounds the scene with an image: models and primitives reflect it, and flat and solid layers take its soft light. Its Environment section chooses the image and whether it shows.
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Image | Studio (soft boxes, the default), Daylight or Sunset, or an HDR image you imported: a .hdr or .exr file, made for 360° lighting (equirectangular), up to 8,192 pixels wide. |
| Background | Hidden, Visible behind the scene, or Blurred by the Blur amount. |
| Intensity / Orientation | How bright it is, and which way the image faces: turn the light to move its highlights. |
- With more than one environment light, a model or primitive reflects the topmost one that reaches it, while flat and solid layers take the soft light of every one.
- An environment light casts no shadows; add a spot or directional light for them.
- EXR files may be uncompressed or compressed with RLE, ZIP or ZIPS. Other EXR compressions, tiled, deep and multi-part files are refused with the reason: save them again with ZIP compression.
Finishing
The Canvas panel's 3D section, shown while the timeline has a 3D layer, sets how its 3D layers are finished. It is kept for each timeline as the shadow settings are.
| Setting | Notes |
|---|---|
| Tone mapping | None (the default) keeps layers their exact colors. ACES, AgX and Neutral map bright light to the screen gently, for lit scenes and HDR environment lights. |
| Exposure | Brightens or darkens the 3D layers, in stops. |
| Bloom | Light brighter than the threshold glows around itself, added above the 3D layers. Intensity sets how strong, radius how far it spreads. |
| Ambient occlusion | Creases and the places where 3D layers meet darken, as they do in soft light. Radius sets how far it reaches. |
| Antialiasing | Smooths the edges of 3D layers (on by default). |
| Default lighting | The soft studio light models take while no light shines; None leaves them unlit. |
Turn on Motion blur for a 3D layer and it blurs as it moves, turns and changes (animated letters, a model's animation), and as the camera moves, using the project's shutter.
3D nulls and parenting
A null with 3D layer on is a 3D null. Parent 3D layers or a camera to it to move them together in depth: the layers keep their place when you parent them, then follow every move and turn of the null. A 2D layer parented to a 3D layer follows only its flat movement.
- Select a camera and click Add orbit null in its Camera section, or Orbit null under Add › 3D object.
- A 3D null appears at the camera's point of interest with the camera parented to it, and the picture does not move.
- Keyframe the null's Y rotation to circle the subject, or its X rotation to rise over it.
3D views and tools
While a timeline has 3D layers, the preview shows a 3D toolbar. Its view menu picks Active camera (what you export), Top, Front, Left or Custom view. The other views show the scene from outside the camera, as plain drafts without depth of field, bloom, ambient occlusion or motion blur, and without your 2D layers. They draw a floor grid, the frame, cameras and their view, lights, points of interest and model bounds, and never appear in exports.
- Click a 3D layer, camera or light to select it. Move, Rotate and Scale choose the handles drawn on it: drag an arrow to move along that axis, a square to move in a plane and the centre to slide across the screen; drag a ring to turn about its axis, and the outer ring to turn about the view. Hold Shift to move in steps of 10 pixels, turn in steps of 15° and scale in steps of 10%.
- Axes and rotation chooses local or world axes, and whether turning writes Rotation or Orientation. Each drag is one undoable step, and keys the properties it changes where they are keyframed or auto-key is on.
- Orbit, Pan and Dolly drag the view. In the Active camera view they move the camera itself, one undoable step per drag; add a camera first if there is none. Frame selected, in the view menu, fits the view to the selection; in the Active camera view it moves the camera.
- In the other views, drag with the middle button to pan, hold Alt (Option on a Mac) and drag to orbit, and scroll to zoom.
- A selected layer's position path is drawn in depth in every view, and its keys and handles can be dragged.
Check the frame
With Layout warnings on (in the timeline toolbar's View menu), 3D layers are measured as the camera sees them, and a layer behind the camera, or cut because the camera is too close, is flagged.
Ask your agent
Your agent can import a model, place it, choose its animation and recolour its materials, add primitive shapes, make text and shapes solid, add and set cameras (with depth of field, focused on a chosen layer) and lights (environment lights with HDR images too), set a layer's material options and a timeline's shadows and finishing, frame chosen layers with a camera from the front, above, the side or any direction, and rig a camera on an orbit null, each as one undoable step. It can also build a lit scene with models, primitives and solid titles, turn a model on a turntable, and fly, orbit, rack focus or dolly-zoom a camera with a script.