Animated Environmental Lights—Available Now in After Effects Beta

[Brian-Maffitt]

Hi beta users! 

Version 25.2.0.098 of After Effects Beta introduces support for Animated Environment Lights. 

 
Illuminate your Advanced 3D compositions by choosing a composition, video or image layer as an Environment light source.  

Getting Started 

Previously, Environment lights were limited to HDR and EXR still-image files as sources. Now, you can use any 2D layer to light your 3D scene.  
 

Environment Lights turn their source into a sphere to light the scene from all angles, so they will treat the selected layer or composition as if it is equirectangular – a 2:1 360-degree projection where the pixels at the top and bottom are stretched. Thus, using equirectangular video (e.g. footage from an Insta360 video camera or equivalent) will provide great results. However, for many scenes, using a flat video source will still provide convincing results that are “good enough”. 

A frame grab from an equirectangular video, in this case taken from the roof of a car as it drives beneath a bridge

The same source used as a light source, background and reflection map on our Terminator-dinosaur "T - 1 Million BC”Environment lights will respect the overbrights and darks that can exist in HDR footage. NOTE: While HDR and EXR still images will take advantage of expanded dynamic range even in an 8-bit comp, to use expanded range with imported video clips or comps you’ll currently need to work in a 32-bit project. 

Environment lights will also provide accurate reflections on objects with reflective materials. For sharper reflections, use high-resolution footage for your Environment Light source. 

A reflective sphere with a high-resolution HDR Environment Light. The lighting, the shadows and reflection are all provided by the single HDR image. 
Many bundled effects, such as those found in the Immersive Video category as well as the CC Environment effect, are very useful to help you create and interact with suitable animated environments. Effects like VR Color Gradients or VR Fractal Noise create seamless results when the layer is selected as an Environment light source. 

This image uses an imported 3D model of a car along with an HDR 360-degree Video, and a shadow-catcher beneath the car. The video is lighting the car, reflecting in the surface of the car, casting a shadow beneath the car, and is supplying the background via the CC Environment plugin applied to a solid layer.

Tips for Testing

• If you are using a precomp as a source, remember that details near the top and bottom of the comp will be “squeezed” by the projection and may have less effect than elements in the center of the scene. Keep this in mind when designing your custom maps. 
  

  A simple reflection map

  The previous reflection map applied to a sphere. Note how pinched the top line of text appears, while the text in the center remains legible (albeit backwards... it’s a reflection!)

   
• If you are working in a 32-bit project, you can boost the brightness (and darkness) of elements past the visible range, to amplify the lighting effect on the scene. You can also adjust the Environment light’s intensity directly. 

• Environment lights will respect effects that are applied in the light source layer in the local comp. For example, if your source is black and white but you want your light to appear red, you can apply a color correction effect to the source layer and modify the effect accordingly.  

  
We’d love to see and hear your experiences with a variety of media sources for Environment Lights! 

Known Issues and Feature Limitations 

• If a layer is a 3D object, a light, a camera, a 3D null, or a normal layer with the 3D switch applied, you cannot choose it as a source for an Environment light. 

• We have discovered some effects (for example Checkerboard) that are not showing up properly in a reflection map when applied over transparency (adding a solid black background resolved this particular issue). Please report any other effects that are not behaving themselves when used as Environment Lights.  
   

Please give this new functionality a try and let us know how it’s working for you. 

[Shebbe]

This is a great little step forward.

- I found a quirk in using effects on the environment map layer. Applying exposure or other effects like VR Rotate Sphere doesn't affect the rendering of the 3d objects in the scene. It does not reflect these changes to a solid rendering the 3d scene to 2d with CC Composite either. Referencing an environment map via a Composition instead does reflect these changes in the 3d scene but still not on the copy made by the 2d solid. Note: I mean effects applied directly on the layer, not inside the composition.

The expected/ideal working would be that it always reads with effects for both 3d and 2d with any reference (exr, hdr, comp, other media) or it doesn't, but add a user option to do so just like we have with generic referencing of layers to include effects / masks.

- In general the Advanced 3D workflow feels really awkward imo. I get the desire to make things 'simple' in 8/16bit int display referred context, but we really need an option to disable the 3d renderer's internal tone mapper for 32bit (linear) workflows. Doing it in hybrid context is super messy. Especially using the renderer in conjunction with OCIO is far from ideal. If Premiere's improved color management is going to make it to After Effects you inevitably stumble upon the same problem.