3D Basic Rotate X Cascade - opacity question

[JJL777]

Using AE, latest version on Win10

"rotate X cascade opacity" yielded no forum results, sorry if repeat question.

I've got some 3D text and I've applied the 3D Basic Rotate X Cascade preset to it so the letters kind of flip up from the bottom.

As part of he animation, looks like the opacity fades in as the letters flip up. This is so they kind of "appear out of nowhere" smoothly.

It looks fine with 2D text, the problem is, with 3D text, it seems to be independently adjusting the opacity of each surface of the letter, so I can see through to the geometry on the opposite side.

I'd still like the letters to "fade in" but I don't want to be able to see the "inner workings" of them, if that makes sense.

I'd like "solid" "non x-ray vision" letters to fade in from 0 to 100 on opacity.

Here's a screen shot, you can see that, when partially transparent, you can look through and see the geometries.

[ScooterD76]

Pre-compose your 3D letter animation (without opacity change) then chop it up and fade each letter in a new comp

There may be another way, lol I am Captain Workaround when it comes to this type thing ...

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

Perfectly normal behavior because the extruded layer is hollow. A simple, and faster to render solution would be to apply the animation to a text layer using the Classic rendering engine in such a way that duplicates of the layer would animate in exactly the same way. Then duplicate each layer and use a simple expression to move the text layer 1 pixel in Z based on the layer index. Something like this for Position:

z = thisComp.layer(index + 1).transform.position[2] + 1;

[value[0], value[1], z]

As long as the movement does not change with each duplicate layer this will give you extruded text in a classic comp and all of the letters would fade.

An even better solution would be to create the text extrusion using C4D Lite, but that will require you to spend some time learning how to import animated text and extrude it. That's the way I would do it. It will give you a lot more extrusion options too.

[JJL777]

Thanks. I figured it might just be the way things are, but sometimes there's one of those "just uncheck the bla bla box" type answers.

I'm familiar with creating a C4D layer, then editing the C4D file and creating and animating the text directly within C4D...you're saying I can drop the animation preset onto the text layer in AE, and there's a way to import that into C4D and all I have to worry about is the extrusion? That's cool.

I'll look it up myself! Just didn't even know you could do that!