Adding a 3d rectangle to pre existing project

[Iowapilot]

Please help, as I'm a total novice with AE, but really trying as I'd love to expand from my photography.  I work for a commercial real estate company.  I do their social media and trying to add more to what i do.  Im using drone video. The land I took video of we're going to develop.  Street names that follow the streets have been added via track motion.  I have also used track camera and added three solid layers and used a mask to to have the solid layer look kind of like the blue print of the property.  What I am trying to do is add a 3D rectangle cube to show where the buildings will be.  There will be four buildings.  I have made a rectangle cube in AE but when I try to add it to the video it goes from 3D to 2D.  I have added a few extra grey hairs to my head trying to figure this out.  There are five layers, as I didnt need a bottom to the cube and all are linked to the null and can move the cube and sclaed it to a flatter rectangle.  This was the only way i could get the null to scale the square cube I made in the beginning, before scaling it into a rectangle.  Ill also have to figure out how to anchor the cubes to the masked solid layer so that it all looks correct as the drone is flying down the middle of the property.  I have also tried to use Cinema 4D and made a cube.  When i try adding it to AE it doesnt give me a transparent background and covers the whole video screen.  I hope this all makes sense and Thank you for the help.

[Mylenium]

Well, your cube retaining its 3D magic is likely merely a matter of educating yourself about collapse transformations by reading the online help. other than that, and no offense, you've fallen in the beginner trap of trying to do everything in a single comp using as few layers as possible. This will of course always limit your options as things liek AE's rendering order are fixed and will get in the way. You need to work with the program, not against it and try to understand these things. In your case it seems to me that in order to get your blue bounding box to interact with your footage you in fact likely won't be able to solve this by just flipping the CT/ CR switch. Rather you will have to copy & paste the camera layer into the pre-comp and then use the pre-comp multiple times in the main comp to mask out the intersections. In a worst case this can even co so far as that you may need to have each wall of the cube in its own comp to be able to control these things, including potentially adding some depth gradient or controlling the opcity of each layer for that glassy-glowy look, including making use of blending modes or adding additional fancy like re-using the masks for animated reveals or whatever you have in mind. Again, just don't try to do everything at once. AE can be outsmarted with a well-structured approach and workflow, but it can't be coaxed into doing things it was never meant to do or that it does poorly.

Mylenium

[Iowapilot]

Mylenium, 

Thank you for your response.  I am trying to learn as much as I can about AE as I fully understand that I am a total novice.  I envy the people that do video editing so esily. As frustrating as it is for me, I do enjoy the challenge and eventually get better at it.  What I did figure out is to subtract part of the mask inplace of putting 3D buildings on the video.  I still would rather add 3D building as I think that would really make the video look much better and give perspective clients a better understanding of what the company is thinking of doing.  I'll keep working on it and work on your suggestions.   Hope you have a great week.

[Rick Gerard]

The workflow to add 3D buildings to that footage is to:

• Camera Track the footage making sure you set an origin and ground plane and create the camera and solid using the same points and target and set a comp marker at that frame
• Verify the track is accurate
• Add a reference 3D solid every place you want a 3D building
• Add a 3D null, move it to 0,0,0 then parent the camera and all the 3D layers to the null
• Move the null to the comp center by selecting Position/Reset in the timeline
• Remove the parenting
• Save the comp, select the comp in the Project panel and use the File menu to export a Maxon C4D file
• Add the C4D file to the project by importing it then add it to the new comp
• When Cineware opens in the Effects Control Panel choose Centered Comp Camera, then open C4D lite
•  Inside C4D lite your reference solids will show you where to add your 3D buildings. You'll have to model them in another app like Blender

That's the outline. It's the only way to add 3D models to an AE comp without buying a third-party plugin.

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[Iowapilot]

Rick,

Thank you very much.  I'll try this when I get a chance.  I appreciate the help.