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LARV
LARV
Inspiring
January 31, 2018
Answered

All shadows in 3d project suddenly disappears when a text layer starts

  • January 31, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 5211 views

Hello,

I´ve searched and not managed to find any thread on this problem.

I have a scene in 3d with a camera and light. There´re shadows that work correct and logically. The camera is moving around. No problem with anything really apart from one major thing that seems to happen for no reason - on a specific frame ALL shadows disappears. This happens on the first frame when a textlayer starts. If I remove the text layer all the shadows return.

I need to know what´s going on, can someone help me?

Thank you.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer LARV

    There are shadows under the photos and under the book, but it might be hard to see in the screenshots. But they are there.


    Jesus Christ... I tried moving the layers higher upp in the hierarchy and the shadows came back.

    Fixed it. Thanks anyway!

    1 reply

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Legend
    January 31, 2018

    Well, is the text layer actually 3D? Does it have a layer style or effect applied? A lot of these things can simply break 3D rendering order. In such a case you may need to pre-compose and use the resulting comp as a 3D layer (without continuous rasterization) to obtain a correct result.

    Mylenium

      LARV
      LARVAuthor
      Inspiring
      January 31, 2018

      Are you allowed to bump questions? I will not do it again if told not to.

      Thanks.

      R
      Community Expert
      Rick GerardCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      February 1, 2018

      "It is a good practice to stack the layers in your comp the same order you would stack things on a stage. I hope that makes sense."
      Yes! This is how I thought for a second that After Effects suddenly didn´t work, which annoyed me alot before I found the solution.

      "I would guess the one in question is at least 10 minutes long"

      The entire film will be around 2 minutes.

      "I strongly suggest you break that comp up into shots and then edit the shots together later in an NLE."

      I don´t know what NLE is. I will have to check that out.

      But my film is a single scene with a camera moving around without a single cut. I´m not sure how I could cut that up into small 10-seconds precomps...

      "It's just way too much work and you can't possibly see how it will edit together."

      OK. I´m done with the first 40 seconds and am very pleased so far with the result. What exactly are you refering to when you say "you can't possibly see how it will edit together"?

      This is great information and very helpfull for me! Thank you so much, Rich!


      NLE is a nonlinear editor like Premiere Pro.

      Two minutes is pushing it but if you absolutely have to have one shot for the whole thing then that is what you have to do. Visual storytelling usually works better if you have cuts. There is an art to it.

      Take a look at some really good documentaries and you'll see what I mean. If I have a sentence or phrase that I want to emphasize I'll almost always design a cut. You might consider that for future projects. It is a very rare comp that is longer than a single thought, sentence or phrase. If I am cutting to music the same applies.

      Let's say you wanted to animate a map and narration was something like "The Allies invaded Italy in 1943 but by 1944 had progressed only as far as the Gustav Line south of Rome. So the Allies staged a massive amphibious operation to force the defenders to split their forces or be surrounded, but quick success depended on a rapid break-out from the beachhead. Some 36,000 men landed to the enemy's considerable surprise..."

      I would make "The Allies invaded Italy in 1943 but by 1944 had progressed only as far as the Gustav Line south of Rome." one comp and illustrate that. Then I would make another comp, same map but a little different framing or maybe starting with a photograph moving over the map for the line "So the Allies staged a massive amphibious operation to force the defenders to split their forces or be surrounded, but quick success depended on a rapid break-out from the beachhead" then create another comp for "Some 36,000 men landed to the enemy's considerable surprise, by maybe flying in a bunch of photographs of the invasion and laying them on the map."

      Working like that is a lot easier and can be much better storytelling than spending two minutes flying a camera around a map and bringing in text and photographs. You'll be a better filmmaker if you try and think of visual ways to enhance your story and emphasize points. That is almost always done best with a cut.

      Good luck with your projects.

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