Help on redoing scatter and rotation effects

[default070jhp0akeqw]

For a broadcast design/mograph project, I’ve been trying to breakdown and recreate the animations featured in the video here. These were all part of the visual system used that CBS for 1999-2000, so I’m not sure that all of the effects would’ve been able to be created in AE around that time.

The first animation which appears in the first couple of clips and the wednesday one, (the part where a 3D model of the CBS eye shows up and causes 2d multiples of it to explode and scatter in different directions) probably uses a repeater effect or something along those lines with a path of some sort? (or the use of a 3rd party plugin?). This effect I think was probably also used for the text reveal in the first video where the eye multiplies, moves on to the side then “flips” in to reveal the text.

The animation in the background (the four 2D eyes rotating against a flat color, shown in every clip) is something that looks like it could be easily achieved with the classic 3D function, but I don’t know how to get the effect in which the more the eyes rotate away from the center the longer they stretch?

For the last asset, going back to the 3D model of the eye being drawn out with glowing lines before being filled in and bursting in a glow from the first couple of clips…How exactly could I redo this in AE? Was this done with simple masking techniques? Or were they any scripts applied? I noticed that the when each part of the eye was being “filled” on the opposite side another area was being filled the same way.

https://streamable.com/7u87o1 Video of the clips in question.

[Mylenium]

The background basic stuff with 3D planes run through an extreme fisheye lens. Easily done in AE, possibly spiced up with effects like Bulge or Optics Compensation. The rest is classic 90s 3D created most likely directly in Avid programs with the help of some plug-ins from BorisFX or the like. Easily re-created these days in any 3D program. There isn't even a need for any repeaters or such, as no doubt a lot of this was simply a graphics guy animating things by hand. That's how stuff worked way back then. Same for any glow effects. They're probably simply stacked together from imported graphics and then animated using simpla masks in whatever program. Again, the point here is that it's manual labour, not fancy functions in programs or effects.

Mylenium

[default070jhp0akeqw]

Hi, thanks for the reply and insight!

I read somewhere after that the design company that made the graphics used 3D tools to animate everything, so everything being manually done in 3D programs makes a lot of sense.

For the backgrounds, I'm not sure if I'm doing this right? I pre-comped a .png of the logo and turned it to a 3D layer rendering on Classic 3D, and I used the fish eye setting in Warp but it’s not having the effect I wanted to (as in only one side stretching vertically) instead it’s just regularly warping it.

[ShiveringCactus]

Along with what Mylenium says, take a look at your composition's Cinema 4D renderer, that can extrude in 3D from 3D layers, allowing you to stick inside AE.

I'm a big fan of recreating stuff as it teaches how to use After Effects way more than a tutorial can.  And if you organise it right, you can create a load of useful stock comps you can use and adapt in other projects.