Communigate Pro AE-List@media-motion.tv Message 51989

Thank you Mylenium, Andrew, Greg and Robert! This mail list is really great (and the only Mail List I follow to be honest).

I will try these tricks out. I’ll post the video when it’s finished ;-)

Thanks

Anders

From: Robert Kjettrup

Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 4:31 PM

To: After Effects Mail List

Subject: Re: [AE] Gradient to transparent for a fake shadow + rotation

Or download the free VC Reflect from VideoCoPilot. It is made for reflections ofcourse but can also be used for shadows by colorizing the reflection.

Be aware that the plugin has a few nasty bugs that sometimes wont render frames if certain conditions are not what the plugin likes . experienced it both with comps with no pixeldata and certain skew values in the plugin.

else i would follow what Mylenium says.

Robert

2013/12/11 Greg Balint <delrazoraelist@gmail.com>

And if you want to simulate the shadow getting fuzzier as it gets farther away, you can use compound blur with a blur layer of a precomped linear ramp. The ramp will blur slowly over the gradient until fully blurred.

Make sure to precomp your wheel with motion on it, so when you make the fake shadow wheel layer it will have the motion as well.

///Greg Balint
//Art Director / Motion Graphics Designer
/321.514.4839
delRAZOR.com/

On Dec 11, 2013 10:38 AM, "mylenium@mylenium.de" <mylenium@mylenium.de> wrote:

Effects --> Distort --> Transform. Yes, the oft forgotten ugly child. Likewise, you can always use a Corner Pin for perspective skewing if 3D is to cumbersome... And fading anything can be easily done with a Linear Wipe. Oldest trick in town. None of what you want to do is any problem once you add all this into the equation. Only the order of effects matters then.

Mylenium

[Pour Mylène, ange sur terre]
-----------------------------------------
www.mylenium.de

Anders Sundstedt <sundstedt@hotmail.com> hat am 11. Dezember 2013 um 15:42 geschrieben:

Hi,

I have been making some fake shadows by simply duplicating a layer, squashing it, stretching and changing levels and adding some blur effects.

I would like to now fade it from dark to transparent, linear, so that it softens out the further away from the origin of the shadow. In my example the wheel of a cartoon fire truck.

I tried this 4 point gradient but it doesn’t work as it’s not doing a linear gradient, also this effect doesn’t fade to transparent, only to color.

Another thing I would also like to know, the wheel is rotating as the truck is moving forward, how can I make the dublicate copy (Ctrl+D) shadow also rotate accordingly? Rotating it normally will not work because the squashed wheel shadow will rotate in 2D rather than in the fake 3D shadow plane. Is it possible to have it rotate correctly without using 3D layers? (the point of using fake shadows rather than actual 3D was to quickly get shadows without setting up as 3D layers with lights etc. and render speed.) I usually do actual 3D but for this video it will be easier with faked shadows.

Thanks

Anders