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Buena Depth Cue
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The Stats
- Developer: DigiEffects
- Version: 1.12
- Platforms: Mac Windows
- Host Applications: Adobe After Effects CS3, Adobe Premeire Pro CS3, Autodesk Combustion 4
- Compatibility with After Effects CS3, Compatibility with After Effects 7, Mac Universal Binary
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- Depth Cue (Download Only)
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Features
Depth Cue is a set of plug-ins for Adobe After Effects that adds realistic depth effects to 3D layers. Each effect works on a 3D layer and changes based on the location of the layer, lights, and cameras in 3D space.
3D Composite
3D Composite allows your 2D footage with a depth channel to interact with After Effects' 3D layers. You can take footage directly from your favorite 3D applications, like Maya, 3D Studio Max, and Cinema 4D, and use it in After Effect's 3D world.
With 3D Composite, you're not limited to having all of your After Effects layers being in front of half your 3D objects and behind the other half as you are with AE's built-in "Depth Matte" effect. With 3D Composite, multiple 3D layers in After Effects can intersect and interact with the footage you import from your 3D application.
Setting it up is easy. Import your 2D footage with a depth channel as a new 2D layer, then apply 3D Composite to that layer. Next, set up your 3D layers as you normally would, making sure to put them below the 2D footage with the depth Channel. Finally, you can select any of your 3D layers to be watched by the 3D Composite plugin and it will automatically update whenever those layers are moved in any way. As After Effects' 3D layers move behind objects in the 2D footage, they are obscured, just as if they were filmed together.
Depth
The Depth plug-in does one simple thing: it displays the depth of every pixel in a 3D layer as a grayscale value. You can then use the result as a gradient map for other plugins, or export it for use with other applications that can use a depth map.
You can adjust the minimum and maximum depth to output, and adjust what values those depths map to. The plugin works in 8 and 16 bit per channel allowing you to create some pretty deep depth maps. And you can adjust whether the depths are output in a linear fashion, or follow a curve.
Once you have a depth map of a comp, you can use it for simulating other types of depth effects. Use it as the gradient map for a compound blur to produce depth of field effects. Or use it for something wild like a gradient wipe - objects would fade out based on their distance from the camera! The possibilities are enormous.
And of course, Depth includes a helper plugin that applies the effect to all the layers in your composition and creates 1 master set of controls you can use to adjust all the layers at once. But it does more than that! If you're using AE 6.5 or later, the helper plugin can also duplicate your composition, apply the Depth effect to the copy, then put both the original and the duplicate into a new composition. So in 1 easy step you have a new comp ready to use your depth map as a gradient map for another effect!
Falloff Lighting
With the Falloff Lighting plugin, you can simulate realistic lighting effects within After Effects. Unlike After Effects' built-in lights, with Falloff Lighting, as layers get farther away from a light source, they become darker, just like they would in real life. Of course you don't have to simulate reality. You can choose other falloff techniques as well to get other effects.
Falloff Lighting works with all of the different types of lights available in After Effects - spot lights, point lights, parallel lights, and ambient lights. It also works with each layer's material properties allowing you to simulate specular highlights, for example.
As with the other Depth Cue plugins, Falloff Lighting includes a helper plugin that applies the effect to all the layers in your composition and creates 1 master set of controls you can use to adjust all the layers at once.
Fog
The Fog plugin allows you to generate atmospheric effects in an After Effects composition. As layers move closer to the camera, they appear to emerge from the fog; as they move farther away from the camera, they recede into the haze and eventually disappear.
You can adjust a variety of parameters to get just the look you need. Use a white color to simulate a realistic foggy morning. Use an orange color to simulate the smoggy haze of a choked city. Or choose an unearthly color to create a truly alien look. (Purple Haze anybody?)
You can make the fog thick and soupy or light and airy by adjusting the depth where the fog starts and ends, and how it increases with distance from the camera. And all the parameters are fully keyframable so you can have that dense morning mist burn off by the afternoon, or sweep in as darkness falls.
The fog effect is maintained wherever you move your layers, or the camera, with live updating as you drag elements around.
And like the other plugins in Depth Cue, Fog comes with a helper plugin that allows you to apply it to all the layers in your composition at once. It then creates a master set of controls so you can adjust it just once and all the layers will update automatically with the same parameter values. This is an enormous time saver if you have a lot of layers in your comp.
Rack Focus
The Rack Focus plugin allows you to simulate depth of field and focus pull effects using After Effects 3D information. You can adjust the focus to be on a background layer, then pull it forward to a closer layer. The focus properly follows the camera around just like it would in real life. And it can even apply varying focus over a single layer if part of the layer is close to the camera and part is far away.
But we didn't stop at just applying varying amounts of blur to layers. Rack focus even simulates "circle of confusion" or "boke" effects that real cameras produce. You can choose to have circular highlights, or simulate cameras with polygonal aperture shapes to produce pentagons, hexagons, and more. And it can even simulate some of the effects of anamorphic lenses!
Setting up a composition to use Rack Focus couldn't be easier. Once you have all your layers and camera in place, just select "Apply Rack Focus To All Layers" from the Composition menu, and its helper plugin will apply the Rack Focus effect to every layer in your comp. It then creates a master set of controls for you to adjust all the layers at once. It couldn't be simpler!
Camera Mapper
With the Camera Mapper plug-in, you can turn 2D stills and footage into 3D scenes right in After Effects. It works by projecting parts of your 2D footage onto 3D solids in a composition, then rendering the composition from different angles.
To use it, you simply need to place your 2D footage into a scene and point a camera directly at it. Then place other 3D solids around it, in the shape of objects in the scene. Apply the Camera Mapper plugin to the solids, and it will project the 2D image onto the 3D solids. You can then put another camera in the scene and move it around as if you actually had the 3D data from the original scene.
Flipside
The Flipside plug-in does one simple thing: it maps one layer onto the back side of another layer. This allows you to flip the front layer over to reveal the back layer. It does this without creating any gap between the 2 layers, and without the occlusion problems that sometimes show up when trying to put 2 layers very close together in a composition.
You can choose the orientation of the back layer, as well, allowing it to have the correct orientation whether it's flipped horizontally, vertically, or both. The orientation parameters are keyframable, too, which allows you to change the orientation of the back layer when it's not showing, for smooth transitions that fool the eye.
In addition, the 2 layers don't need to be the same size or even have the same pixel aspect ratio. You can have a tiny layer flip over to reveal a huge layer. Or you can use DV footage on one side, and anamorphic footage on the other. It just works.
You can even choose not to have a back layer, so that when the layer is turned around, it simply disappears.
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- This page was last modified 18:02, 20 August 2008.
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