Hi guys And welcome back to this new
episode dedicated to After Effects and Element 3D today we'll see How
to customize an animated surface to simulate the appearance of the sea at night
with its waves and reflections so [Music]
let's start dear friends of the community Welcome back and
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anticipated, let's see how to manage the sea simula
tion within
Element 3D which unfortunately is not one of those aspects natives that this plugin can
generate and manage convincingly. This is why we will use an
obj sequence created with 3D modeling software to simulate the
undulating movement of the waves and where in the community section you will find
all the assets used in the video plus a beautiful 3D model which you will discover
at the end so we go to after and create a new
20 second full HD composition which we rename sea
then with Contr
ol Y we insert a solid color which I rename
e3d on which we apply Element and again a two-node camera
to move in the space having done this we enter
the dedicated interface where from the file menu we select the
Import 3D sequence option and once the
model has been imported what we will find is a square and rippled portion without
texture which through the bed Animation section we can view the
its animation preview plus the size of these ripples
can be calibrated through the individual scale of
the model. In fact
by modifying the Y axis we can give it a different size and in this
case we keep it with a value around 50% So as to have the appearance of a
fairly calm sea if we now open the material layer from which it is composed
we can see that it is textureless which is why through the
basic settings we see it with a black color a 32% shine and a
reflectivity equal to zero if you then have in the CoPilot video materials
there is a section called translucent with presets suitable for the
appearance of the sea,
specifically the one called Blue Glass which contains a single
relief map with this texture which will generate those particular ripples
in the water and which from its parameter we can increase as desired. Maybe
we give For now a value around 20%, after which we make them smaller
by increasing the ov Repeater in the texture Channel with something like 10
horizontal and 10 vertical repetitions and by activating and deactivating the box
we can see the difference. Then in a
ddition to this map
In the basic settings a 100% brightness and a
blue color in the reflectivity are assigned with a 4% intensity and a
100% blue refraction. This is to say that through the predefined groups we can give it
a specific appearance even without the prader material
However this aspect of the dark sea can be used based on the
context in which we decide to use this model In fact considering that
we do not have specific textures to assign an image to our
surface this can be used in vari
ous scenes But in this
case let's go to adjust it to generate and adapt it to a
night scene. So first of all we bring the diffuse color to a
black. Same thing for the reflectivity, also bringing its parameter to 100%
and it still has a full black even at the refraction. With intensity equal to zero
and this C allows us to have this animated model completely
dark, perhaps we can also activate it from its advance the Faces drawback box to
see it also from below now the particularity and beauty
of
the sea at night lies in being able to reflect the luminous natural elements
such as the sky the stars and the moon aspects that we begin to
manage starting from the Enel where we give cheok and let's go back to
After Effects and insert an image of a
night sky that I took from Google into the Timeline, turn it off from the glasses in the Custom layer. More
precisely, in slot 1 of the texture Maps we now return to the
dedicated interface and from the environment button let's replace the
default r
eflected image with that of our sky where from its texture Channel parameters
we saturate the Des a little with a value around 80 and from the levels
we contrast it more by tightening the blacks and
whites as always these are subjective modifications based on your
personal taste we say OK and then by changing the height of the ripple through
the scale we can also perceive its appearance better but for now let's leave it with
a height of around 50% and we give Ok to return to After where through
the
camera By holding down Alt in combination with the mouse buttons
I reposition our model now to occupy a
larger surface of the scene generating what we could define as an
infinite sea on the horizon we are going to use the replicator options
then from group one which contains the model We enter the particle
replicator where we set the shape to Plane or a plane and we duplicate
something like 70 times our model which looks like a kind of tile which
we then distribute by expanding in space thro
ugh its scale
until each portion separates from the another and if you hold down the
shift key you can increase the incidence of the
parameter. Then we rejoin the edges but that's not all
because by then combining the single dimension of the tile from the particle
Look in combination with the scale we can obtain an even more
different and particular look. So try it and tested.
Afterwards, having found what you like most, we change the perspective
of the shot by rotating it slightly to obtain the
surface of an infinite sea. Now we could create
mountains in the background with 3D models but to lighten the tutorial we do some
simple compositing. So I'm going to add this photo on the background with
a night sky and dark mountains on the horizon which I transform into 3D
I press the a button twice and deactivate the possibility of receiving shadows.
Then I push it into space and reorient it so as to obtain this
peptic reflection on the surface of the water as if there were a
light source on
the horizon that is reflected, perhaps we return to Element and
release a bit of saturation from the environment to have a bluer reflection,
let's say around - 65% and we return to
After where we arrange the colors of the background photo by inserting a
tint effect that we set with a value of 50% Then we add a
curves effect where we darken the shadows a little and rebalance the Green now I'll
show you a little trick in fact in very large panoramas we know that a
fog effect it suits us quite wel
l to give that depth to the scene so
from the render settings of the plugin we are going to enable it and sample for example a
very light color of the sky just to point out how this simulation
is applied entirely and exclusively to the 3D models which is why we see it
cut cleanly at the end of the sea without thus influencing that horizon
with the mountains but to resolve this situation we make a copy of the background
photo with the D control which we rename 2D fog
we eliminate the curves and c
ome on tint samplers
I take a blue color of the sky which will then be the same one that we will sample
with the Element fog plugin then I apply it to both the whites and the
blacks. Then with the selected layer I take the rectangle tool
and mask it more or less all height of the mountains I press the F key
to activate the gradient property and I start to increase the parameter until
I get that gradient similar to a fog in the distance and
found the one we like most. Let's bring its opacity to a
round
75% Then we return inside Element in the fog where we are going to
sample the blue of the sky that we previously used with the
mask and we bring its mode to
exponential but possibly also try with the linear. Then I increase
the distance to something like 700 pixels. But then you decide how much this must
be more or less visible and if we activate and deactivate the simulation
we can see how we have softened our Horizon let's send it to
playback and we will have our beautiful animated
night
sea Where we can add a moon with some glow and
match the reflection of the water of the parallel light previously
inserted and again a beautiful Pirate Ship docked here offshore where if
we want it to be more bright we add a parallel light aimed at it with
a low intensity and to make everything more realistic on the Z axis
of the ship's position we apply an expression like the wiggle with
really very very low values like 0.32 to finish if we want the
reflection of a 3D model on the sea we mov
e to the material of this last
element of Element and activate the reflection mode of the Mirror Surface and
thus obtain also the reflection of our pirate ship and to eliminate
possible light artifacts on the ship activate the enhanced
multisampling box from the output options. Okay guys, if you
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