OK! It’s been fun everyone. Rather than supporting this feature, it’s officially become obsolete as it is now built into Element 1.6. So rather than use this preset, please just get yourself updated and it will work more seamlessly with your workflow.
Like many people, I am really digging Element 3D from VideoCopilot. I really believe that this new wave of OpenCL development is the future of After Effects. Element 3D and Trapcode MIR have ushered in a new phase of “instant feedback” which for ages, has been something just out of reach for us animators.
Anyway, the point is… there’s one feature of Element 3D that bugs me. Or, I should say, a lacking feature. I prefer to animate in the comp window with handles, like with a Null object. This is actually a feature on another product, 3D Invigorator. Each object group has a pop-up menu where you can select a 3D layer, and have the 3D object track that layer exactly. So, I made it do just with that expressions and saved the preset out. And then saved it back to version CS5 and made it universal for all languages.
Plus, I’ve included another preset that I made for Lux/Knoll Light Factory/Optical Flares that controls light intensity based on its angle to the camera.
Thanks man!
Super Cool! THX!!
I was getting tyerd of the repedetiv linking to a Null.
Hey Harry,
would you please help me out?
I pasted the Preset in my -Presets- folder.
(right next to the graymaschine_Vignette)
But it dosen´t show up in AE (after restart…), Vignette is there, but NullTracker… nope.
Am i doing something wrong?
MacPro, 10.6.8, CS5
Thanks in advance
Steven
I also put it in my presets but it doesnt show up! All your other presets do though. Im running CS4 on windows 7
This preset is for CS5 and higher. I cannot easily create a CS4 version as I only have installs for CS5, CS5.5 and CS6.
hello Harry
i wonder how you could obscure elements 3d with trapcode
cause when i try your tutorial TC_Particular2_GS_01_Emitter with E3D text i failed to obscure it
I have a tutorial coming that covers this. In short, duplicate the Element layer and render a “depth” version. Render that out.. import.. and use that as the Z Buffer input for Particular.
I know it’s cumbersome, but outside of really complicated expression tomfoolery, it’s the best way.
This is incredibly handy — thanks!! Is there a way to apply it to an Element layer that’s already set up?
Gee Thanx!
Wow. Super super thanks, I got fast a fan of the Element 3d since it so fast, easy to use and easy to get cool result, I have had to do work with lights, but with this presets the work will be even more easy and with better result. Again super super thanks!
These presets are exactly what Element needs but unfortunately they don’t show up in my CS5 either.
Hopefully you can change that but thanks anyway.
The preset ist very useful. But it doesn’t work with an existing element 3d layer. I have animated a helicopter and need now the anchor point preset to animate the flight. With the current version I am not able to integrate this effect to my element 3d layer. Please add this feature in the next version.
No, it doesn’t do this, and I don’t think there is a way to do it very easily. Element always seems to save the scene data with the preset. Every version I saved of the .ffx file did this.
Your best bet is to simply copy and paste the position/rotation/scale expressions, which should take you less than 60 seconds.
Awesome preset, it saves a lot of headaches! However, I have encountered a problem I can’t seem to solve when using it:
I have a Maya scene that I need to spruce up with some Element 3D effects (easier than doing them in Maya). I placed a locator on the Maya object that needs to emit the particles, named it ‘null1′, baked it’s animation, and then baked the camera animation as well. Then I exported the camera and the locator to a .ma file, which I then imported to AE. I created a blank solid, applied your preset, and then linked it to ‘null1′ – the Element 3D matched the animation exported from Maya perfectly. However, whenever I turn on the camera exported from Maya, the Element 3D object disappears. It seems that its Z-depth gets thrown off, and it longer follows the movement of ‘null1′. Any ideas?
Sometimes Maya projects come over with 1 cm or m = 1 pixel. This will mess up the camera depth in many ways. You still see the Null but not the element object? That sounds like a world scale/depth issue.
So, the common fix for this is to create a 3D null, parent the camera and other nulls to it, and scale it way up (~1000%.) This keeps everything relative, but changes the overall world scale. That’s the first thing I’d try.
I wasn’t able to use these two either. I put them in the presets folder with all the other graymachine presets, and I can see every graymachine preset except these two inside After Effects. Running CS5
Not much info to go on. They work.. I’ve used them on 3 different machines. You’ve downloaded a recent version? These were for C6 when I first posted them.
Ahh, I somehow missed that. V3 shows in AE without issue. Thanks so much!
Hello, I am receiving an error message when I drop the tracker onto the layer which says “After Effects warning: Expected: ;Expression disabled. Error occurred at line 2. Comp:’Comp 8′ Layer: 1 (White Solid 16′) Property: ‘Size’
This is in a 1080 24p Comp running AE6 on a Windows machine running 7-64. I am using v3 of the preset and version 1.0.345 of VCE. I am probably doing something bonehead. Thank you so much for all your work. Cheers
It should “just work”. Let me double check the latest version I posted to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid myself.
Great preset. They say there are no stupid questions, so here goes. How are you rotating the null by clicking and dragging? Can’t seem to get that to work for me. I’m sure it’s something simple. Thanks in advance.
I just use rotate tool (tap ‘W’) to rotate the axes.
Dude !! u rock
dis sets saves so much time 
Hi I am receiving exactly the same error message as brian: error message when I drop the tracker onto the layer which says “After Effects warning: Expected: ;Expression disabled. Error occurred at line 2. Comp:’Comp 8′ Layer: 1 (White Solid 16′) Property: ‘Size’
This is in a 1080 24p Comp running AE6 on a Windows machine running 7-64. I am using v3 of the preset and version 1.0.345 of VCE
Not sure why this doesent work any ideas would be much appreciated…
I can’t get this error to replicate. I’ve contacted you off the forum to get a sample project with the error.
Hi, I am getting this same problem, were you able to figure the problem out?
From what I can see, the expression on the Size attribute comes up with this:
try{
Ê LÊ = effect(“ADBE Layer Control”)(1);
Ê s = L.transform.scale[0];
Ê while (L.hasParent){
ÊÊÊ s*= L.parent.transform.scale[0]/100;
ÊÊÊ L = L.parent;
Ê }
Ê s/10
}
catch(err){value}
Maybe you could paste the correct code and I can just re-save the preset
I tried deleting the Ê’s but adjusting the size on the Null doesn’t work.
Thanks for the great work
The code should be this:
try{L = effect("ADBE Layer Control")(1);
s = L.transform.scale[0];
while (L.hasParent){
s*= L.parent.transform.scale[0]/100;
L = L.parent;
}
s/10
}
catch(err){value}
Not sure why it is acting this way for you. I’ll try to get a new version posted with a re-written version of the expression. Some odd formatting seems to be left in there.
Thanks
you’re a great man! very usefull thanks!
Is there a way to use this preset on all groups. Currently I have to copy and past each expression to each group.
Check out Elementary at AEScripts.
http://aescripts.com/elementary
This is a great preset, but I have one problem.
The model I brought into Element from C4D uses both UV and box projection mapping. Because of this, I have my object split into 2 groups, 1 for the UV, and another for the box projection. Using the default of the preset, I can only use group 1, and therefore half of my object. Any way to fix this?
Best,
Dan
Same Error here: Aftereffects warning: Expected Expression disabled Error occured at line 2 Comp: comp1 Layer: Black Solid; Property: Size..
Is this a non-English install? It should be universal, but I am trying to track down the issue.
Hi Harry!! this is SOOO Useful, thank you so much. I have a question about light culling tho’. One Light works great, but what do you do for an Aircraft with three lights? one light on either under wing engine, one light on top of the Cockpit? when rotating the aircraft, it begins to react properly but the light on the far side comes on too early on an Element 3D object. As you come around 180 degrees, cockpit facing the camera, all lights are on, but they start to fade too early as the cockpit rotates to the right (Aircraft facing the Camera). any suggestions would be greatly appreciated thanks for the awesome freebies.
Hi, noticed the link to Facebook on your website is broken. Thought you might want to know.
Fixed, thanks.
Hi, noticed the link to Facebook on your website is broken. Thought you might want to know.
I get the same error as Benji: Error occurred at line 2. Comp:
This is in a 1080 24p Comp running AE6 on a Windows machine running 7-64. I am using v3 of the preset and version 1.5 Element
You can see photo below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHgjfgKIlA0
Thanks
Thanks man, this is exactly what I need!
Unfortunately I get the same error. It works with the expression you posted here.
(If it helps: I’m using Windows 7 and an english AE CS6 (Adobe Cloud version).
Thanks again.
Sorry for doublepost but I just thought about asking this:
) Well, just thinking.
As it is, only scaling the null’s “x scale” value scales up the whole mesh. Would it in any way possible to adjust the expression so it can actually be scale only one dimension? (Probably not because AE isn’t capable of any 3D modeling but if there was some way to fake it, that would open up a whole new world of possibilities.
This makes my brain hurt. It’s most likely possible.. but at this point I’d probably wait for the E3D 2.0 update as it shouldbe in there.
I would like to ask, are this presets available for widows also? I once downloaded amd tried to install them, but AE does not show them, Am I doing something wrong? Thanks anyway and congrats for shaing a teaching.
They should work just fine in Windows. Odds are they are in the wrong spot. OR, just get the Element 1.6 update and it has this built in.
This is awesome Harry, great work. You said this will be added in Element 3D 1.5? Do you know how to access this ability? Thanks again!
Hi,
thx a lot! this is really great. i am working (playing) the first day with element. i missed the possibility to handle the scene with a null. now i can!
hye thanks or gr8 preset .
but when i apply preset on my solid layer it give me error bellow
=========================
After effects warining:Expected:;
Expression disabled
Error occurred at line 2.
Comp:’Comp1′
Layer:2(Black Solid 1′)
Property:’Size’
=======================
hop you will help me fast thanks !!!!
Same Error here:
—————————-
Aftereffects warning: Expected: ;
Expression disabled.
Error occured at line 2.
Comp: comp1
Layer: (Black Solid)
Property: Size
—————————-
pls help
it seems like my null scale isn’t scaling Element…
my null not work with optical flare