FreeForm 3D Displacer User Manual. freeform created by mettle.com

FreeForm 3D Displacer User Manual freeform created by mettle.com

Contents 3 Installation 4 Controls 6 Controls - cont d 8 Support 9 Application

FreeForm 3D Displacer The FreeForm 3D Displacer plugin for After Effects CS4 gives you the ability to easily create three-dimensional, animated objects from 2D image or video layers. Digieffects FreeForm 3D Displacer (Created by www.mettle. com) is specifically for users of After Effects CS4. Add a dimension to your After Effects work without requiring a side trip into dedicated 3D software. This powerful plug-in allows you to use a layer as a displacement map for bending, distorting and warping a 2D layer. Resources Video Tutorials Check out project techniques from DigiUsers just like you. View video tutorials The Reviews See what others are saying about DE s latest releases, plugin effects, and more. Installation System Requirements: FreeForm 3D Displacer is a plugin for After Effects CS4, created by www. mettle.com. It has been tested with Snow Leopard and Windows 7. Installing 1 Locate the Install file. 2 Double-click the installation program and follow the instructions. 3 The first time you attempt to run FreeForm 3D Displacer (or if you are running in demonstration mode), it will show a grid on top of your effect as a watermark. To remove the watermark, click on the Register hot text in the top of the Effect Controls panel to enter your name and serial key you received when you purchased your plugin.. Read the reviews Project Gallery DE software and plugins in action. For more information visit: http://www.digieffects.com/support/installation_guide Search, view, and download the latest presets and videos or submit your own. Visit project gallery 3

Controls FreeForm 3D Displacer places a layer in 3D space, and uses another layer as a displacement map. About Shows information about Digieffects and the FreeForm 3D Displacer (created by www.mettle. com) plugin version. Reset Resets the parameters to their factory default. Animation Presets Contain groups of parameter settings you would like to keep for future use. The list is empty until you save a group of parameters as a Preset. What you ll need A layer you will be warping (or displacing ) with FreeForm 3D Displacer. Optionally, you can use a 3D camera, a null object, and for the best effect, some lights. NOTE: Set magnification and resolution to 50% and (Half) respectively for faster response while you are working. Digieffects FreeForm 3D Displacer places a layer in 3D space, and uses another layer as a displacement map. Often, when you apply FreeForm3D Displacer to a layer, After Effects may bring up a dialog about 2D and 3D effects and layers. When that happens, select Once per session from the dropdown menu of After Effects dialog window to keep these messages to a bare minimum, and click OK to make the dialog go away. The plugin name itself may show a yellow cube with an exclamation mark inside. You can safely ignore all of these warnings.

FreeForm 3D Displacer is a Digieffects plugin for After Effects, created by www.mettle.com. Effect Controls Displacement Controls After creating a displacement map, you will need to place it in your comp as a layer (and hide the layer if you wish by deselecting the button on the far left of the layer in the comp panel, making the image of an eye disappear). Displacement Layer Click on the text button (it may read none initially) and select the layer you are going to use as a displacement map. This can be a still image or an animated movie or precomp. NOTE: You can t use a layer with an effect within the same composition as the target layer and have the effect be reflected in the displacement map. To use a layer with an effect as the displace layer, you must pre-comp that layer with its effect and nest that composition in the same comp as your target layer, choosing the pre-comp as the displace layer. User Layer s This option sets a channel used for displacement. RGB(luma) should be used for black & white images. You may select Red, Green, Blue or Alpha as other possible values. If your source is an RGB image, each channel can give you a slightly...or drastically different result. Using the alpha channel would allow you to use a graphic shape such as a logo as an extrusion source, giving you a 3D relief of the shape of the alpha channel in the target layer. Use Alpha as Mask If you check this control and your displacement layer has transparency, Free- Form 3D Displacer will trim your layer using that transparency information. For example, if you use text or a logo as a Displacement Layer, the result would be a three dimensional extrusion of that text as you specified above, but the target layer would be trimmed to the shape of the alpha channel, creating a 3D object in the shape of the graphic in the displacement layer which appears to have a surface map of the target layer.. Displace Height Sets the amount the Displacement layer will deform your mesh in 3D space. Higher values create a larger amount of extrusion making more extreme surface variations, proportional to the channel values you specified. Therefore a larger value creates an effect that would create a larger variation...like mountains, while smaller values would create a smaller variation... like gentle ripples on a pond. Using the displacement layer s RGB (Luma) values, full white would displace to the full extent of the value you specify, and black wouldn t displace at all. Shades of gray would displace proportionately, the brighter values displacing more than the darker. For a Red Channel displacement, the amount of red would be the displacement factor, and so forth... Keep in mind that a displacement layer with only slight variations in gray scale or color value will create very little contour, so you could enter a large displacement value to create mountains and if the displacement layer only has a narrow range of variation, you will end up with something more reminiscent of pillars and ledges. Using negative values will create extrusion in the opposite direction...think canyons instead of mountains. 3D Mesh Controls Position X, Y, and Z Input values for each of the three axes to control where the Layer is placed in 3D space. Rotation X, Y, and Z Controls the rotation of the Layer along each axis in 3D space. Anchor X, Y, and Z Changes the position of the 3D anchor point that controls the position of the axis along which the Layer moves and rotates. 5

Controls - cont d Surface Controls Diffuse Adjusts the surface color s ability to reflect or absorb light. Higher values add light in the shadows, decreasing contrast and will make the surface uniformly brighter over its entire area. Lower values make the surface shadows look darker. If you feel the shape of your object is not as defined as you d like, increasing the darkness of the shadows by decreasing the diffuse value can help. NOTE: If you intend to use directional lighting in After Effects to indicate dimension and depth and more of the layer seems illuminated than you think your lights should be covering, you may have a high Diffuse value that is adding too much fill light to the image. Specular Controls the specular highlights (intensity) of the Layer. Higher values create a more metallic, shiny look and a brighter, harder highlight. Roughness Control the edge clarity of the specular highlight. NOTE: The shading algorithm used by FreeForm 3D Displacer is based on the Blinn-Phong shading algorithm and the roughness control is related to the exponent value (but not directly). Backside Controls You can customize the surface of the reverse side of your target layer. Layer You can choose a different layer from within the composition to be the backside surface map of your 3D mesh, creating a completely different texture on the back side of your extrusion. Shade This will only add a solid color as the backside instead of an image, e.g. if you don t have an image to put there AND don t want the reversed target layer displayed as the back. Se-

FreeForm 3D Displacer is a Digieffects plugin for After Effects, created by www.mettle.com. lecting mirror leaves the reverse of the target layer as the back side. 3D Mesh Quality Mesh subdivision Sets the density of yourmesh. Lower values (30-300) create less defined shapes and are good for less detailed deforms like hills or wavy water. Higher values (300-600) are needed for sharp corners/edges and details for creating more precise extrusions. You can increase this value to a maximum of 1000, but of course, as values increase, so does render time. Rendering: Full Renders the target layer as a full color image. Shade Renders the target layer as a single solid color. Wireframe Renders the layer as a wireframe image. This setting is most useful for quick updating as you are working to set up your effect. Antialiasing Control the amount of smoothing along the edges of your deformation. Select a value from none to high. Higher values will affect rendering time. Image Filtering Scaling an image can cause artifacts. Selecting this checkbox to employ a Bicubic filter (similar to what you might use when resizing an image in Photoshop), smoothing the scaled image by minimizing artifacts. Multi-processing FreeForm 3D Displacement has its own multiprocessing code independent of After Effects. If you have a multi-core machine, this can speed up the plug-in s responsiveness. However, it can sometimes introduce artifacting on the target layer. If you notice any artifacting, uncheck Multiprocessing and see if it fixes the problem. Anchor Color Color of the layer anchors. Anchor Control Check to see all controls. 7

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Support Check out the our online Video Tutorials section for more product resources and tips. Need Assistance? Take a moment and fill out our online Email Support Form and we ll get back to you as soon as possible. Or visit us online at: www.digieffects.com User Forum Have questions? Get the answers on our expert User Forum, where you ll find the latest user tips product update info, software sales and more. Address 27 N. Front Street, Ste. 200 Wilmington, NC 28401 Business Hours 9 AM - 5 PM EST Toll Free 1-888-DIGI-EFX (344-4339) Email info@digieffects.com 9