aescripts + aeplugins

joel pitrel

It seems to be a super nice script; but as it uses expressions controls effects and as the names of the controls of those differs depending on the language version of after effects you are using; is this only english version compatible or will it work with other like french or german for example?

Kevin Schires

Hi Joel,

the script was tested from CS4 to CS6 in English, French and German. The expressions are written as if the parameters had been Alt-pick-whipped, which doesn't take localization into account.

Of course if there's an issue with an expression, please report it.

Frank Hand

Hi Kevin, is it possible that this script could be made compatible with Zaxwerks ProAnimator?

Kevin Schires

Hi Frank,

I'll be trying to support as many plugins as possible, but obviously the issue is that I need to get demo or licenses, then to learn how to use the plugin, etc. So it may take some time depending on how the plugins work, but I'll have a look at the Zaxwerks products once I have added support to Plexus 2.

Frank Hand

Hi Kevin, I've been playing with Elementary and Particular today.  I've noticed that, if the Playhead is anywhere other than on the first frame of the Comp when a Shadow or Reflection is created, then the shadow/reflection 'jumps' on playback at the time it was created.

Kevin Schires

It seems that in CS4 the camera layers in the shadow or reflection compositions are offset and start at the playhead position instead of the beginning of the comp.

This will be fixed in the next update, for the moment CS4 users should either create the shadows/reflections with the playhead at the beginning of your composition or move the camera layer of the shadow/reflection compositions back to the first frame.

Thanks to Frank for spotting the issue

SEBASTIEN BAMS

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for this amazing plugin!

But, unfortunately, doesn't work for me!!

I'm working with CS6 in French, here's the report :

"Impossible d'executer le script à la ligne 59. La fonction wnd.add n'est pas définie"

Can you help as soon as you can? 

Thanks

Bams.

Kevin Schires

Hi Sebastien,

check out the How to install and run scripts article to install Elementary properly.

Kevin

SEBASTIEN BAMS

OK, il fallait simplement installer le .js dans \\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels et pas simplement dans \\Support Files\Scripts\.
Merci Kevin.

Takayoshi Ishiguro

Hi Kevin.

This is so amazing plug-in!

But script dosen't work perfectly.

I tried this script with CS5.5 Japanese version on Mac.

For example...

I selected element 3d layer and then I clicked 'Lens Flare' button. But AE crashed.

I selected element 3d layer and solid layer and then I clicked 'Reflection' button. But AE crashed.

Would you help me?

I'm sorry in poor English.

Kevin Schires

Thanks to Takayoshi's help, the bug will be fixed in the next update.

The issue seems to come from a problem in After Effects CS5.5 under MacOSX.

Frank Hand

Great update, Kevin! Loving it!!

Thao Ly

Thanks for the great script. The only thing missing is reflections of particular particles bouncing off the floor. The reflected particles just continue up like there is no plane to bounce off.

Kevin Schires

Thanks Thao,

When you precompose Particular you usually need to reset the layers it uses (for example the emitter layer, floor layer ...). So after you've created the reflection, go into the reflection composition (you will see that your floor layer is already there), set the Floor layer in Particular to None then set it back to your custom layer.

Also, if you enable the floor layer in the reflection composition, it will appear reflected too.

Carl Endres

Just wondering how this is best accomplished with your script or within AE after you apply the script....  You obviously need to create 3d planes in AE to create the floor, backwall ect.. they act as a shadow catcher.   But if I need to capture the shadow without seeing the 3d planes to integrate it into live footage or background plates...  how is this best accomplished?  Thanks for a great script that I am sure will bring smiles to element 3d users

Kevin Schires

Hi Carl,

if you want to integrate the scene with footage you need to do it the standard way: place a 3D layer where your actual wall/floor would be, then set its material to Accept Shadows > Only.

To place the catchers accurately I can recommend the following tutorials:

- match a picture: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/energy/

- use the CS6 camera tracker: http://www.mattrunks.com/en/tutorials/after-effects/3d-tracking-3d-text-cs6

I also attached 3 PDF tutorials to show how to create shadows and reflections properly, the "Medium" one uses a picture as background.

Carl Endres

Thank you so much for posting the links Kevin !... I was trying to capture just the shadows via blending modes.  Hopefully this post will help some other people as well.  Thanks again- Carl

Thao Ly

Thanks Kevin for the suggestion. Unfortunately whilst the particles do bounce, they get cut off for some reason by the floor even if its turned off.

Edit Problem Solved: In "Visibility" the "Also Obscure with" is automatically set to floor. When it's set to none the reflection behaves as it should.

Paul Gale

Excellent script - been trying it out. On v1.2 but have a problem with scaling the null linked to an element group.

If I scale the null below 50%, the element model on that group suddenly disapears. I can scale it further by manually setting the particle look size but wondered if it's a bug/limitation or something to do with my setup?

Any ideas?

Thanks

Kevin Schires

Thanks Paul,

This is simply because the Z-scale of the anchor is a multiplier for the number of particles of the group. So if your group has 1 particle and you set the Z scale below 50%, you'll end up with 0 particles.

I'd recommend unlinking the 3 scales anyway, remember that for most plugins supported:

- the X-scale controls the emitter size,

- the Y-scale the particle size,

- the Z-scale the particles number

Paul Gale

Ah ok that makes sense - many thanks.

ted kraft

Kevin...I need tutorials on building shadows under a flyling helicopter...????  where can I get help?

thanks soo much.  Just bought the script yesterday and need to finish a job.

email:

[email protected]

Jared Yearsley

Hi Kevin. Very handy script. Do you know of a way to scale 3D text (or objects) created in Element, in X or Y only? 

Creating a null with the script works great, but unlinking scale constraint and increasing X scale, for example, will still increase X and Y scale together.

Any ideas?

Kevin Schires

Thanks Jared,

Unfortunately Element 3D doesn't support non-uniform scaling (unless there's an update I'm not aware of), so I'm affraid this cannot be done.

Read this comment that explains a bit more how the scaling affects the 3d objects: https://aescripts.com/forums/discussion/comment/265#Comment_265

Paul Gale

Hi Kevin,

Loving this script so much - it makes working with Element so much easier Really getting to grips with animating E3D objects.

My question - are you working on any additional features for the script? Also, having an option in the Z-Pass feature to only include certain groups would be nice

Thanks,

Paul.

Matt Hew

Hi Kevin. I have a little problem running your script on After Effects CS4.

Here is a screenshot:

I can't make the accept shadows turn to "Only" mode. Did you know other workaround for this kind of situation?

Sorry for my grammars. Hope you understand it.

Thanks!

Kevin Schires

Hi Matt,

there is no Accept Shadows > Only in CS4, but you can get the same result with a white layer by setting the layer's material to Accept Lights > No and set it's blending mode to Multiply.

I'm trying to keep this thread a FAQ for Elementary, so If you've got a question not directly related to a problem with Elementary you can send me a private message or an email instead.

Matt Hew

Thank you Kevin for the quick response! The test that I have done was awesome! I wish Andrew Kramer and his men include this work of your own in the next update of the Element 3D. 

I'll tell my friends to try this one out.  

God bless!

Mike Fourie

Hi Kevin,
when trying to create a reflection / shadow, but I get a messages saying that I need to select a layer with Element 3D, despite the fact that the layer is actually selected?
Thanks, Mike

Kevin Schires

I know the messages about the layer selection are getting quite long now that many plugins are supported, but at the bottom is written what secondary layer should be selected.

Brad Clark

I love Elementary.  But I'm having a major problem with a shadow when I render.  

I have a light animating across an object so that you see the shadow attached at the base and bending behind it.  Looks great when previewing. But when I render, the shadow is fine until that light moves across and then the shadow loses it's connection with the object and floats independently off screen.  Or I guess it seems to follow the movement of the light's point of interest.  

Please help.  I need to have this rendered and ready to show to a client early tomorrow. Thanks.

Kevin Schires

Thanks Brad,

If you have an issue such as these with Elementary it's easier that you send me an AE project on [email protected]

Pascal Fuerst

Your video about how to rig and animate a 3d robot in afx is quiet impressive.
Did you test if that would also be possible to use with kinecttopin: www.kinecttopin.fox-gieg.com/kinecttopin/
I think if there would be an esay way to use both scripts together it would open up a whole new workflow and great results entirely done with afx and a 100$ mocap device

Kevin Schires

Thanks Pascal,

I'm planning to work on the Kinect next year to simplify its use with Elementary. However nothing prevents you right now from parenting Elementary anchors to Null Objects animated for example with KinectToPin or DuIK.

The idea of Elementary was to create a bridge between 3D plugins and 3D layers. Now that the bridge is there, you can use a bit of everything to create pretty advanced stuff all within AE: https://vimeo.com/52152826

Roland Kahlenberg

My Net bandwidth is sucky. It's nearly impossible to view the tutorials. Do you have downloadable links for the tuts?

TIA

- Roland

Kevin Schires

I'm in the process of uploading tutorials in the Elementary channel on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/channels/407911

All the videos of the channel can be downloaded.

Roland Kahlenberg

Thanks Kevin!

Daniel Dust

Hello Kevin

Merci for that fantastic script.
The problems i have is similar to the one Takayoshi reported.
When i'm using "create reflection" od "create shadow", AE crashes most of the time (Videocopilot Element 3D).

I'm on Mac OSX 10.5 and using the english Version of AE 6 (11.0.2).

Thank you for your help and the great plugin

Kevin Schires

Hi guys, I won't be able to help for a week or so as I'm packing to move to a new flat. If you have any serious issue send me a project saved after the error occurs on [email protected]

Marc Tschudi

This script is incredible!! 

I know this isn't really it's purpose, but it would be really cool if you added the ability to create anchor nulls for shape layers  Creating nulls for Element and Form have really taken away the a lot of the hassle of animation and it would be a very welcome addition to do the same with shapes.

Keep up the good work!

Kevin Schires

Thanks Marc,
I'm affraid anchors wouldn't work with multiple shapes on a single Shape Layer since I think their individual transforms are 2D only (correct me if I'm wrong). I'll have a look.

Marc Tschudi

Oh sorry, didn't realize they needed to have 3D transform values. Thanks for the response! 

Toby Pitman

Hi there,

I seem to be having some issues with Elementary. I'm running CS 5.5 on Mac 10.7.5 with ATI Radeon 6970m 2gig. When I create any sort of shadow or reflection with a Spot light and try to move the light I get an error message.

'A problem occurred processing Open GL commands'


Once this has happened AE becomes unresponsive although I can still quit. Moving the camera will move the scene but jumps back to the position where the error occurred. Bit frustrated with this at the moment!

Any thoughts?

Cheers T

Kevin Schires

Toby, I'm affraid this is related to the plugin used. Several people had the same error with Element on Mac and posted about it on the VideoCopilot forum. Since Elementary doesn't do any rendering and this is a rendering issue, it may come from the fact that several instances of the plugin are used precomposed, I'm not sure. You can write me on [email protected] and tell me with which plugins it happens.

Richard Morlet

Hi Kevin

Your script is realy nice and a great thank to you. Create null objets for Element 3d is very pratical. An other thing is pratical too. When whe change the view (top by exemple) the modele in element 3d match to the new view.  In a tuttorial, we see an helicopter in the camera view. To place the pales, the author change to the top view. And the modele matcht to the top view correctly (we see the top of the model).

The problem is that is right on the CS5 but dont match  on the cs6 version of After effects.

 Do you know why ?

thank you for your response

Richard

Kevin Schires

Thanks Richard,

this issue with the orthographic cameras was a bug in CS6 that was fixed in the first update. Updating to the current version should fix it.

Simone Luchini

Hi, Kevin,
I've just open script in AE (CS6 on MAc) and an update is avaiable (Get 1.32") but in  download section in my account I cant download it cause it say is avaiable just 1.2 ver. Can you help me, please?

Many Thanks!

Kevin Schires

This is how things work for Name Your Own Price products: the updates are not available directly on your account and to download them you should do as if you were purchasing the new version, but you can still choose any amount obviously.

It's just a way to invite people to donate a couple bucks if they think the enhancements are worth it.

Roland Kahlenberg

I'm getting so many errors and weird behaviours that I don't really know where to begin to file a report. Even the simplest thing I do, moving a Particular emitter across the screen creates errors. Do you actually have a simple tutorial that is about 2 minutes long that shows how to do the simple things. I'd rather not have to watch a 30 minute tutorial about another product only to have the errors appear when I try it out. 

Scripts are supposed to be easy to apply - 

1) select layer(s)

2) apply script

Why does this script require a ridiculous number of steps??? And there are errors that abound even for the simplest thing! 

Kevin Schires

There are PDF tutorials on this very same page: https://aescripts.com/forums/discussion/comment/243#Comment_243
I'm a bit surprised by your post, could you open a support ticket and explain me which plugins you work with and what kind of errors you get?