Sorry, i saw all the previous msg and i guessed it because i dont have the new pluging thats why i got this error msg. I try to get the pluging ADD to CArt but nothing happen!
I had a problem with elemantary,I was going to write it to script page but unfortunally I need a fast answer.Hope u forgive
Anyway problem is old elem. was working fine,then element3d updated and After Effects Warning: expression result must be of dimension 1, not 2 problem popped out.So in orded to fix that I updated it and now when I click something in elemantary(like minimaze,create shadow etc.) After Effect just close down.No error or anything else.Besides dimension problem still not fixed.Will be glad if u answer back.
Just downloaded the Beta 1.51 Elementary and I have to say so far... ITS WONDERFUL. Thanks a million. gonna be putting it through the ringer the next couple weeks. I want to officially say I dloaded it without paying anything to give it this test, once complete I PROMISE I will pay. Is it best when Version 1.6 comes out to just pay and download then or a way to donate? Thanks so much man!
Hey Kevin! any way to use the shadows feature and have an element 3D layer changing opacity and have the shadow reflect that change? any known work arounds?
It recognize basically off/then on. CLicks on before the opacity layer even reveals itself. Basically wondering if there is a smoothing transition possible in some way.
Hi Guys, I have a problem :-/ I'm using the tool 3D shadow (for Element 3D) In after effects, shadows are working (capture1.jpg)... but in my rendering nothing appears (Render1.png) There is an option to check ? or i have a mistake in my comp ?
Salut Cédric, je vais répondre an Anglais mais tu peux m'écrire directement via PM si tu veux.
I've already seen this with someone who had CS5 (I think) but you seem to have CS6, no? Can you first check that if you create two native 3D layers, you can export a comp where these layers catch shadows on each other?
I know that with some graphics cards, there's a problem in AE which results in shadows not being rendered. The guy who had this issue was able to get shadows exported properly when disabling OpenGL (you can't do that in CS6 if I remember properly) but then it's Element that wouldn't appear in the final renders! All he could do was export RAM previews.
Looking forward to testing your script. I am using Element 3D 1.5 and am trying to cast a shadow by applying to a spot light or the Element Layer. I get the message that it must be apllied only to lights (other than ambient) or an Element 3D layer. I have tried both types of layers and get the same message.
Hey Geoffrey, you need to select a light AND a layer with a 3D plugin. This way the script knows where the shadow is cast from, and which layer should be used for the shadow.
sorry about this, it's another bug of CS5 that prevents the script from working properly. please open a support ticket for a beta that should fix this.
Thank you for your solution to my problem, the beta is working fine.
I mean, I still have no idea what I am doing (don't worry, I will soon learn) but at least it is not crashing AE anymore.
I'd like to point out how fast and efficiently you adressed the situation.
I work with people (and they are being paid for it) that could learn a lot from the way you handeld this.
Thank you.
Edit:
Ok I learned a little bit and have 2 questions
1- I don't seem to have a "accept shadow ONLY" option (as mentioned in the pdf help file). only ON and OFF (although I have a cast shadow only). I suspect this option came with higher version than mine (CS5).
I know of a workaround (white solid set to multiply) but am I missing something
2- I can create a reflection on a solid from a 3D element with anchor but when I try to create a reflection from a 3D element with a depth anchor, the reflection does not appear on the solid but rather on the edge of the main comp, almost outside of it. what am i doing wrong
So for 1): I thought that Accepts Shadows > Only came with Casts Shadows > Only in CS5, but apparently it must have been added in CS5.5 or CS6. The best way to do that is indeed to have a white solid set to multiply as shadow catcher.
For 2), I thought I had made sure that depth anchors and reflections would work together, but trying to get everything to work together (shadows/reflections + depth sorting) is a bit hard.
If something strange happens with a reflection or a shadow, the first thing to do is to go into the shadow/reflection comp and make sure the effect layer is centered in the comp. I think Elementary will "un-depth-sort" a layer when creating a reflection, if not you can do it manually by Shift+clicking the Delete button, which reset layers that are depth sorted. Then check that the layer is centered.
Doesn't recognize my element layer to add reflections to, no matter what I do or what variations of things I select it cannot find it. Works great otherwise would really love to see this work with element!
Anthony, for Element 1.6 you need to use the beta of Elementary (1.51, should be available from your account). I should be able to update it very soon.
Element 1.6 and Elementary 1.51 Beta installed. OSX, CS5, crashes everytime I try to try create a shadow. I have the white solid set to multiply, spot light casts shadows, both solids accept shadows = yes.
Just a warning for people using CC: there is a bug in After Effects CC for script panels which prevents some buttons from working properly. I have reported it and so did Ben Rollason but hasn't been fixed by Adobe yet.
Write for more info/betas: please open a support ticket
Just a warning for people using CC: there is a bug in After Effects CC for script panels which prevents some buttons from working properly. I have reported it and so did Ben Rollason but hasn't been fixed by Adobe yet.
Write for more info/betas: please open a support ticket
And what can we do with this? Plug-in does not work in CC unfortunately. Thanx..
There's a simple workaround but because I'm in the middle of correcting the script this bug of After Effects came at the wrong time: a few features might be a bit buggy, which is why I'd rather only give the new beta on request for the moment.
I can’t get most of Elementary to work. No shadows other than the shadows I have from my AE lights. No reflection on floor and is just 3d Stroke mask with no line in pre comp. I have After Effects CS6. [email protected]
Hi kevin, i'm using your wonderful script to get reflections for my element 3D layers.
I have the problem, that i get Expression erros on certain other workstations, when i open the project.
There are several Expression errors all regarding to a wrong dimension. I attached a screenshot of one error message for one parameter. I've used the beta version 1.51 of elementary.
What it makes so strange is, that the project can be opened on 2 workstations without problems, but not on the others. I even ran the Expression Universalizer Script, but the erros is still the same.
Do you know of this problem? Is there a possible solution?
Well I didn't do anything, you solved this yourself!
I do think it was a problem with the version of Element, nothing else makes sense. And BTW I don't think the Expression Universalizer would work with Elementary since I think I tried to always use language-independent expressions in Elementary.
So if you another issue with expressions it's most probably either a naming issue (2 comps, layers or effects with the same name) or a mismatch in plugin versions ... or a bug!
I just posted this to the Simple Camera Rig forum and wondered if you had any ideas?
I'm having a problem with SCR and Elementary script - I'm trying to use both but it seems they conflict and the elementary reflection feature doesn't work - I know this is a tricky one as it's down to compatibilities between both of your scripts but wondered if you'd run into this before (and if you use elementary)?
Would be nice to be able to get both scripts working together.
Just kidding. Just to be sure, do you have the latest version of Elementary? There are a few bugs with ScripUI in CC so I had to update the script for a workaround. I may be wrong but SCR isn't really a script, it's only set up using scripts which have no UI, right? I don't see why both products would clash ...
Usually incompatibilities between scripts are due to a "lack of safety" in the code, but we discussed all that with other authors earlier this year ... which doesn't mean it won't happen again though!
lol yes - that was a paste from a post I wrote on the SCR forum - so I was asking Jerzy if he used your script.
Would sure be odd if you didn't use your own script at least occasionally
I've been using elementary quite a bit on a project over the last few days and have a question relating to reflections. I wonder if you'd mind giving me your thoughts:
How close to a real reflection is the reflection created by elementary? Should the lighting and environment reflections look very close to a ray traced reflection say?
I find that a bit of an odd question, but basically a reflection created by Elementary will be pixel-perfect since it's using a comp-size precomp for the reflection, and as the precomped layer used for the reflection has copies of all the lights the 3D plugin has all the info to recreate the correct lighting.
However Elementary doesn't create extra lights to simulate the relfection of light on the mirror and back to the main object, because then it would add many light to the main comp and it can get a bit complex to handle. I've been meaning to add this as a feature though, but you can also fake that pretty easily by adding a couple dummy lights "inside" the mirror before creating the reflection.
The only thing missing when compared to ray-tracing would be reflection roll-off since currently it's based on the fog, but I'm trying to improve that using e.g. the world position pass for Element.
Another one I'm afraid - should the reflection properly handle groups moving apart from each other? I'm currently seeing some weird behaviour but wonder if that's just my setup?
It should, yes. However there are 2 different modes for the linkage of the main comp and the pre-comps: Full or Minimal.
If it's in Minimal mode, then some changes may not be cascaded into the shadow/reflection by default, and you need to select the precomp and click "Make Min" in order to re-enable linkage for the properties that weren't linked: https://vimeo.com/61967359
Minimal is preferred to Full since it only links what's necessary, so rendering should be a bit faster.
But you know, if you changed a lot of things AFTER the reflection was created and things become strange just select the reflection comp and click Delete to get rid of it, then re-create another one.
Great, the full linkage solved some problems with the reflections moving in the wrong direction. Been rendering out a project for the last 4 hours - very happy. Superb results
One thing I've found that would be really helpful is some kind of switch to turn all of the instances of E3D from full render to draft etc. once you start creating multiple comps with associated reflections and shadows etc, AE can really slow to a crawl. Working in draft mode helps a lot. Maybe a switch linked to all instances that elementary creates would be a good idea?
For this project I was using reflections at only 10% and so could set the reflection to draft mode. That sped up the render a bit more. Maybe an option to set this during creation would also be useful?
for Element the "Render Mode" of the original effect will control that of the reflection, so if you set it to Draft in the main effect, the reflection will also go to draft. Same thing for the depth of field: if you enable/disblae it on the main camera, it'll follow in the reflection. Tell me if that doesn't work.
Do give the minimal mode a try: the idea is that everytime you move something and you don't see stuff updating in the reflection comp, you need to select the Make Min button with one or several reflection and shadow comps selected.
Or you can create the reflection and shadows in Full mode and then at some point select all the precomps created by Elementary and click Make Min: this will make the linkage minimal which can improve render speed for some plugins.
Yes - I saw the linkage for the full/draft option - but in my project as I was setting a low amount of reflectivity (10%), I could actually set the reflection to preview while the main model was on full render- that helped speed things up and there was no noticeable difference to the quality of the reflection. Everything seems to be working as it should otherwise.
This project was made up of 8 sub comps, each with an E3D model + reflection. Whilst designing and working on the project I had the need to keep going into each E3D layer and switching between draft, full etc - that's why I thought it would be a nice option to have that setting linked to a master control maybe. If you don't think that's a useful thing to have Elementary control, maybe I just need to create some expressions and link each instance of E3D to a master null somewhere and that would control it? I'm not sure how you control a non-numeric value of a plugin item though? I did look at your expressions but haven't worked out the values you have in the brackets - does each property in an effect have a numeric value?
Maybe that's a good idea for a separate script - find all instances of E3D, create a null and expression controls, link to the draft/full/preview. So you have an easy way to switch quickly
Re the minimal mode - are the items that are set to be linked pre-defined or are they linked based on changed values from the E3D layer i.e. does the script check for modified values and link each property that needs it? That would make sense I guess.
OK, I didn't understand you wanted to control the reflection/shadows separately from the main effect. I'll be revamping Elementary soon to allow it to have more functions, I'll try to put that in there.
In Minimal mode, Elementary detects which properties need to be changed whatever the effect or plugin used: it's not only for Element and there's nothing predefined, the script compares all the settings of the "slave" effects to that of the "master" and enables linkage only for the properties that you changed in the master.
Note that it's not an "update" thing: once you change a new property in the master and click Make Min for the slave, then the slave will always follow the master when you change that property and you wont need to click Make Min again (unless you change something else). I did think this through ;-)
I've been following your helicopter tutorial. I have version 1.55 and there isn't a Lock/Unlock button to lock the layer so I can adjust the Anchor point. Can you help me with this? Just found out about this script on the VCopilot forum for Element while looking for an answer for fixing the rotation of helicopter blades.
Reveal the Help panel and hover the Static/Free button, it'll tell you how to get the Lock/Unlock feature (you need to press Shift basically).
The new Static/Free is pretty nice since it's almost a real 3D pan behind tool using the Arrow Tool. Lock/Unlock does the same thing except that you have to enter the position manually, not with the arrow tool.
I meant to ask before - can you use the static/free facility to set the rotation of the anchor? I tried it in a few ways but it didn't seem to allow me to set the rotation of the anchor - i.e. if I want to align the rotation to a model so I can set an accurate rotation value and also be able to move the model piece along an axis relative to the model.
Hi, I just purchased your plugin and already have a newbie question sorry. I'm trying to cast shadows from a standard 3d comp onto and element 3d layer.
I've tried selecting my light then element 3d layer and hitting the shadow button, and also tried my normal 3d layer and light and hitting shadow but I cant get any shadows to appear, is this possible ?
I have light set to cast shadows and my 3d layer set to cast shadows in material attributes Many thanks
I select element 3d and 1 light.
Hi kevin;
I had a problem with elemantary,I was going to write it to script page but unfortunally I need a fast answer.Hope u forgive
Anyway problem is old elem. was working fine,then element3d updated and After Effects Warning: expression result must be of dimension 1, not 2 problem popped out.So in orded to fix that I updated it and now when I click something in elemantary(like minimaze,create shadow etc.) After Effect just close down.No error or anything else.Besides dimension problem still not fixed.Will be glad if u answer back.
Thanks best regards
I also recorded a video about crashing;
Hey kevin will be glad if you take a look at my problem.
Cheers
Hi Kevin.
Could you look at it. How do you think, what is the problem?
http://radikal.ru/F/s017.radikal.ru/i430/1305/74/b74a206129c2.jpg.html
I have a problem :-/
I'm using the tool 3D shadow (for Element 3D)
In after effects, shadows are working (capture1.jpg)... but in my rendering nothing appears (Render1.png)
There is an option to check ? or i have a mistake in my comp ?
Thank for your answers ;-)
Have a good day !
en fait si j'avais su, j'aurai écrit en francçais ;-)
Looking forward to testing your script. I am using Element 3D 1.5 and am trying to cast a shadow by applying to a spot light or the Element Layer. I get the message that it must be apllied only to lights (other than ambient) or an Element 3D layer. I have tried both types of layers and get the same message.
AE CS6 / Windows 7 64.
Thanks,
[email protected]
Thanks,
Geoffrey
Thanx..
[email protected]
I have the problem, that i get Expression erros on certain other workstations, when i open the project.
There are several Expression errors all regarding to a wrong dimension. I attached a screenshot of one error message for one parameter. I've used the beta version 1.51 of elementary.
What it makes so strange is, that the project can be opened on 2 workstations without problems, but not on the others. I even ran the Expression Universalizer Script, but the erros is still the same.
Do you know of this problem? Is there a possible solution?
All the best,
Paul
yes, that was my first check! Anyway, i reinstalled Element as simple test on one of the workstations and now its seems so to be working
Thank you very much Kevin
Paul
Hi Kevin,
I just posted this to the Simple Camera Rig forum and wondered if you had any ideas?
I'm having a problem with SCR and Elementary script - I'm trying to use both but it seems they conflict and the elementary reflection feature doesn't work - I know this is a tricky one as it's down to compatibilities between both of your scripts but wondered if you'd run into this before (and if you use elementary)?
Would be nice to be able to get both scripts working together.
Cheers,
Paul.
lol yes - that was a paste from a post I wrote on the SCR forum - so I was asking Jerzy if he used your script.
Would sure be odd if you didn't use your own script at least occasionally
I've been using elementary quite a bit on a project over the last few days and have a question relating to reflections. I wonder if you'd mind giving me your thoughts:
How close to a real reflection is the reflection created by elementary? Should the lighting and environment reflections look very close to a ray traced reflection say?
Another one I'm afraid - should the reflection properly handle groups moving apart from each other? I'm currently seeing some weird behaviour but wonder if that's just my setup?
Thanks.
One thing I've found that would be really helpful is some kind of switch to turn all of the instances of E3D from full render to draft etc. once you start creating multiple comps with associated reflections and shadows etc, AE can really slow to a crawl. Working in draft mode helps a lot. Maybe a switch linked to all instances that elementary creates would be a good idea?
For this project I was using reflections at only 10% and so could set the reflection to draft mode. That sped up the render a bit more. Maybe an option to set this during creation would also be useful?
Thanks Kevin.
Yes - I saw the linkage for the full/draft option - but in my project as I was setting a low amount of reflectivity (10%), I could actually set the reflection to preview while the main model was on full render- that helped speed things up and there was no noticeable difference to the quality of the reflection. Everything seems to be working as it should otherwise.
This project was made up of 8 sub comps, each with an E3D model + reflection. Whilst designing and working on the project I had the need to keep going into each E3D layer and switching between draft, full etc - that's why I thought it would be a nice option to have that setting linked to a master control maybe. If you don't think that's a useful thing to have Elementary control, maybe I just need to create some expressions and link each instance of E3D to a master null somewhere and that would control it? I'm not sure how you control a non-numeric value of a plugin item though? I did look at your expressions but haven't worked out the values you have in the brackets - does each property in an effect have a numeric value?
Maybe that's a good idea for a separate script - find all instances of E3D, create a null and expression controls, link to the draft/full/preview. So you have an easy way to switch quickly
Re the minimal mode - are the items that are set to be linked pre-defined or are they linked based on changed values from the E3D layer i.e. does the script check for modified values and link each property that needs it? That would make sense I guess.
Thanks again Kevin.
Ooh, Kevin,
I meant to ask before - can you use the static/free facility to set the rotation of the anchor? I tried it in a few ways but it didn't seem to allow me to set the rotation of the anchor - i.e. if I want to align the rotation to a model so I can set an accurate rotation value and also be able to move the model piece along an axis relative to the model.
Thanks,
Paul.
Many thanks