Part 3_3D VR Environment Setup

Illustrated Animations for Virtual Reality_Using Adobe After Effects & Autodesk Sketchbook

Published in

CIEproductions

3 min readMar 21, 2018

This project requires us to make three 3D rooms. For this we decided we will do projection mapping in AFX. This method simply requires us to get a still photo of a room from which you then ‘trace’ the dimensions.

We used Mikey’s tut for a basic introduction https://youtu.be/6yHQagGyMD4?list=PLMVhEsUwPuYcr8DQnsJsW2rLckdayzDDi

This depth map then acts as the basic form of a structure in AFX’s 3d space.

From here we can add a camera layer and manipulate the rest of the environment. This means that we are going to need to get a photo to represent the textures of our room’s environment. These might either be pictures of rooms, however for our project, as we are referencing abstract concept to portray, it might not be good for coherence if we opt with realistic looking textures for these planes.

*Here’s the Follow Up Blog on textures

Adobe After Effects Composition Setup:

1) Set up a new composition with the right aspect ratio:

Our Choice — We think it’s best to leave the VR camera for later, so we’re going with Option 1, however we will make the comp size the same as the Skybox master (see below for details).

2048 x 2048

*Below are the options to consider —

Option 1:

Create Own Comp and add camera after —

Option 2

Create Skybox Comp with camera’s already placed

This is the older version of After Effects with the Skybox Mettle plugin interface. Now lately the AFX CC 2018 version these plugins are integrated into the program, so I had to do the upgrade and figure out where these effects I’ve come to know as the above, are integrated into the program now (cause VR is native now, yeah!

https://www.mettle.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/SkyBox-Navigation-Chart1.pdf

*See here for Skybox/Adobe integration chart. So now you press either one of these buttons to make your project VR:

-Create Cubemap

-Extract Cubemap

2) Make 3D Rooms

Ready and import reference texture images for room planes

*I need to use the texture images I chose and finish off their colour gradients in order to make the rooms’ overall colour schemes fit into my template colour palette for this project range (See blog on colour templates here)