Today in this tutorial, we’re going to look at some basic features of Element for creating 3D titles. We’ll explore creating and extruding 3D text, some simple animation, and some tips on making the title look pretty good.
The title is inspired by the movie “Total Recall” which was just released 2 days ago. By the way, it was a horrible movie and I wouldn’t suggest watching it in theaters. Great concept, horribly executed. We won’t design the title exactly like the original, but the tutorial should give you a very good idea on how to do it.
Tips & Suggestions
As always, experiment with the design and play around with lighting. The lighting and environment reflections plays a huge role in Element, so mess around and get it right. I cannot emphasize this enough, lighting & reflections can change the whole look of your animation. Play with materials and intensities as well to fine tune the look.
Try adding a digital glitch effect either using Twitch or Data Glitch. You can even try to do it with After Effects’ built-in tools here. Play around and try to get some cool digital glitchy look, tweak up the animation and give it your own twist.
Also, in the original animation I created a very subtle atmosphere to give a sense of volumetric space. You can do this with some very light smoke, dust, or even particles. Even throw in a dark texture in the background to fill the empty space, you want to give it more subtle variation because this animation is already basic as it is. Lastly, I’d recommend color correcting/grading a lot better than how I demonstrated it in the tutorial, it was just a quick correction to give you an idea.
Hopefully this tutorial gave you a brief idea on working with Element, it’s a great plugin for simple 3D titles for mograph and I’d highly recommend it. Is it a Cinema 4D replacement? Of course not, but it allows us to create simple stuff without using Cinema 4D. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them below!
Sorry Vinhson.. I don’t have the money to buy E3D right now…also I am a 3 months baby in AE so wont go for those plugins right now….
I would be very happy if you can kindly make some more tutorials in TC form and particular as I have bought these two.
Thank you
Thanks for the feedback Sen! I’ll see what I can whip up with the Trapcode Suite, they’re an excellent bunch of plugins and I’m glad you bought that first as your first plugin set.
Why aren’t use this font http://ufonts.com/fonts/agency.html
I think I mentioned it in the video, no need to. I’m not trying to copy the trailer titles exactly, that’d be no fun!
http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/workflow/enhance-your-images-with-holos-ae-plus/
do similar tutorial please (: the other is expensive because. English is not very good. with the help of google translate
Hi Vinhson,
I was wondering what graphics card you use and what spec machine you have. Andrew uses PC so I’d like an opinion of a MAC user. Did you upgrade your card due to the latest features of CS6 and Element3D?
Hey Damian, I’m using a AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1GB on the newest and top tiered iMac, it’s nice and works fine for my needs. Recently, I’ve been using my MacBook Pro (2.9gHZ Intel Dual Core i7, 16GB RAM, Intel HD 4000) for a lot of my work because I’m always mobile. The Intel HD 4000 completely sucks at anything OpenGL related, at least in AE, but the machine itself runs very smooth and nice in AE for a laptop.
I did not upgrade my GPU to a “supported CUDA” card mostly because I can’t, and I can’t afford it even if I could, you’d need a Mac Pro to replace it. My advice is to not care too much about CS6′s new features, the ray tracing is lacking and is too hogging on resources. As for Element, the plugin utilizes all the recent graphics card pretty well, even cards 4 years old. Honestly, if I didn’t care about user experience, I’d stick with my PC and max it out, but it’s all self preference
Hi Vinhson
I am useing a Macbook pro 13 inch, Processor: 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM and graphics card: Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB. I also have Mac OS Lion 10.7 and Adobe After Effects CS 6
Do you know how this graphics card will work with Element 3D?
Jes!:)
It doesn’t work well, I wouldn’t recommend it as Element doesnt even support Intel GPU
VinhSon, thanks for sharing this as…always appreciate the time and effort you put forth to share your insight. Extrememly appreciated by someone just getting in to the jazzier side of AE…keep up the great work…and thank you
Thanks for your awesome support man, greatly appreciate it!