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One of the most important concepts to learn and make it as a professional editor is 3D camera movement.
Tutorial on creating professional 3D camera movement in After Effects: setting up depth layers, a 3D camera, animated text, and shape-layer motion graphics.
Key Takeaways
- Understanding foreground and background layer depth is essential for convincing 3D camera work in After Effects.
- Enabling depth of field with a low F-stop creates cinematic background blur that enhances 3D scenes.
- Null objects and parenting let you control groups of layers with a single movement for smoother camera-style motion.
- Eased keyframes and motion blur make animation feel natural rather than stiff.
What the video covers
- Introduces 3D camera movement as a key skill for professional editors that elevates motion graphics edits.
- Explains depth in After Effects: top layers are foreground, bottom layers are background.
- Walks through building a scene with a white solid background and a textured fabric layer rotated into a floor plane.
- Shows how to add a 3D camera with depth of field enabled and a low F-stop to create a cinematic blur.
- Demonstrates creating four 3D text layers spelling the word 'LARK' and arranging them in depth using custom views.
- Covers finding creative inspiration on Pinterest and Google as part of the 'attributes and resources' step.
- Creates animated pen-tool line shape layers using trim paths and dashed strokes for motion.
- Adds star shape layers with keyframed position and rotation for extra motion.
- Introduces null objects to control multiple layers together and parenting for coordinated movement.
- Discusses keyframe easing, using graph editor overlap, and avoiding stiff frames with linear graphs.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to 3D Camera Movement
- 00:44Setting Up the Background and Floor Plane
- 01:45Creating the 3D Camera and Depth of Field
- 02:34Adding and Arranging 3D Text Layers
- 04:48Finding Inspiration and Creating Pen-Tool Lines
- 06:42Animating Trim Paths and Dashed Strokes
- 08:42Star Shapes, Keyframes, and Easing
- 10:42Null Objects, Parenting, and Final Polish
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Okay, you can still make it without the 3D camera, but it'll level up your edits. I'll be showing you how to do this in four steps [music] using the word lark. I'm also larking during this video, but that's beside the point.
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Level one, we have levels. There are levels to this You need to know how depth works. Not only in real life, but in After Effects as well. Any layer at the top or closest to your camera is the
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foreground. [music] Anything at the bottom layer or furthest away from your camera is the background.
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[music] Let me show you. I'm going to create a new composition. These are my composition settings if you want to copy them, but yeah, those are pretty set and I'm going to press okay. And first, I'm going to make a new solid layer. So,
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this is like my background layer. So, I'm going to right [music] click this box, go under new, and then press solid, and I'm going to change this color to white, [music] and then press okay. Press okay. Boom.
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Okay, so I'm going to download like this fabric type texture background. So, what I'm going to do is press command or control I, and then I'm just going to open that, and then [music] bring it on down into my composition. Now, after
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this, I'm going to press S on my keyboard to scale it down, and then I'm going to make this 3D. [music] And then what I'm going to do is press R on this layer. I'm going to rotate the X
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position, and it should kind of look like a floor. Something like that. And now, after this, what I'm going to do is make a 3D camera. Go up to layer, new, and then do camera, and then [music] these are what my settings are on right
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now. One thing to keep in mind is making sure that depth of field is enabled. This will give you that like blurry background, and make sure your F stop is at a lower number. And then, everything else you can work around it, but this is
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okay for now. So, once I pressed okay, this is what I have so far. It already looks like pretty cinematic, and I really like that. So, we are going to be keeping this for sure. I'm going to press P on on layer as well, and I'm
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going to position this a bit [music] more back, actually. There we go. And then, I think I'm going to rotate it just a bit more and then position this downwards a bit. Okay, there we go. Now, after this, I'm going to add my text.
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I'm going to right click this box, new text, or you can go up here, layer, new, text. Up to you. But, I'm just going to type a random word, and then I'm going to remove the stroke, and I'm going to
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change the color of this to something brighter. And then, I'm going to change the font to something nice. And then, I'm going to center my text in the anchor point, and all I need to do is right click the text, go into
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transform, and then do center anchor point in layer content, and then we have that.
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And then, what I'm going to do is just duplicate this text three more times.
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So, I'm going to press command D or control D on my layer, but first, make sure you make this [music] 3D. Control D, control D, control D. So, I should have four in total, and then I'm going to change the second layer to my second
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word, and then I'm going to change the third layer [music] to my third word, and then I'm going to change the fourth word to my fourth word, which is lark.
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Now, using the knowledge that I said earlier about the foreground and the background, we're going to move the back layers to the back. So, it should look something like this in your layers, but if you change your active camera to
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custom view one, you can actually see the layers, and this is what we want.
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What I'm going to do is move the word lark all the way to the back, and I'm going to press P on the layer, and then I'm just going to position this backwards like so, and then I can move
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this to the side a bit. And then, what I'm going to do is move two a little back. It should be some spacing between them. And then, I'm going to move [music] like, and I'm going to position this this way a bit.
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I'm going to position two this way as well. And then, the word I, we can honestly keep it there, but I'm just going to position it forward a bit, and then we have something like that. Now, if we go
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back to our active camera, as we can see, everything is getting blurrier in the back, and that's what we want. You can also move this eye closer. And then after this, what I'm going to do is rotate it. So, I'm going to rotate the
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text a little bit. Press R on your keyboard, by the way, and you can do this however you want.
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And if you want, you can go back to your custom view one, [music] edit that. But, yeah. And then I'm going to go back to active camera.
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And then, yeah. That's what we should have so far. Now, for level two and three, yes, these are together. We have attributes and resources. Think of interesting ways to spice up your edit.
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Get creative. I always say this, but look at Pinterest. It has so many resources and so many like inspiring things. Just look at it. But, Google and Safari works, too. Now, for this part, I'm just going to add a bunch of shape
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layers and go up to layer, new, and shape layer. Make sure fill is off. So, just click fill and then click that if it's on. But, yeah. Make sure it's off.
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And then the stroke, make sure it's at three. And then you can do any color.
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I'm just going to stick with the red. But, after this, what I'm going to do is use my pen tool. Now, speaking of depth, this shape layer should be like in the center because we kind of want it to be
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in the foreground and background. So, keep that in mind. Start right here and just make a random line, I guess. Just like create a shape that looks cool and like I don't know how to explain that. But, yeah.
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You kind of want to create like a cool line. Doesn't need to be too [music] long, but yeah. After you have something like this, what we're going to do now is go into our custom view one. And then
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what we're going to do is click that shape layer and make it 3D. And once it's 3D, what we're going to do is press R on that layer and we're going to rotate it. We want to change the X
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rotation, so then it kind of like goes down like this. Position it where you want. Here, I'm going to also look back at my active camera and make sure it's where I want it to be. And then, of course, if you want,
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you can stretch this out as well. So, that's not bad. And then, if we go back to rotation, we can add a bit of an angle to it if we want it. Like, we can move it to the side. That's pretty cool,
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actually. I think I'll keep that. Cool. But, yeah, once you're back in your active camera, go under shape layer one, press add, and then click trim paths. You're going to go under trim paths, change the ending to zero. Make sure
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you're at the beginning of your timeline, click the stopwatch for end, go forward a few frames, and then change it to 100. And then, once you play this back, it should like move. I am going to actually add some dashes to it. So, if
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you go under shape one, and if you go under stroke, you can add dashes. Just click this plus button, and then we have some nice dashes. I think I'm going to change the offset, honestly. So, all you need to do is go to the beginning of
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your keyframe, click the stopwatch for offset, go forward a few frames, and then change the offset to a higher or negative number. Honestly, I think I'll do negative since I want it to move forward because I changed the end graph
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instead of the start graph for the trim path. Hope that makes sense. What I'm going to do is add a few more shape layers. So, layer new, shape layer. I'm going to add fill again, change the stroke to zero, and change the shape of
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it. I think I'm going to do the star tool, and then I'm just going to make a star like this. Make it 3D, and then I'm going to scale this down, actually. And then, I'm going to position it like so.
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Now, I'm just going to make the star rotate. It's pretty blurry, but I hope you can see. But, just press R on your shape layer, make a stopwatch for Z rotation, and then you're going to go forward a few frames, and just rotate it
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some. And yeah, this is going to be a linear graph, so you don't even have to easy ease it or whatever. It should just rotate in the background. And now, I'm going to add one more shape layer. So,
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layer new, shape layer. I'm going to do some circles, I think. Make sure they're 3D, by the way. I'm just going to position this backwards, [music] like so. And then, what I'm going to do is animate them. I'm going to press P on
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this layer, click the stopwatch, go forward a few frames. I'm going to make it jump up and down kind of. So, I'm going to go forward a few frames again, make it go down, go a few frames forward [music]
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go up, and then after that, I'm just going to copy these keyframes. So, command C, and then control V, and then once you play it back, it should just move. I'm just going to easy ease these, and then I am going to duplicate this so
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I don't have to do extra work. So, go up to layer, press new, and then do null object. But, what we need to do is make this null layer 3D, connect the shape layer to the null layer, and then
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we're just going to position it to the side like we want it to. And then we can change the scale. Okay, cool. I don't want to make this too extreme. I kind of want to keep it pretty simple so you can
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like you can be creative on your own. And finally, level three, we have parenting. Null layers are very important and [music] you know, I went over it just a little bit, but they help your edit become smoother. But, that's
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only if you overlap your graphs. And always make sure that your edit is moving. If there's a stiff frame, add a linear graph on top of your already existing graph. Yeah, to add a null layer, all I have to do is go up to
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layer, go under new, and then click null object. And if you want, you can change the color of this to whatever you want.
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I'm going to do orange. That's just so you can decipher everything. But, after you do this, you need to make it 3D.
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Null layers also have to be 3D. But, what you need to do is move the camera on top of the null layer, and what you're going to do is connect everything else to the null layer, except the white
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solid and the camera. If you add the camera to the null layer, it will not work, so don't try to add the camera to the null layer. What we're going to do is click this first layer, which is I,
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and then you're going to hold shift, and then click the bottom layer, and then you're going to connect this swirly thing to the null layer. So, connect this to the null object. Once you press P on your keyboard and move
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the position, it should move like so. So, we're actually going to make a stopwatch for scale, position, and rotation. So, click S, click the stopwatch, click P on your keyboard, click the stopwatch, and then press R on your keyboard, and then just click all
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these stopwatches. Doesn't matter. And then, you're going to press U on your keyboard. It should bring up all your keyframes. And then, you're going to go forward a few frames, and what we're going to do is zoom in on this eye, and
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we can rotate it a bit as well. I really suggest you getting creative with it. Do some nice cool angles, and yeah. I'm going to move the position as well. I think this is the most fun part, but
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it's also the most consuming, honestly. As you can see, the depth of field and stuff, it's like messing with the thing.
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So, if you want to double-click that camera, you can edit the settings, of course.
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And yeah, that's usually why I like to set everything up first. I kind of like this wide-angle lens, so I'm going to keep the focal distance around that length. So, as you can see, when I move back, I can see the eye clearly. And
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then, after this, I'm going to move it in the next spot. Make sure you're moving the position, by the way. Once you have ended the graph where you want it to end, what you're going to do is highlight over all these keyframes. All
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you need to do is right-click one of the keyframes, keyframe assistant, easy ease. And then, you're going to go into your graph editor, and what we're going to be using is a speed graph. If it's on value graph, just click this, go into
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speed graph, and then voila. But yeah, once you go into your graph editor, your graph should look something like this.
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It might look a little overstimulating, but it's not as bad. Trust, trust, trust. Highlight over this corner section, and then we're going to squeeze that bad boy in, and then we're going to highlight over this other corner, and
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then squeeze it again. And basically, we're selecting all the keyframes, thankfully, so you don't have to go through all them one by one. That just saves you time. But once you play it back, you should get something smooth
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like this. Ooh, that's noise. So, we're going to make another null layer, so layer, new null object. We're going to change the color yet again to orange. Make it 3D.
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And then connect the null layer three to your null layer four. Make sure you're in the middle of these graphs right here. And then do the same thing.
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Stopwatch for scale, stopwatch for position, stopwatch for rotation. Press U on your keyboard to bring up all your key frames. And then you're going to go forward a few more frames. And then we're going to focus on the word two. So
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I'm going to move the position to go on the word two kind of. And as you can see that depth of field we kind of want to play into that. So we can like move it right here. And then after that we're
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just going to highlight everything. Easy ease. And then go into your graph editor and then highlight over this corner. Go in. Highlight over this corner. Go in.
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And then once you play it back once it has moved to your liking y'all see what I did there? We're going to add yet another null layer. So layer new null object. Change the color if you want. Make it 3D. And then connect this
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new null layer, null layer four to null layer five. Go in the middle of these key frames. Press S. Press P. And press rotation. Click all those stopwatches.
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Press U. Go forward a few frames. And then we're just going to rotate it this way again. And we're going to rotate it that way a bit. And then we're going to move position again. And it should be
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focused on the word lark. I'm like trying to find these interesting angles because yeah I like you like this low angle right here. If you run into this problem where it's going through the word, all you have to do is change the
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opacity of the word. So I'm going to go to my word like. Press T on the layer to bring up opacity. Click the stopwatch.
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And then go forward a few frames. And then change it to zero. And then yeah, that's just so it fades away. I'm just going to graph this last thing. Easy ease it. Highlight the corner. Push it in. Highlight this corner. Push it in.
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And then once you play this back, it should be all good to go. But anyways, guys, I am done with this tutorial, basically.
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I think it looks very good. Of course, you can add motion blur. I'm just going to add that because I love motion blur. It just makes everything like come together, I guess. And also, [music] if you want, you can scale up
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any layers that you need to. I think I need to scale this one up, yeah. I'm just going to add motion blur. You don't have to add motion blur to the null layers, by the way. But yeah, we're
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we're all done with this tutorial. Hey, you beat the game. This is the end of the LARP session. I hope you learned something new. Thanks for watching. I love you, and I'll catch you in the next video. Bye.
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[music] [music]
Topics:After Effects3D camera movementmotion graphicstutorialdepth of fieldnull objectkeyframestrim pathstext animationvideo editing
