Import and manipulate 3D models in Adobe After Effects using compatible file formats and the Advanced 3D Renderer. Understand key limitations and workflow considerations when integrating 3D assets into your compositions.
Key Insights
- After Effects supports only a limited number of 3D file formats—GLTF, GLB, OBJ, and FBX—with varying capabilities in terms of embedded textures and animation.
- The Advanced 3D Renderer must be enabled in the composition settings to work with 3D models, but this disables other features such as effects and blending modes within that composition.
- Noble Desktop’s training highlights how to manage local versus world axis modes in 3D scenes, allowing for more precise control over object orientation and movement in After Effects.
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In this lesson, we're going to learn how to work with imported 3D models in Adobe After Effects. So for this lesson, we will be using the importing 3D files started project, which is in the importing 3D files folder. Let's open that up.
I'm getting an error message, it must be converted. This is what happens whenever you open an older After Effects project. It doesn't want to automatically save over the older one because once that's done, the older version will never be able to open it again.
So it automatically gives you a conversion. It basically says convert it up in the file name. That's all it does.
Okay. I'm also getting a warning. One file is missing since you last saved this project.
Okay, nothing I can do from here. I have to deal with that once the product is open. Now it's open.
So this product has two comps in it, energy drink ad and zombie scene. They've just been pre-prepared with the size and with the background image, that sort of thing. We're just going to be adding the 3D model and working with it.
So for this part of the lesson, we'll be doing the energy drink ad and then the second part will be zombie scene. So I've got both comps here, not bad at all. If I open up the 3D folder, there are two folders here, monster can and zombies.
And these folders are just like any other folder you'd make in After Effects. And if I open up monster can, there is a file here, monstercan.gltf. That is one of the importable file formats. So thing to understand is that there are a lot of different 3D model formats that exist.
Some have animation, some have textures, some don't. But only a small handful of them can actually be imported into Adobe After Effects. gltf is one, another one is glb, obj, and also the fbx format, which is actually pretty cool.
And again, like I said, some of them have textures, some do not. Some of them can have embedded animation, some do not. It varies.
It all depends on how your 3D model was made, who made it, and what it was made for. So these files are simply imported with file import like every other file on the planet. There is nothing unique to that.
You just grab your 3D model file, it comes in, organize it in your project panel however you like. No problem. Okay, and that they're no different than any other like file, bring in an image or something.
What's the difference when you're trying to add into a composition? Okay, so first of all, energy drink, add my comp, go to my comp settings. And I'm gonna go to actually 3D Renderers here, and I'm gonna see this is already set to the Advanced 3D Renderer. Advanced 3D is the renderer that this comp needs in order to import 3D models.
It allows you to import 3D models and materials, environment shadows, that sort of thing. But it disables all the other effects. So please understand if you work with 3D models, other things you may want to do aren't going to work inside of that composition.
Doesn't mean you can't use them in other compositions, doesn't mean you can't nest, but they will not work in that composition. Okay, so 3D models, for example, can't have effects applied to them. Okay, they can't have blending modes, that sort of thing.
So there are limitations to what you can do here. I'll just say cancel to close this window. Background, I'm just going to drag in my energy drink, Monster Can GLTF.
Okay, right there. And it comes in, and you can see it's automatically a 3D object. The background, by the way, is not.
The background is static. You can see I have the transform gizmo on it. I'm hovering over the little red X. I'm going to pull it sideways, like so.
You can see I can actually rotate it along any of the axes you see here. That's the, that's right there. And it's rotating.
It's on its own central axis, of course. You can see that I can now adjust it, no problem at all. Now, one note when working with 3D layers, period, is that the coordinate system it uses can be either local to each object, or it can be changed to be global, or world axis mode.
You set that on top when you have a 3D scene, and when you have actually Selection Tool active. So right now I'm in the local axis mode. Notice the gizmo.
If I switch to the world axis mode, notice the gizmo changes. So the world axis mode, the gizmo is aligned with the actual XYZ in the world. It's not local to each individual object.
To be honest, in most situations, it's, either one will work. It really just depends on how you want to move things around. Okay, so local's fine, world's fine.
It just really depends on if you need something aligned exactly like 90 degrees to a real world object, a real 3D environment object, then switch to world mode. If you're adjusting each thing individually on its own local axis, that's fine too. So for this, I'll be using the local axis, no problem at all.
So I'm just going to adjust this to wherever I want it to be. Right there, like this. There is no actual real floor, so it doesn't really matter if I move it up or down.