Chapter14.Station ID

Chapter 14. Station ID

If someone asked you how to add more depth to a scene in After Effects, you might first rattle off the names of several effects, such as any of the Perspective or Distort effects, or the various Emboss effects. Those work well to give depth to individual elements in a scene. But to give the entire scene more depth, you can add elements to the foreground or frame the scene to create the illusion.

This chapter's project uses a combination of both those methods to create a "deep" scene. To give you a running head start, the book's DVD provides you with some video footage of a city landscape on top of which you can build your project. You'll create an animated iris or aperture to frame the scene and use effects to give the aperture its style and some substance. Finally, you'll use Zaxwerks' 3D Invigorator effect to extrude and animate a 2D drawing.