ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7.0
User Guide
494
Ambient Light
Distributes light over the layer. Increasing it adds an even illumination to all objects and prevents
shadows from being totally black. Turning Ambient Light all the way to pure white and setting all other light controls
to 0 makes the object fully lit and eliminates any 3D shading from the scene.
Material controls for the Card Dance effect
The Material controls specify the reflection values of the cards.
Diffuse Reflection
Gives objects form-defining shading. Shading depends on the angle at which the light strikes the
surface and is independent of the viewer’s position.
Specular Reflection
Takes into account the position of the viewer. It models the reflection of the light source back to
the viewer. It can create the illusion of shininess. For realistic effects, you can animate this control by using higher
and higher values to mask the transition from filtered to nonfiltered versions of the layer.
Highlight Sharpness
Controls shininess. Very shiny surfaces produce small tight reflections, while duller surfaces
spread the highlight out into a larger region. Specular highlights are the color of the incoming light. Because light is
typically white or off-white, broad highlights can desaturate an image by adding white to the surface color.
In general, use the following process to adjust lighting: Set Light Position and Diffuse Reflection to control the overall
light level and shading in a scene. Then adjust Specular Reflection and Highlight Sharpness to control the strength
and spread of highlights. Finally, adjust Ambient Light to fill in the shadows.
Caustics effect
This effect simulates caustics—reflections of light at the bottom of a body of water, created by light refracting through
the water’s surface. The Caustics effect generates this reflection and creates realistic water surfaces when used with
Wave World and Radio Waves.
This effect works with 8-bpc color.
Original (left) and with Bottom set to the text layer and Water Surface set to the whirl layer with Surface Opacity set to 0% (right)
To get the most realistic results from Caustics, render the Bottom layer separately, with Render Caustics enabled and
Surface Opacity at 0. Then precompose, and use the resulting layer as the Bottom layer for another Caustics effect
with Render Caustics off. With this process you can offset, scale, or otherwise manipulate the Bottom layer in the precom-
posed composition, and thus simulate lighting that doesn’t come from straight overhead.
Bottom controls for the Caustics effect
The Bottom controls specify the appearance of the bottom of the body of water:
Bottom
Specifies the layer at the bottom of the body of water. This layer is the image that is distorted by the effect,
unless Surface Opacity is 100%.
Scaling
Makes the bottom layer larger or smaller. If the edges of the bottom layer show, because of the refraction of
the light through the waves, scale up the bottom layer. Scaling down is useful for tiling a layer to make a complex
pattern.
Summary of Contents for AFTER EFFECTS 7.0
Page 1: ...Chapter 1 User Guide...
