To make the film visually interesting & memorable we took some great live action shots and incorporated 3D text & imagery into the world.

A fair of amount PFTrack was required – with the opening shot a huge handheld walk-through from exterior of a building, through interior and down the corridors – tricky tracking but a success in the end!

Graphic elements were created with 3DSMax, rendered out with VRay & then comp’d together with After Effects.

A question I’ve seen asked time and again! It should obviously be really simple – but unless you know where to look I think it can cause a lot of headaches.

Now there’s a few ways to do this but the quickest & easiest way is to simply keyframe the objects Visibility parameter.

Where’s this parameter?

Right-Click the object or group you want to affect & choose Object Properties.

Now inside here you can simply set the Visibility parameter.

0 = off/invisible  1 = on/fully visible

[You can also specify here if you want to affect a layer rather than an object.]

Keyframing this on adjacent frames will give you an instant switch off/on – while separating the keyframes will give you a fade on/off affect.

NOTE : In order for this to work over time ensure you are in animation mode when setting your values.

The parameter box will show red, along with the trackbar & Auto Key box – keyframes will appear on the trackbar for easy tweaking.

Any problems then drop me a message.

Happy fading.

I’m taking over this space to keep a running blog of my professional and personal work with 3D Motion Graphics – especially focusing on my favourite software tools 3dsMax & After Effects – alongside others such as Adobe Creative Suite tools, PFTrack & the VRay rendering system.

I really hope I can bring you some interesting & useful posts.

So stay tuned…

See you soon
Dave