Crafting Dynamic 3D Scenes in After Effects: Lighting and Shadows Explained

Now that we have our layers spaced out in 3D space, I want to add a light to this. So I can get some shadows and that sort of thing. Then I'm going to animate the light in the camera moving forward so we can get some motion in this.

So let's make a light. I've got Layer, New, Light. Now for the record, there are several different types of lights that you can make.

Once created, a light can be converted to any other type. So it's not a problem if you don't like the one you're making and always change it. So for this, I'm going to go with a point light.

I'll leave the color white, intensity 100%. 100 is not the max value for this, by the way. But with a white light, if you go much above 100, it starts to like burn everything out.

All off is none. I'm going to turn on cast shadows. I'll make the shadow darkness a little lower, maybe 80%.

And maybe let's do about maybe 40 for this. The darkness controls how dark the shadows are, which is what it implies. Maybe I'll go a little lower, maybe 60% for this actually.

And the diffusion is the softness of the edges. So zero diffusion would have a really hard-edged shadow. A really high number for diffusion would make a really faded out shadow.

Now I can change this later, no big deal. I'm going to see what I got. OK.

And there's a little note at the bottom that no one ever reads. But it's why I'm not probably going to get any shadows when I first start this. It's like, oh, no shadows.

1. What I do have, again, is a silhouette for that first ring. Because the light is right there.

The ring is behind it. So it's backlit. I'm just going to grab that light.

I'll click on empty space to deselect. The easy way to move a light is really to click and drag it at once. Click and drag like that.

And I'm just going to move it back here. So it's with the camera. It's got to be careful not to grab any of the individual arrows I see here.

Because it would limit it moving in only that direction. So I'm looking to be able to move it entirely. So maybe over there is good.

But I still have no shadows. The reason I have no shadows is because that little note on the dialog box says that shadows are only cast from layers that have cast shadows enabled to layers that are set to receive them. And for some reason, while every layer is set to receive them by default, every layer is also set to not cast them by default.

So I got to change this option. I'm going to go to the rings. Rings, rings, rings, rings, rings.

And I really wish this would appear in properties. But it does not. I'm going to open up one of the rings.

Now they're all highlighted. I'm going to go to material options, which is a 3D only option, by the way. And I'm going to find that cast shadows option.

Just click it on. Now I have shadows. Okay.

By the way, the option, the button has three choices. Off, on, and only. Only would cast shadows, but not see any of the content layers.

I only did it for the rings because the background is on the behind it. And it fills up the screen. So having it cast shadows would be a waste of time.

Like that. And I can close it. And I got my shadows.

Now if I edit that light, point light, I'll just double click on it. I can actually see my changes in real time. So maybe I want to go to a 40 darkness.

It's often like that. Okay. I don't actually.

I want like 60 is good, I think. Maybe even higher at 70, depending on how dark you want it to be. I might actually go for a higher shadow diffusion.

Maybe softer edge. I'll just keep changing it and clicking away from it like that. It's nice.

I can go for different colors, center color picker. If you want. Because the colors of the light will tint it.

So I can go for a nice like little dark light or maybe a little blue. Like that. Light blue if I wanted to.

Little blue tint in this. So that's what you want. I don't, by the way.

I wanted white, so I'll go back to white. But you can change it. Okay.