Let this be your guide for producing the best motion graphics ever. Here’s all the secrets that I know to create any massive 3D scene right here in After Effects. So, no holding back and let’s get started. Okay, low key, if you asked me 2 years ago if this would be possible to create an After Effects, you know, I just be like, “No, go away.” However, large 3D scenes like this are actually very easy to produce once you know these steps. And that first step is basic layout. So, just like any 3D scene, I would usually start it with a floor by using the plane tool to draw out a very large rectangle like so. Then, all we need to do is set the X rotation to 90° and set the Y position to the height of your composition, which in my case is 1080. And, you know, that’s an important note for later. But, let’s go ahead and scale this up like crazy. And we can change the floor color to anything. though I want to set the roughness to 100% and the metallic to zero to really get that true exact color. Now, even though we have a floor, I like to go ahead and create an elevated base for our graphics to actually sit on, or in this specific example, we’ll create the layout via city blocks. Now, you might be tempted to use the mesh tools to create 3D objects, but I find it so much easier to use the rounded rectangle tool to create those beautiful curves as you can easily adjust the roundness. All you need to do is make your shape layer 3D, rotate it by 90°, and then from here, we can slightly increase the extrusion depth, and set the Y position down to essentially clip into the floor. So, it’s sitting on the floor like so. Now, of course, the next thing I would do is roughly set your camera angle before going too far. So, just create a camera and then create a null object in which you’ll need to make that null 3D and you can parent the camera to it. From here, we can use any of the camera tools to essentially dolly out the scene. Rotate your camera to help, you know, visualize that main camera angle. And if you use the rotation of the null object, you can help angle your scene more precisely if needed. But figuring out your angle now will help you determine the scale of your scene. So, back to building the layout of everything. If we come here to the 3D shape layer that we created, firstly, sizing and scale is so important. So, making this main base 12,200 pixels is great. and we can go ahead and duplicate it. And from here, we can come here to the base size of that duplicated shape and increase it even further. Then we just want to lower its position so that it’s just sitting on the floor to help create multiple layers of depth on what would be considered a single object here. And we can take this even further by doing another duplicate of that original shape, setting it to stroke only by turning off the fill and enabling stroke. We can also use a stroke width of say 100 and again increase the base size to really build on that depth with this three layered single object. You know the subtle design tricks is everything when it comes to motion graphics. Now you can obviously duplicate these objects and move them over to create more bases or city blocks if you will. Though I would recommend using two views with the second view set at the top. And if you click draft 3D, this will enable you to use extended viewer to see beyond the composition. So, for example, you could easily increase the base size of your duplicates to create larger city blocks and then reposition them to build out your perfect city or just motion graphic layout in no time. And when it’s all said and done, this layout and camera trick will allow you to create something awesome in a few moments. You know, we’re set up for success. But first, you can easily produce awesome visuals and save time my After Effects and Premiere Pro templates, drag and drop transitions, animation presets, and powerful motion graphics that you can customize with a few clicks. You can access thousands of templates directly here in After Effects and Premiere, where you can edit them to fit your vision in seconds, allowing you to build client ready masterpieces in no time with the link below. And if you do pick up anything, you will be supporting my channel as I don’t do any sponsorships here. So, thank you very much. Okay, next up is building the meat of your scene. You know, the actual, you know, prime rib, if you will, with actual 3D graphics. For instance, we can get a handful of free 3D assets from Adobe Stock and other sources when you just search for free 3D models. But keep in mind, you can import OBJ, GB, glTF, and FBX 3D models directly into After Effects. So, with all these formats, you should be good to go with whatever you’re looking for. With all that said, I typically start by importing a central master model first and slap maycom size when asked. Now, since we know that our floor is set to 1080, any 3D model should have their Y position set to 1080 as well, so that it sets directly on the floor. And then be sure to scale your model as needed. From here, I usually like to import a few other small models and briefly lay them out around the scene. And again, my biggest tip before we go too deep into building out an entire scene, I like building out the lighting now so that we can visualize the end result. You know, as you know, lighting is like the most important thing, right? So, with big scenes like this, I personally go right to the environment light with shadows enabled, of course. Okay. And if you can’t tell right off the bat, I’m really concerned with shadows. You know, that’s what I care for the most. Ideally, I like to adjust the wide position of the light to help angle the shadows more or less towards our current view. However, I highly suggest searching for free HDRs or images that have high contrast like this, you know, and then if I come here to the light source and attach the image to it, the shadows become more contrasted and the overall composition changes by a lot. Now, you might want to adjust the intensity of the light. But most importantly, make sure that all your objects, including those shape layers, have shadows enabled and set the floor to have cast shadows to off. So important. But overall, the reason why I like doing lighting before I lay out everything is, you know, if a client wants to see the progress of your project, at least you’ll be able to show them something polished or at the very least you’ll keep your own insanity at check because you’re doing something awesome. But now to build out the rest of your scene with 3D objects, I would go ahead and click draft 3D to keep your computer span from sounding louder than a Boeing 737 H. But most importantly, this is where you can have some fun laying out all your 3D objects just by positioning them around the scene and making sure that they’re sitting directly on the floor. Feel free to duplicate and reuse the same objects. You know, it’s kind of like, you know, video game development where you see like the same buildings like a hundred times or the NPC over and over again. But as a great tip, be sure to scale and rotate these objects to help create some variety. Though, also consider adding objects just outside of your actual view so that when we actually go to animate the camera, we can see an extended scene. The main takeaway is that the more detail that you get, the more valuable your overall composition becomes. So, just have fun with it. And like I said, it’s just absolutely mind-blowing to create things like this in After Effects. Never knew this was going to be possible. But, okay, we’re actually very close to being done with this. We just now have the finishing touches like adding 2D graphics into our 3D scene like these road markings. For example, we can use the rectangle tool to draw out a rectangle. Right? And inside the shape layer, we can use a repeater to create those quick copies. Then use a transform repeater to position them apart accordingly. And when you’re ready, make the layer 3D, rotate it by 90°, and set it Y position one point higher than the actual floor, which is 1079. And this is going to allow you to position and duplicate everything to fill up your scene with 2D graphics. And what I like about the repeater is that this will allow you to add as many lines or shapes that you need along the road. So that’s just very convenient. But do me a favor, turn off cast shadows for any 2D graphic that you’re using right here. I find this actually helps with producing, you know, consistent shadows. But however, if shadows don’t actually appear when they should, just go ahead and restart After Effects. For a recap, that’s how you add 2D graphics to your 3D scene. But the next finishing touch is colors and materials. Something that is probably the most important thing, right? So with some 3D objects, you should be able to change the color directly in After Effects when you attach a material to them. When you click this icon here and you go to Adobe’s community assets, uh we’re going to look for a metallic roughness PBR material. And when we attach this to an object, we can easily change the color to it. And that’s it. Keep in mind, you can sometimes apply materials to specific parts of a model. And if you click unlink, this will duplicate that already used material, allowing you to customize it independently from the previous version. Now, if you got your models from, say, Adobe Stock, you could actually open them in Adobe Dimension and apply materials directly to them here and change their color. This actually might be Adobe’s like easiest platform ever, but when you’re ready, just save them and overwrite them as a glTF or OBJ and this should automatically update here inside of After Effects. But awesome stuff. This looks great. And now we want to talk about animation because we can just key frame the position or scale of any 3D object. Say like these cars, which I’ll just position animate them. And if we want one of these cars to come to like a stop, I’ll make that last key frame easy with F9 on my keyboard. and go to the graph editors to smooth out that final motion. Additionally, we can key frame the rotation of the null object that our camera is parented to to kind of have the movement orbit around the center of your scene. Or you’re also welcome to key frame the camera’s position and point of interest to create your own unique movement. And finally, try using depth of field inside of your camera. Just be sure to mess with the aperture and blur level to blur out your final motion graphic. Though focus distance is your friend to perfectionize the scene. And for the absolute last touch, quality and shadows, just come here to renderer options. And right off the bat, you don’t need a high render quality setting at all. But dialing in the shadow quality is up to you. I find the most important setting is actually the casting box size. This essentially should be set to the size of the overall scene to perfectly emit shadows across the entire body of work. Now, with that said, great work. Subscribe to be the best and always be creative.