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FEBRUARY 20, 2004 In the Cards You are probably familiar with the X,Y, Z pixel coordinate placement of layers in After Effects. But what if you need to nudge something less than a full pixel? You can certainly do it, but why is it helpful? In this beginner Adobe After Effects exercise, we’ll examine how nudging along the Z space can create a two sided object. When Adobe introduced 3D in After Effects, it really changed how we could view a layer; we can rotate a layer along the X-axis to give us a ground plane, we can make cubes and other 3D object inside the application, we can even see the flip side of a layer. When we flip a layer, we are essentially reversing the display. But what if we want to make a two sided object like a playing card? [an error occurred while processing this directive]You can download the files and project at the end of this article, but for now if you would like to understand the problems you run into with two sided objects, just follow along. Step 1:Create a New Solid (Command+Y or Control+Y) in After Effects. Make the solid 300x300 pixels. Give it a color you can easily see and add it to your Composition.  Step 2:To this layer apply the Basic Text effect. Use a simple word like Front. Make sure the color of the text stands out from the color of the layer. Turn on Composite on Original.  Step 3Make this layer a 3D layer. Press the W key on your keyboard to turn on the Rotate Tool, and in the Comp Window rotate the layer around. As you can see in the following image, when the layer is turned 180 degrees, you do see through the layer.  Step 4:Undo the rotate action so your layer is once again facing front. Create another solid layer. Make it a different color, apply the Basic Text effect, but this time call it Back. Step 5:Turn this layer into a 3D layer, rotate it 180 degrees on the Y axis. Right now the two planes share the same zero space on the Z axis. Because of this, only the top layer is visible. To demonstrate this problem, parent the Back layer to the Front layer. Step 6With the Front layer selected, rotate the two layers on any axis.  As you will see, no matter how much you rotate the layers, only the uppermost layer in the Timeline stack will be visible.
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