3D river of money

3D river of money

by Tyler Black

on Aug 2, 2012 at 6:15:33 pm

Hi,

I would like to create a waterfall of dollar bills way off in the distance and have the dollars cascade down the rocks creating a river at the bottom that flows toward the camera and off-screen at the bottom of the frame. This seems like a pretty simple thing to do, but I'm fairly new to AE and can't find what I'm looking for in tutorials. I've looked for two days. Can anyone offer suggestions?

Thank you

Ty

Re: 3D river of money

by John Cuevas

on Aug 2, 2012 at 8:14:35 pm

Depending on the how real you want this flow to be, this might be quite complicated, 3D cameras, position keyframes, simulated gravity, particle emmitters, displacement maps all might be involved in creating a money waterfall. That's actually quite a bit to do for an experienced animator and you say you are fairly new to the program.

I'd strongly suggest you start here, Getting started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, CS5.5, & CS6). Starting to learn AE with a finished project in mind is often a recipe for failure.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

"I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."
---THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

Re: 3D river of money

by Tyler Black

on Aug 3, 2012 at 4:11:53 am

Johnny,

Thanks for the reply. It's nothing nearly as complicated as you described. I'm using a stock image of dollar bills. It's for a 30 second spot and the effect will last about 3 seconds. It's representational of a bank lending money. It's over the top tongue in cheek and not realistic at all. I just want to bend this 2D image of dollar bills in an "s" curve over a hill on the z axis so it looks like the money is rushing at the camera.

Re: 3D river of money

by John Cuevas

on Aug 3, 2012 at 1:04:22 pm

Probably the quickest way to bend things would be to use the Distort -> CC Bend(if it's a real simple bend). For more complicated bends you might want to try Distort -> Bezier Warp.

Lastly you might try a combination of 3d and bezier warp. Take your dollar images and rotate them on the
x-axis to make them flatten out, so it's like a river. Precomp this river of money layer (shift + cntl + c) and then apply bezier warp to the precomp and bend that to make it seem like a money water fall.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

"I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."
---THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

Re: 3D river of money

by Walter Soyka

on Aug 3, 2012 at 1:16:55 pm

[Tyler Black] "It's over the top tongue in cheek and not realistic at all. I just want to bend this 2D image of dollar bills in an "s" curve over a hill on the z axis so it looks like the money is rushing at the camera."

You can apply and animate the Offset effect to roughly emulate flow (with wrap-around).

If you have AE CS5 or CS5.5, you can use the bundled FreeForm effect to bend the 2D image in 3D space.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog - What I'm thinking when my workstation's thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

Re: 3D river of money

by Tyler Black

on Aug 7, 2012 at 2:55:37 pm

Thank you, everyone, for your time in replying and offering suggestions. For this particular project I used the FreeForm effect as I have CS6. It worked very nicely.

Thanks again for sharing your knowledge!

Ty Black