Get the Flash Player to see this player.

CE ShapeExtruder

23139 views

CE ShapeExtruder Video TutorialExtrude any vector based layer to give it a real 3D look inside After Effects. No more duplicating layers, no more expensive 3D software.

I did it! I did it again! I solve the biggest mystery in history of After Effects. With my new CustomEffect called ShapeExtruder you can take any vector based layer (known as Shape Layers) and extrude it to give it a cool 3D look.

Great thing about this CustomEffect is that the extruded layer still behaves and reacts like any other 3D layer so you keep total control over it’s appearance, animation and other things. It casts shadows, you can parent it to a null, and do all that good stuff.

Above all other features… it consists only of one layer. I’m pretty proud of this one. Not only it can be textured, but it can also reflect the world around it. And because it still is a Shape Layer you can apply any Shape Layer modifiers (like Offset Paths, or Round Corners) to create a custom look.

This tutorial turned out to be pretty long, because there are so many things to cover in it, and there are still some things that I didn’t mention in the tutorial itself, so make sure to download the project file and take a closer look on how things are build and put together.

I hope this will turn out useful for all of you. I can’t argue that the best results comes from external 3D applications, but I think that most of the time you’ll be able to get away with my CustomEffect. It has all the benefits of the old techniques of extruding in After Effects, none of theirs flaws, and there are some extra features so make sure to check it out.

Download: ShapeExtruder_ProjectFile (After Effects CS3)
Download: CE_ShapeExtruder (After Effects CS3)

106 Responses to “CE ShapeExtruder”

  1. This is again a freaking good tutorial. I need to get Cs3 Fast.
    Your a genious!
    Take some pills for your schizophrenia!
    But i gess its not that bad, having george, espacialy when he’s better in AE, than yourself. :)
    T.

    Mr T said this September 26th, 2007 at 23:42

  2. GREAT!
    I’ve been waiting for something like this for soooo long time!!!
    Many thanks for your great work!

    Massimiliano said this September 27th, 2007 at 7:57

  3. Nice buddy….!!!

    i really like this….
    U r Great Buddy….

    an request is here kindly put some premiere tutorials and set extensions effects is after effect…

    see u soon buddyy…
    ;)

    Umair said this September 27th, 2007 at 12:12

  4. hey buddy can u share us ur work i means ur commercials i just want to see that and then i will be able to understand this one more…

    Umair said this September 27th, 2007 at 12:15

  5. Hi there mate!
    First off I really appreciate those things you´re doing with the CEs and the lovelly expressions…I guess you´re a bit of a genius on those issues and it helps clearing my mind a lot.
    And I thank you for sharing them.
    One thing only: I used the extrude on a shape and it worked fine but when the camera orbited around to its side (like exactly parallel to the shape) the shape becomes unextruded again. Did it happen to you? Is anything I did wrong? Is my PC possessed evil unestruding forces? Well…
    Thanxxx again and I´ll be waitin´ for your reply and your next tutorial.
    Say hi to george to.
    Cheers.

    ninguem said this September 27th, 2007 at 18:46

  6. Honestly, You definitely deserve to join the creative team of Adobe After Effects…
    Thanx…

    Ahmed said this September 27th, 2007 at 20:43

  7. Buy this guy a Beer!

    Nice Job as always.

    Andrew Kramer said this September 28th, 2007 at 5:47

  8. Nice tutorial ! Great work ! I’ve got to update to CS3 now !

    I knew Video Copilot but not yours ! Happy discovery !

    Keep going !

    Nicolas Massart said this September 28th, 2007 at 11:28

  9. Veeeery nice!

    You deserve a medal..and I’m not joking!
    I watch also Andrew’s and Aahron’s tutorials..and I must say that all of you deserve a prize for sharing your knowlege and helping for free alot of people.

    By the way..how do you become such an expressions expert in AE?
    Can u recomend me some books or other stuff?

    vucheria said this September 28th, 2007 at 22:30

  10. You should get money,respect and finally a lot of sleep for that.
    George is much faster than you, take care of him :)

    Franky said this September 28th, 2007 at 22:33

  11. Hey guys! Thanks a lot for the kind words. I’m constantly waiting for some interesting tutorial suggestions, and for some donations if you’d be so kind to click on the button right below the search area.
    I have a long list of tutorials to come so be patient. If my plan doesn’t change the next one is going to be less technical and more visual, showing you how to create some great titles.
    Theres also another CustomEffect coming soon to speed up your work and to make more things possible to do in AfterEffects.

    Thanks again!
    Cheers & happy AfterEffecting!

    Maltaannon said this September 28th, 2007 at 23:24

  12. Really cool Malt, keep it up ;)

    Craig T said this September 29th, 2007 at 16:51

  13. I think you are sooo freakin AWESOME! I saw the others tuts and they just dont do it for me after seeing yours. Thank you so much. you truly are a creative genius!

    Aretha DC said this September 29th, 2007 at 21:28

  14. Very nice technique, although 42 minutes tutorial, is a bit too long for my taste.

    Eran Stern said this September 30th, 2007 at 10:32

  15. Yeah… I know. This is what a guy named Antony Buonomo wrote on CreativeCow forums:
    “Erm… your tutes are great but I’ve learnt to watch them when I’m not in a hurry!”
    and this is what I wrote him back:
    “well, since I’m not very fluent in english it’s sometimes hard for me to speak my mind, not to mention making a joke… and I like making jokes… so it’s that much harder for me to record a tutorial than it is to other native english speakers

    besides, my tutorials are mostly technical, and they do not explain how to create certain visual effects. instead i try to focus on solving problems, and finding better, faster, and more flexible ways of doing things.

    therefore i have all kinds of people watching my tutorials: starting from the newbies and ending on the full time professionals. that makes it hard to find the balance between going into detail on every click and skipping the obvious stuff to cut the length of the tutorial”

    But I do have a plan how to cut the length of my tutorials, and I’ll try to try it out recording the next one, so stay tuned.
    Some great tutes are coming your way soon.

    Anyway… I think that this tutorial was worth it, if you consider spending a lot of money on Zaxwerks plugin or such in comparison to spending 42 minutes watching this tutorial, right?

    Cheers

    Maltaannon said this September 30th, 2007 at 17:53

  16. Youu are Great !! Whieee Hoeee make more Tutorials !!

    Greetz

    sammiep said this September 30th, 2007 at 22:11

  17. This looks very useful. Thank you for sharing this with the rest of us mortals.

    Tim

    Tim Clapham said this October 1st, 2007 at 10:51

  18. Wow this is really awesome! I am having problems using it though.. I put it on my text and it says “missing:” before the plugin name, but I have it installed and I’m using CS3.. Any idea why?

    Jacob said this October 1st, 2007 at 11:11

  19. “when the camera orbited around to its side (like exactly parallel to the shape) the shape becomes unextruded again”

    The same happens to me :(

    How can we use this with illustrator files? Thanks :)

    Massimiliano said this October 1st, 2007 at 11:37

  20. Great tutorial… as always! Keep it up.
    Mr. Kramer - If I’m ever in his neck of the woods I’ll buy him a beer!
    Dave

    Dave DuBois said this October 1st, 2007 at 14:38

  21. Camera orbiting is an issue with AE, not the preset itself. There is no way to solve it at this moment. But I’m constantly thinking about it.

    As for Illustrator files… there’s an issue with Shape Layers. They don’t really work the way they should when using it with Illustrator. I’m working on some script to make it work like it should. But hopefully AE developers will answer my email some day and we’ll do some fixes together.

    If someone has troubles installing the preset on PC or Mac, make sure to check out the “What CustomEffects are” page that can be find in the menu on the right hand side of the site. And if for some reason you don’t get it installed, don’t worry. Even if it says “Missing” it will still work. Clever, huh?

    Cheers mates!

    Maltaannon said this October 1st, 2007 at 18:16

  22. hello - thanks for this great 3d tutorial - i have one question maybe dumb , how create outlines from object imported from illustrator ? thanks

    bisi said this October 1st, 2007 at 19:15

  23. like I’ve explained before… it’s not that easy. paths just don’t behave like they should when being copied from Illustrator to AE. I’m working on it.

    Maltaannon said this October 1st, 2007 at 23:02

  24. maybe with puppet tool ?

    bisi said this October 2nd, 2007 at 10:43

  25. First I would like to thank you for providing these helpful tools and information. Second I would like to express my concern with the render times involved with the CE Shape Extruder. It is taking far too long to render for me to consider using this Effect Preset. Thanks

    FORTUNATO said this October 2nd, 2007 at 21:10

  26. what is the point of having a tutorial for your plugins if you can’t download the mac version? ???

    asdf said this October 2nd, 2007 at 21:16

  27. There is a Mac version. There are instructions on how to install any CustomEffect on Mac on the page called “What CustomEffects are”.
    As for render times… well… it depends on your machine, like everything. Besides you can always turn the extrusion off while you’re animating, and then turn it on on the final render just like you’d do with proxies.

    Maltaannon said this October 2nd, 2007 at 22:51

  28. really funny tut! please, maltaannon, do your future tutorial movies always in the early morning - without any sleep. and please do not prepare, never, its really funny to hear you improvise… foget casper or what was his name. you gave me some real unexpected laughters, loud! go on that way - i like it!!
    R.
    by the way your 3d-extruding thing is as bright as we are used from your tuts - go on genius!!!

    Roggy said this October 18th, 2007 at 17:11

  29. Thats a promise. Next tutorial will be totally live. No editing. Prepare for a loooong one.

    Maltaannon said this October 18th, 2007 at 17:51

  30. I’m sorry, but there is NO *.xml file in the package(windows). What should I do? Please help, I just can’t wait to try this magic!:)

    nonsm0ker said this October 19th, 2007 at 17:09

  31. dumb peace of ass I am:) I’ve found the files.
    Guys, It is very exciting technique, But really, how to get outlines for eps files?

    nonsm0ker said this October 20th, 2007 at 18:41

  32. you need to open the eps file in Illustrator and copy&paste each path to the shape layer

    Maltaannon said this October 20th, 2007 at 20:51

  33. Awesome! Only I can’t find the after effects presets xml file to paste your xml file into for the mac. Please help!

    Rick said this October 22nd, 2007 at 1:34

  34. It’s in the zip file. If you’re on PC that I recommend using my installer. More details here: http://maltaannon.com/what-customeffects-are/

    Maltaannon said this October 22nd, 2007 at 1:35

  35. Nevermind, I found your What CustomEffects Are. Thanks!

    Rick said this October 22nd, 2007 at 1:40

  36. Hi.
    Very good tutorials. just one question. I try to make a reflection on the “floor” with the 3d text made with the ShapeExtruder. How to make that, with a 2d layer is simple but I try to do the same process wiyh the 3d shape layer and something is wrong.
    Thanks.
    I´m a begginer user of After Effects.

    CR Chis said this October 25th, 2007 at 16:05

  37. Thanks for shareing your knowledge. But I still met a problem when trying the custom effect out:
    ***********************
    undefined value used in expression. Could be an out of range array subscript?

    Error occured at line 0.
    Comp: ‘Awesome3D’
    Layer: 5(’Awesome3D Outlines’)
    Property: Reference Point

    The error window always popup when I try to add the 3dshapeextruder onto the outline layer(or just open your sample project file).
    Do you have any idea about what may cause the problem? I use AE CS3 and successfully install the .polyce file with pscei.
    Thank you for everything again!

    Frank Wei said this November 7th, 2007 at 3:40

  38. Strange… I remember that I saw that error once, but I can’t remember what was causing it. What language version of AE are you using?

    Maltaannon said this November 7th, 2007 at 11:46

  39. English version. Could it caused by system compability?

    Frank Wei said this November 12th, 2007 at 3:56

  40. I don’t think so, but its hard for me to guess whats wrong. When I open my file than it works. Do you have a Professional version of After Effects?

    Maltaannon said this November 12th, 2007 at 12:59

  41. Yes. AE CS3 pro 8.0.0.247. Yesterday I installed AE in Vista and the same thing happened again(I once use winxp).

    Frank Wei said this November 14th, 2007 at 12:08

  42. BTW what version do you use? I wonder if this custom effect works on lower version, cs2 for example?

    Frank Wei said this November 14th, 2007 at 12:15

  43. It only works on CS3 as explained in the tutorial.

    Maltaannon said this November 14th, 2007 at 21:49

  44. Spoko preset! Bardzo przydatny!
    I’ve always been using Zaxwerk’s Invigorator - even for simle title sequences but your stuff will definitely come in handy and it’ll cut down on the time I spend on my 3d titles.
    Thank you

    Pawel said this November 27th, 2007 at 15:14

  45. Cała przyjemność po mojej stronie!
    Thanks dude!

    Maltaannon said this November 27th, 2007 at 16:05

  46. Hi,

    just one question.
    did i something wrong with the installation of CeSe, because if Text or Shapes are turned 90 degrees toward camera, they become Flat.
    Same things happen if i download your project.

    So if i crate a orbiting camera around the Text i have not fully 3D. Is this a limitation?

    Otherwise this is Awesome anyays!

    Keep up!

    Thomas said this November 29th, 2007 at 23:21

  47. It is a limitation. And it has been answered in the comments several times. And lets be honest… how often do you need to orbit 90deg’s? Whats interesting in the side of the text? I’ll tell you this… I’ve build this for myself and I’m using it all the time, and I’m not missing text sides one bit.

    I hope you will find it useful anyway.
    Cheers

    Maltaannon said this November 30th, 2007 at 0:35

  48. Hi,

    i’m very sorry. i did not red the whole thread. thats ok for me, i just wanted to be shure.
    i’m just missing it because i have arranged a typo like a building and the camera simulates a helicopter flying around it. thats why. but don’t worry about it. i,m happy with it.

    i really hope that you’ll get part of the adobe team one day and make this software even better.

    Thank you J.D.

    Thomas said this November 30th, 2007 at 1:00

  49. Hm…. JD… I like the sound of that.

    Maltaannon said this November 30th, 2007 at 10:51

  50. For those who can’t past proper paths into shape layers, you can paste paths from Illustrator by starting a path with the pen tool on a shape layer and then immediately pasting the path in. For some reason, just pasting a path into an empty path in a shape layer doesn’t work.

    Joe said this November 30th, 2007 at 19:53

  51. yeh, the AE J(e)D(i) you are my son…
    and “George” (Lucas:)

    btw. thanks Joe for that path accomplshment.

    Thomas said this December 1st, 2007 at 17:17

  52. I came across this jsx script on redefinery.com that converts masks to shape objects: http://www.redefinery.com/ae/view.php?item=rd_MasksToShapes

    So first, place the jsx file in the scripts folder, then
    * Open Illustrator
    * Select the shape you want, and copy it
    * Create a solid layer in AE
    * Paste, and the layer is given a multitude of masks
    * Make sure your solid layer is selected
    * Go to File->Scripts->rd_MasksToShapes.jsx
    * Voils!

    aztecmonkey said this December 3rd, 2007 at 20:22

  53. Hey! Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out for sure. I was planning to make my own script, but since someone already have I’ll surely give it a try. Thanks again.

    Maltaannon said this December 3rd, 2007 at 20:27

  54. Malt, you have some great tutorials and killer presets but for fuck’s sake man, get over yourself. You clearly love the sound of your own voice WAY too much. Get to the fucking point! You manage to make a 2min tutorial last half an hour. Who pays for your bandwidth anyway?

    ChillOutMalt said this December 4th, 2007 at 15:48

  55. Yo Boss, appreciate your help. But it’d help a lot more if you could duct tape your trap and speed up the tutes :)

    DuctTape said this December 4th, 2007 at 16:01

  56. Yeah yeah… I know I know. This was a hard one like I believe I’ve explained in the tutorial. I was recording this for several days. It is what it is. Take it or leave it. Newer ones are shorter. Besides, I have a cool idea on how to make the tutorials shorter. I’ll try in out with next one. Cheers

    Maltaannon said this December 4th, 2007 at 16:48

  57. Hey Maltaannon,

    This is an awesome tutorial! One question though, (I’m probably just missing something simple) is there any easy way to change the text and the extrusion to different words because when I change the source text, the extrusion is still the old word. ex. Awesome 3D to Ucoeadlkfje Idfsaw (the source text is Ucoeadlkfje Idfsaw, but the extrusion is still Awesome 3D. I am a complete noob so any help would um… help.

    Thanks :)

    BlazingBeam said this December 5th, 2007 at 6:55

  58. See… it doesn’t work that way. Then you change the source text it does not change the extrusion, because extrusion is not a text layer anymore. It’s a shape layer. So if you want to change the text you have to create a new shape layer.

    Maltaannon said this December 5th, 2007 at 9:51

  59. Hi, I really can’t get this working on a shape. Pretty confused about why. Can’t create outlines from a jpeg - do I have to go through illustrator first? A quick step by step for that would be GREAT.

    Israel said this December 5th, 2007 at 21:33

  60. The idea is Vector Graphics, so you need to have paths. I found that many question has been asked about this CustomEffect. As a response to that I’m planning a case study on using CE ShapeExtruder. If I’m lucky maybe I’ll get to record it tonight. Be patient. It’s coming. Soon.

    Maltaannon said this December 5th, 2007 at 21:38

  61. Oh, I was just wondering if there was an easier way than having to apply all the effects onto the new outline again. Copying and Pasting didn’t seem to work very well. Again, I am a beginner and am probably just missing something. Also, could you recommend any beginner tutorials that are not too easy (like telling me how to make a new solid by going to Layer>New…) and cover the most important parts of After Effects?

    BlazingBeam said this December 6th, 2007 at 4:05

  62. Sure. You may try my friends tutorials - Aharon Rabinowitz podcast at CreativeCow.net, and Andrew Kramer’s tutorials at VideoCopilot.net.

    Maltaannon said this December 6th, 2007 at 12:26

  63. Thanks man! You’re awesome!

    BlazingBeam said this December 7th, 2007 at 2:55

  64. Malt, gotta personally thank you for all your time, help and effort. Good going man and hoping for more tutes in future.

    AE_wannabe said this December 8th, 2007 at 17:05

  65. I’m just loving this tutorial.. RESPECT! And again, 42 minutes.. Don’t mind about that.. Even if they took more than 1 hour I’ld still be extremely happy. Learning these new techniques completely free of charge! We have no right to complain.. Looking forward to giving it a real try! Andrew and Aharon, watch out.. a new star ‘Maltaannon’ seems to be born!

    Jimmy said this December 12th, 2007 at 11:27

  66. You know, the problem of viewing the 3dShapeExtruder object at a 90 deg angle can be solved by ramping up the depth as the camera approaches the 90° mark. I’m sure that there is a way to do it mathematically through expressions, calculating the angle created by the the camera position, its point of interest and the x axis of the 3dSE object, but that would require re-learning geometry and I don’t have the time right now.

    In any case, I think this tutorial is extremely helpful and I am in the process of utilizing it in a campaign of TV spots to run in the spring.

    Thank you, maltaannon!

    aztecmonkey said this December 12th, 2007 at 19:23

  67. wonderful
    thanks alot for sharing this

    Neokidd said this December 15th, 2007 at 6:09

  68. as much as i agree with everyone about how awesome this solution is, how clever and interesting maltannon’s solutions are, as happy as i am that this thing is free …
    … for the love of god, don’t ever stay up until 5am again recording a tutorial. looking up how to spell “awesome” ?! err …
    please put more efforts into organising yourself and your tutorials. it’s the only thing aharon has that you don’t have.
    now if that isn’t a proper motivation ;)

    when i first watched this, i stopped, downloaded the video, made into an avs to frameserve it so i could seek and skip through it.
    effectively, this could’ve been 8-10mins long.

    don’t get me wrong, i don’t want to complain or bitch, i mean we all know you’re awesome, but consider not making it that painful to watch things …

    posix said this December 15th, 2007 at 23:13

  69. Hi Jerzy - I tried downloading your CE ShapExtruder from the link at the top of this page but I keep getting redirected to this page without it downloading… can you please double-check the link? (or let me know if I’m going blind?)
    Thanks!

    sheathe said this December 20th, 2007 at 2:19

  70. Hi again - False alarm… I’m not sure what happened but reloading the page seemed to fix the issue with the link.
    Thanks for all your work!

    sheathe said this December 20th, 2007 at 2:21

  71. hy,and thanks for all your shares.
    it seems that the download is not working, the link is this same page.

    costa said this December 20th, 2007 at 15:18

  72. POS

    POSter said this December 21st, 2007 at 9:21

  73. nice guid send me more details pls

    vijayakumar said this December 26th, 2007 at 14:50

  74. First of all great work. Looks fantastic. Install of preset went smooth (2 easy steps) but then ae give me a “absent” message in front of the fx name in the fx palette, and altough i followed the tutorial steps i get no extrusion… ? and what about the CEShapeExtruder.polyCE found in package should it go into the plugin folder or ???
    tx much

    groundloop said this December 27th, 2007 at 20:49

  75. Hm… Sorry, but I dont really know what you’re talking about… that “absent” message thing. And polyCE doesn’t need to be in the folder.

    Maltaannon said this December 27th, 2007 at 20:55

  76. Tx found the solution on a french forum. Apparently, the absent label appears if the preset doesn’t belong to a preset catgory ‘like Backgrounds behavoirs etc… I will keep exploring your tutorials. Keep on the good work and tx.

    groundloop said this December 27th, 2007 at 22:19

  77. I really appreciate your efforts and sharing your work and presets. I was just wondering whether you might reconsider about encrypting your expressions since it kind of defeats the purpose of trying to allow people to learn. Thanks again!

    sheathe said this December 28th, 2007 at 22:08

  78. Your Video-Tutorial are so helpful for me. Just said thx via PayPal!

    Andreas said this December 30th, 2007 at 20:21

  79. This is excellent! However, where can I download the 3D Camera effects file for installation from?

    Vivek said this January 8th, 2008 at 12:42

  80. Dude! Please! You got this far - I mean to the comment area, and you didn’t even take time to check what’s right on this site. If you’re reading this scroll all the way up to the top of the page where it says “Download: CE_ShapeExtruder (After Effects CS3)”. And please don’t spam the same question in other posts.

    Maltaannon said this January 8th, 2008 at 17:40

  81. Thanks but what I had enquired was your “3D camera Lighting” effect, which is not included in your downloadable zip file…

    Vivek said this January 16th, 2008 at 16:59

  82. huh?

    Maltaannon said this January 16th, 2008 at 20:04

  83. we need polygon studio where we can find it please

    hoka said this January 20th, 2008 at 16:41

  84. What do you mean? If you need to contact me directly use the contact form on the right hand side in the menu.

    Maltaannon said this January 20th, 2008 at 16:46

  85. Thanks for shareing your knowledge. But I still met a problem when trying the custom effect out:
    ***********************
    undefined value used in expression. Could be an out of range array subscript?

    Error occured at line 0.
    Comp: ‘Awesome3D’
    Layer: 5(’Awesome3D Outlines’)
    Property: Reference Point

    The error window always popup when I try to add the 3dshapeextruder onto the outline layer(or just open your sample project file).
    Do you have any idea about what may cause the problem? I use AE CS3 and successfully install the .polyce file with pscei.
    Thank you for everything again!

    maxjix said this January 21st, 2008 at 16:51

  86. my cs3 folder D:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS3\Support Files\Presets\ceshapeextruder
    and and i installed .xml by pscei.exe but error

    maxjix said this January 21st, 2008 at 16:55

  87. Sorry my friend. I’ve noticed some other people experiencing the same error, but I was unable to determine what is wrong. I’ve tried different machines, different systems and different AE installations… all worked fine. Maybe you should try a manual installation?

    Maltaannon said this January 21st, 2008 at 17:54

  88. Hi, there,

    the error caused in AE CS3 might be due to the version of Windows XP that you installed, coz i tried installing ur custom effet in English version and Chinese veresion of XP, it ends up with one result that only English versino XP can make custom effect fully functional in both Chinese or English texts

    Again, thanks for this preset, i think its great.

    Moi,Carole said this January 23rd, 2008 at 5:53

  89. I also have the same error message but i had fix that in my machine… I am a user in HK, and I have change the “language for non-unicode program” from chinese to US in the regional and language option and now works!!!

    Time to check out the cool stuff..

    Martin said this January 23rd, 2008 at 7:48

  90. Maltaannon you are the best. i really love your tutorials, length, style, info, eveerything. keep up the great stuff. thanks alot!

    Davib said this February 11th, 2008 at 9:48

  91. Very,Veeeery nice.

    oleg said this February 19th, 2008 at 15:29

  92. 我下载下来了，可用的时候老是出错，不知道为什么？需要什么特别的插件吗？
    need ping-s?

    candy said this February 21st, 2008 at 8:37

  93. Thanks, very nice.

    vinoth said this March 6th, 2008 at 7:03

  94. I laughed my ass off about the macaroni and cheese. With the stuff you are giving away, you can tell us how long it took for it to pass through your intestines, too!

    Tracy said this March 7th, 2008 at 21:06

  95. Love the shape extruder and cant complain about it. However i cant seem to get it to work on shapes. I know this problem has come up before with others. Im just learning AE, i came from Avid and i learned everything I know from your tutorials. So please be forgiving when i ask the question: How can i create outlines on a shape? Text works fine, but when i go to create outlines with the shape it is blacked out.
    Anyhow, thanks a million for all the tutorials and once i start making money off of this, i will definatly make a donation (all of this software…im broke!:D) Please keep the tutorials coming!!!! Once i reach the drinking age, i’ll buy you a beer.

    W said this March 15th, 2008 at 18:44

  96. Thanks, really! I like the personality that shines through. Like some have said before - no complaints when it is free!

    Roger said this March 24th, 2008 at 15:06

  97. Hi Matt,

    Thanks for your Tutorials. It’s people like you and Andrew Cramer that make the Multimedia community Strong.

    I don’t know if you sorted out the problem you were having with the extrude disapearing when the camera is paralel with the layers. I presume this is because the layers are all flat. I was thinking though this may be solved by adding two more layers into the middle of the extrude at angles, one at 45 degrees on the x axis one at 45 degrees on the y axis, but stretch them to the width of the originals and then colour overlay them the same as the extrude.

    Anyway great job.

    Will Devine said this April 4th, 2008 at 16:57

  98. That would be one way of doing it, but it also defeats the purpose of the 3DShapeExtruder on its own - which always was making 3D layers from a single layer.

    Maltaannon said this April 4th, 2008 at 18:53

  99. Maybe I’m dumb, but I cannot locate the javascript file js_MaskstoShapes.jsx anywhere?
    Clues please!!

    hermanator said this April 4th, 2008 at 20:06

  100. Wrong post dude :) Here it is: http://maltaannon.com/after-effects/studying-ce-shapeextruder/

    Maltaannon said this April 4th, 2008 at 22:52

  101. I am dumb!!!
    Thank You for the reality check.

    hermanator said this April 4th, 2008 at 23:57

  102. Hey Maltaannon, thanks for the cool toys and tutes. I’m playing with the 3Dextruder at the moment - is there a way to use a bitmap or another layer as the front face?
    Cheers

    Antonyb said this May 1st, 2008 at 16:14

  103. Sure. Check this tutorial out and read the post: http://maltaannon.com/after-effects/studying-ce-shapeextruder/

    Maltaannon said this May 1st, 2008 at 17:10

  104. This is so sweet :)

    daniel said this May 5th, 2008 at 15:04

  105. Is there a script for AE7

    Kion'go said this May 11th, 2008 at 16:17

  106. No. As explained ShapeExtruder works with Shape Layers that are not available for AE7

    Maltaannon said this May 11th, 2008 at 18:06

Please share your thoughts with the rest of the class...