Create A Realistic Glass Reflection

Create A Realistic Glass Reflection

on Apr 19th 2010 with 55 comments
Tutorial Details
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This entry is part 6 of 33 in the Logo Reveals Session
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Transparency is an important element to reflect in one’s relationships and if we can help you in that area it’d be our pleasure! In this tutorial you’ll find out how to create a realistic glass reflection on a 3D object, created within After Effects. We’ll then simulate a normal pass and have it reflect the environment with the “normality” free plug-in.

Preview

Want access to the full AE project files and assets for every tutorial on Aetuts+, including this one? Join Ae Premium for just $19/month. You can view the final effect preview video below.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .flv

File size 225MB

 
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By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

Ran Ben Avraham is post production artist working mainly in the fields of motion design and visual effects. He is a freelancer from Israel, and also runs http://ran-mograph.blogspot.co.il/, an AE templates website, designated for the visual effects industry.  

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  • http://www.greenfireproductions.net Travis

    Preview looks really cool, can’t wait to watch the tut. Thanks

  • Ari-Lieb ben Avraham

    Great tutorial! This is really great for a sci-fi film I am writing!! Thanks man! :)

  • http://vimeo.com/user3514014 Har Zakeriah

    Nice preview.. watch the tuts now..

  • Bir

    First!!!!111!!!1 Looks cool.

    • http://youtube.com/cdtitanic Hi!

      You fail..

      The preview looks nice, i will watch the tutorial later

  • Ben

    Great tut,

    I appreciate you using tools that are outside of the standard plugin box. Also thanks for taking the time to explain not only what is happening, but why.

  • Lyndon

    Dope! I bet this tutorial generates a lot less complaints :D

    Thx dude, cool tut preview. I’ll so be runnin’ this today.

  • JTV

    …good work man!!…but u got to speak up a little bit and spaek more clearly!!…one can’t understand when u start to mumble…and u mumble a lot!!!!

    • http://www.tophateffects.com Ran Ben Avraham
      Author

      Yes… I Know, i do have a tendency to mumble.
      I’ll do my best to speak up a bit and more clearly on my next tutorials

  • http://psdho.me PSDhome – Everyday free PHOTOSHOP files

    Looks awesome. Thanks a lot for tutorial..

    • http://www.moviemaker.co.nr moviemaker933

      Wow nice advertising.

      Nice tutorial as well :D.

  • Saeris

    Haven’t watched the tutorial yet, but I want to say one thing.

    THANK YOU FOR USING YOUTUBE FOR THE PREVIEW!

    I get so frustrated with the video player on this site. Usually I have to reload the page just to watch something over again.

    Just from that, I’m gonna go use this in one of my projects right now. Thanks for the tutorial!

    • http://www.tophateffects.com Ran Ben Avraham
      Author

      Thank you for your supporting comment.
      I would love to see it put to use, can you please send me a link to it once it’s done?

      tophat.m.d@gmail.com

      Thanks.

  • mr. obvious

    Wow, that is one sweet effect! great job! That might be the best tut I’ve seen in the past month or so…

  • frankyframe

    :D ooooh this is what i like.
    advanced ideas combinded for a great result.

    but is it possibile, that it could become a better reflection result, if we try to use the
    Outside Method in the CC SPHERE Render Option
    :D also i think, it could be nice to add some more highlights for edges.

    belive me, this tutorial is one of the best tuts i ve seen on tutplus
    …and i have watched all of them!

  • http://youtube.com/user/CSKforlifeee Austin

    I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS TUT. FOREVER!!!

  • http://www.webguide4u.com WebGuide4u

    Well the preview looks cool. And just waiting to get it done by me. Love it

  • http://www.carlosbatllo.com Carlos Batlló

    Great tut, very clever uses of the techniques and effects. Thanks for sharing!

    I think you can do the mirror effect for the reflection map faster with distort>mirror.

  • Taylor

    AHH! I could not figure out how to get this effect for a project a couple of months ago. This tut would have helped so much! Anyways, I’ve been waiting for a good tutorial on this effect;Thank you!

  • ella

    i absolutely LOVE the AEtutorials.. i think they are awesome if you want to try new effects or train yourself on news stuf, but seriously SERIOUSLY, please change of your video provider.. I hate the fact that i have to wait for like 2 hours just to check out the tutorial!!.. is absolutely ridiculous!!.. i have been to several pages one of them being videocopilot.com and the time i have to wait to see a tutorial is next to none.. so i dont see why this being an awesome site cant have a faster running video provider (bandwidth, speed, or whatever its called).. please DO something, because this is seriously making me go to another website, although they dont have the awesome tutorials you guys have. Thnx

  • mandeep

    where i can find this extra normality plugin

  • UR FACE !!!!!

    corny music lol

  • Francesco

    the project is extremely interesting, certainly thousands of users you want to try their hand in this project, but the video tutorial is an obscene thing, many steps are skipped completely, who makes the video tutorial does not assume that everyone already Guru using After Effects. The error lies in not informing the degree of difficulty is written media, but the correct assessment would be high…

    thank you very much

    • Stephen

      I agree with Francesco…..there are big gaps in the information in this tutorial….when he jumps to the transition part and shows the sand particles layer….well this is a layer he had done previously and expects those of us who are learning to apparently pull this information out our asses. It very frustrating and goes to show that technical knowledge doesn’t mean you can teach.

  • Pedro Santos

    Can someone send me the normality plugin? because the minning´s website is crashed to dowanloads.
    pedrohenrique_uff@hotmail.com
    Please

  • Ramarumo khuthi venda girl

    am a graphic designer student at the imagination lab i need a friend who is good in graphics to help me with this

  • Ramarumo khuthi venda girl

    my e-mail address khuthi.r@hotmail.com please pop me an e-mail any time.pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease

  • Francesco

    Hello Well I have me ask you a few things about the project realistic glass I joined “e + tuts” I have paid to download the files of the project my problem is the plugin “Normality” I regularly downloaded easily from website that you suggested, but when I load the project file into After Effects gives me the following error: Error Message: After Effects warning: control effects conversion required in effect “Normality”. Some effect controls will be reset (25: 0). and another thing once unzipped file plugin which folder should be placed in the Plugins folder or preset? and finally I’m sorry if I ask too where I can find the video clip to use as background. and meanwhile you’re there if I want to help take my curiosity, which city is the U.S. that you see in the video … Your project is too good to give up I want to get to the lighthouse …
    thank you very much Ran Ben I’m writing from Italy I leave my email address if you want me to answer francesco61150@gmail.com thanks thanks thanks …

  • Francesco

    is impossible to complete this project, many steps are missing everything went ok until Duplicate –>(Text Frame 3D) Layer and Drag & Drop Composition –>(Purple BG 3D) to –>(Text Frame 3D) Timeline I can not do the merger to proceed.

  • http://aevion.net AEVION

    This is so cool! Very nice looking effect mate

  • James

    Are there plugins for this that work in CS5? The ones used here are 32-bit, I believe, and aren’t showing up in the presets menu since CS5 only uses 64-bit plugins.

  • http://www.arjalaguer.cat Pau

    Good evening!

    I have the same problem as Francesco.

    At minute 10, it seems that there’s a gap because suddenly appear the Purple BG layers.

  • http://www.rivdigital.com.ar Riv

    Please someone can paste the code?

  • CM

    can somebody past the action he uses ?
    would be great!

  • MarioM

    Awesome !!! but I can´t write ok the expression… all the time error…
    can anybody paste that expression here ?
    sorry for the ask
    thank you

    • Stephen

      here is the expression

      offset = 1;
      p = thisComp.layer(‘Layer 000′);
      offsetInterval = Math.abs(index – thisComp.layer(‘Layer 000′).index);
      [p.position[0], p.position[1], p.position[2] + (offset*offsetInterval)];

      • sergio

        dude, the expressions dont work, everytime I paste, rewrite it and everytime AE gives m the error Syntax error, error ocurred at line 2

        copied the expression above, but even that one dont work, please someone help me out

      • Stephen

        are you layers named differently from what is in the expression? you layer names need to be exact.

  • Stephen

    Has anyone tried this with CS5 64bit? My AE doesnt see the NormaliZe and Normality plugins. Does anyone else have this issue,…if not where should these plugins be placed in order for AE to see them. Currently I have them here:

    C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS5\Support Files\Plug-ins\Normality

    with both the [ NormaliZe.aex ] and [ mi_Normality3.aex ] files in that folder.

    thanks

    • Michael

      I’m having the same problem… except I can get Normality to load (there is a 64-bit download option on the site) but AE CS5 isn’t recognizing the NormaliZe plug-in… please help!! I really would like to do this and I got all the way to where I had to use the plug-in already.

  • Stephen

    OK this is useless…..if someone else can do a similar tutorial that is a step by step without assumptions it would be much appreciated.

  • David

    Hi Ran Ben and everyone… first i have to say that the tut is awesome, i work with after effects since time ago and never see something like this before, but… (here comes my asks)… first im lost in the BK part, if you can talk about taht step by step i really appreciate it. The second i wanna ask you is about the possibility of work with ramp or gradient layers and not just a plane color, this is ‘couse i’m thinking make the effect of different density of glass or may be an ground glass in some part.

    Again thx for the tutorial, i hope see more of these very soon ;)

  • http://frischluft.com Philipp

    Normalize has been updated. It now contains a 64Bit version for CS5 on top of the 32Bit for older versions.

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller

      Thanks for the update

  • Paul

    Surely the mighty ADOBE can come up with an easier way of doing this effect?
    I’m still un-decided here whether ran-ben-avraham has done a good tutorial or not here,
    THE END RESULT IS AWESOME…i guess it’s just me BUT THIS IS A HARD TUTURIOL TO FOLLOW!
    Theres a bit too much mumbling and a lot of assumptions that the “pupil” me! is as fast at jumping around After Effects.
    I’m going to have a third attempt at it and i’ll let you all know, but i can’t see it happening for me.

  • Paul

    No it’s definately NOT ME! Too much mumbling and jumping around too fast with too many assumptions by ran-ben-avraham

    I’ve spent nearly 3 hours on this going back and forth etc just trying to hear what he’saying LET ALONE TYING TO KEEP UP

    I GIVE UP!!!!!

    My decision is it IS a bad tutorial!

  • http://http// peter

    i love ur tutorials

  • E

    I can’t get past the Purple BG and Text & Frame layers being slightly off around the 10min mark in the tutorial, Ran says it was something with the export settings in Photoshop – But this newb doesn’t know what that means and how to fix it since that part was not shown…

    Seems like an easy fix. Anyone?

    • E

      Fixed it by moving the text in the Text & Frame Base Comp a little up and to the right… Duh to myself.

      But the Normality Plugin is not working properly in CS5.5 —
      It gives the following error messages:

      After Effects error: Couldn’t find main entry point for normality.plugin ( 48 :: 72 )
      or
      After Effects error: invalid filter ( 25 :: 3 )

      Not sure if any other plugins will substitute or if I am missing something obvious once again…

  • Stephen

    So are you ever going to redo this tutorial so that people can actually hear what you’re saying and provide step by step instructions?

    or maybe someone else who has figured this one out can….

    • Stephen

      Anyone, Anyone?

    • Stephen

      I guess not..(seeing how its been about 6 months since my last post) …such a shame….hey Ran Ben Avraham learn from your mistakes on this one or do us favor and dont do anymore tutorials….

      really pissed

      • Stephen

        oops I mean my original post its been 6 months

  • AM

    Any one have Normality Plugin to share…?