Geo’s Environment group allows you take an image or piece of footage, make it into an environment, and have properties from that environment influence your model(s). You can also impact the look and feel of your environment with lighting, fog, shadows, and visibility options. These controls make quick, easy work of helping your model blend naturally into its surroundings.
The first control you'll encounter in this section is the Animated Environments checkbox. Geo disables this box by default to minimize resource use. When enabled, movement in the layer(s) referenced by Custom Refraction/Environment Map (see below) will affect your model, as shown below.
Also note that animation applies across model clones, as well. As you can see below, each model picks up animation relative to its position in the comp. The same animation does not replicate across all models.
If you disable Animated Environments, models will pick up map data from the first frame in your linked layer.
Sun Color adjusts the tone of Geo's single integrated light source. Below, we began with Geo's default sphere model, then used Sun Color to give it a blue shade. In the right-hand sphere, we elevated Sun Intensity from 100% (the default) to 250 percent.
Use Sun Angle X/Y to change the directionality of your model's illumination. For example, with Sun Angle X at 45 degrees, here is Sun Angle Y at 90 (left), 0 (center), and -90 degrees (right).
Shadow Color tints all shadows with the selected color.
In Geo, shadowing your model is one thing. Having your model cast a shadow onto a different object is a separate affair, and for that you need to check Enable Shadow Catcher. A Shadow Catcher allows you to create and position an infinite plane onto which shadows from your geometry can be cast. This is great for marrying objects into their scene for VFX shots or creating stylistic shadows for motion graphics.
In the comparison above, we have a solid layer (deep red) enabled as 3D and positioned to intersect with our model. The left image has Enable Shadow Catcher unchecked. In the right image, we checked this box and selected our deep red solid layer in the Shadow Catcher pull-down menu. Now, the red layer behaves as a ground plane on which the model casts a shadow.
By default, cast shadows display with a Shadow Catcher Strength of 100 percent. You may want to decrease this to simulate different ambient light conditions, such as an overcast sky.
Check the Shadow Only box to remove your model from the comp and only display its shadow, like so:
You'll notice that Sun Intensity does not impact shadow strength, so if you need a really strong shadow, consider adding an AE light in the same source position. Alternatively, you could duplicate your Geo layer and check Shadow Only on the bottom layer, which will double the shadow. If you still need a deeper shadow, you could apply effects to the Shadow Only layer, like Curves or Levels to further darken it.
Next, we move into refraction and environment maps. Geo ships with a handful of seamless, 360-degree environment maps you can access via the Choose Map button and browser. Use the import icon in the browser's top-left corner to add your own maps to the collection.
To oversimplify matters, you can think of Geo refraction as the image information that moves through a model (regardless of whether the source layer is visible or hidden) and environment as the image information that bounces off a model. This is most easily shown with a sphere using the Clear Glass Surface Preset, because clear glass allows light to pass through it. A material preset like Frosted Glass or Gummy also allows environment pass-through, just with more obscuration.
To illustrate the difference between Refraction and Environment Maps, let's start with two assets. Both show a different view of the same Saguaro desert landscape. Specifically, we'll use a spherical, or equirectangular, still image (left, below) and a video clip (right).
Next, we add Geo to our project. To showcase the Environment Map's effect on reflections, we select the Chrome preset and add a little roughness. Chrome is a good choice here because the material doesn't allow light to pass through it. Rather, it solely reflects the Environment Map, for which we select our spherical image (shown below).
Also consider how the environment can color your geometry. In the following comparison, we start with our sphere using its Default material, turn Sun Intensity down to 0%, and set Environment Map to Default (left). We then switch the Environment Map to our still image (right). See how it picks up the blue tones of the sky?
Let's change the sphere's Material to Clear Glass. This is when the Refraction Map becomes important. Remember, while the Environment map determines what we see on the surface of our materials, the Refraction Map determines what we see through them. You see this in the below example, where we set the Refraction Map to be the same video used as our background while the Environment Map links to our spherical image. Both maps work in concert to complete the illusion of your geometry being immersed in the scene.
The Refraction Map pull-down gives you options for Default (which refers to Geo's preset studio environment), This Layer (which uses information from the layer to which Geo is applied, and Custom (noted above). Similarly, the Environment Map pull-down offers four options: Geo's integrated studio Default, This Layer, Custom, and Color Only, which solely uses the selected Environment Color (see below). In the following example, we set Refraction Map to Customand Environment Map: Color Only (set to a purple shade).
Environment Intensity governs the amount of lighting influence the environment map has on your model(s). Shown below are Environment Intensity values of 50 (left), 100 (center), and 200 (right) percent.
Like Sun Intensity, the Environment Intensity slider spans from 0% to 100%, but don't let that hold you back. The parameter's true upper limit is a staggering 1,000,000 percent. At that level, a color setting of near black (R: 1, G: 1, B: 1) renders as white. On the other hand, you may find situations in which a setting of perhaps 200% or 250% will make a chrome sphere's brightened edges look more like a soap bubble. Have some fun experimenting with different materials and intensity values.
Environment Color adds a specified tint to the environment map. When in doubt, the default white tends to look natural.
Environment Angle X/Y let you control the angle of your environment map.
Ambient Occlusion emulates proximity shadows, as from the light reflected by nearby objects. It also encompasses shading that occurs in hard-to-illuminate areas like corners and cracks. To illustrate this, we created a scene for a more complex mesh with lots of overlapping surfaces that would create occlusion. We turned Sun Intensity to 65% and Sun Shadow Strength to 0 percent. In the left image below, we set Ambient Occlusion Intensity to 10%, then cranked it up to 300% (right).
Ambient Occlusion Bias controls the brightness value of the ambient occlusion. 0% will result in the darkest values; 100% will result in the lightest.
Ambient Occlusion Scale determines how far the ambient occlusion shading spreads from its origins.
Visibility Near and Visibility Far determine the boundaries within which your model is visible within a scene. Think of them as invisible curtains or saws with the power to magically slice through your model, either from the front (Near) or back (Far). Let's illustrate with a cloned form collection with a fairly deep z axis. The image below reveals all models with Visibility Near: 1000 and Visibility Far: 8700.
Below, our left image shows Visibility Near increased to 1176. Notice how the visibility plane cuts through the nearest models. In the right image, we inched Visibility Near to 1200 and lowered Visibility Far to 4000. You can see how the most distant forms near the image's center have vanished.
The Fog subgroup can simulate the appearance of fog creeping over an object, as shown in the image below. Desirable fog effects will likely benefit from some experimentation within this subgroup’s controls.
Fog Opacity determines the amount of transparency present in the obscuration (fog). In the above below, we used 0% (left) and 100% (right) Fog Opacity values.
Fog Color can help adapt the fog’s hue for optimal blending with your object’s environment. This control is great for doing color and material experimentation since the fog color will override any Material colors but is not affected by AE lights.
Fog Start/Midpoint/End convey the distance from the camera, measured in pixels, where the fog starts, reaches its half-way mark in terms of visibility, and ends. These controls allow the fog to fade in or out over distance, potentially creating effects on the mesh as the mesh moves closer or further away from the camera.
Higher Fog Start numbers move the Fog Start plane of visibility away from the camera, while lower numbers draw it closer. Fog End sets the distance from the camera at which the fog is in full effect. Higher numbers move the Fog End plane of visibility away from the camera, while lower numbers draw it closer.
Note that fog effects will be more prominent with lower variances between the start and end planes. Thus, a Fog Start at 0 and a Fog End at 10,000 might yield no perceptible fog at all, even with a Fog Opacity of 100 percent. As a point of reference, the above (right) image uses values of Fog Start: 900, Fog Midpoint: 3000, and Fog End: 3700.