In this tutorial, I show you how to recreate the Discovery Channel Cube Effect that is the main part of a recent Discovery Channel Rebrand made by Royale. I have been trying to figure this out for a while now and I always had trouble controlling the boxes in such an organic, yet specific way. It wasn’t until I started playing with the shader effector that it dawned on me that this was the solution. Anyway, check out the tutorial where I also use a Cloner Object, the Plain Effector, Object Buffers, Ambient Occlusion and Specular Highlights to get this animation ready for composite.

Want to learn more about this technique? Check out this Mograph.NET Discussion about how to achieve this effect. It was while reading this when I finally decided to figure this thing out once and for all. Finally, many of you have mentioned this Russian Tutorial about the same subject. The final render looks good and he has a slightly different solution to the same problem. Which reminds me. There is no right way with motion design. Remember, if it looks right for the final render, then you did it the “right way”. Keep experimenting!

Final Render

In part 2 of this tutorial, I show you how to composite our 3D render passes in After Effects using our Object Buffer passes as a luma matte to reveal different photos and to control the transitions. Then I will show you how to add the Ambient Occlusion and spec passes to put the final touches on this animation. [greyscalegorilla<dot>com]