Shadow maps use the full scene-derived size (point-light faces capped
at 2048) under a 26M-texel scene budget halved largest-first; the PCF
filter measures its reach in output pixels with a two-texel minimum,
samples texel centres on a jittered adaptive 5..10 grid, and compares
each texel against the receiver plane's own depth so wide kernels never
self-shadow lit casters. The WGSL mirror is parenthesised (Tint rejects
the old form) and guarded by a shader-wide grammar test; the CPU
reference and shader remain step-for-step parity-tested.
The Advanced 3D renderer folded Accepts Shadows (Off/On/Only) into a
bool, so a shadow catcher set to Only drew as an ordinary lit surface.
The material now carries shadows_only. Such a fragment draws black at
the strongest shadow a light casts on it, as Classic 3D does, and it
goes in the blended pass so what is behind it shows through. The CPU
shader and advanced3d.wgsl get the same branch.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Problem: In Advanced 3D, an extruded shape or text layer was one mesh in
its paint colour. After Effects colours the front, bevel, side and back
of an extrusion separately (shape Contents ▸ Add ▸ Front/Bevel/Side/Back,
text Animate ▸ Front/Bevel/Side/Back), and EffectCraft had none of it.
Fix: The extruder can split its mesh by surface (front cap, bevel rings,
walls, back cap). Shape layers get Front / Bevel / Side / Back contents
items (layer.addShapeItem kinds frontColor…backColor, one item per
group, colouring every paint of the group and its nested groups; the
innermost wins). Text animators get Front / Bevel / Side / Back Color,
blended over the character's fill or stroke by the selection. Paints
with a surface colour render as one mesh per surface. Menus, the
Contents Add: pop-up and the menu translations list them. The other
surface material properties (Ambient, Diffuse, Specular, Metal,
Reflection, ...) remain.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Depth of field in Advanced 3D comps uses the camera's iris (Fast Rectangle, Triangle to
Decagon, rotation, roundness, aspect, diffraction fringe) and highlight gain/threshold/
saturation through the Classic 3D bokeh kernel. Collapsed precomps in an Advanced 3D comp
add their nested layers as real geometry (meshes, extrusions, cards) lit by the parent;
2D collapsed precomps draw nested 3D layers with the parent's renderer. Text and shape
strokes extrude as bevelled meshes stacked in paint order (model extrude_stacked).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Layer > Camera > Create Stereo 3D Rig (left/right eye comps with expression-linked eye
cameras, Stereo 3D Controls effect, stereo comp through 3D Glasses), Create Orbit Null,
Create Cameras from 3D Model; Layer > Light > Create Lights from 3D Model
(KHR_lights_punctual), Control Light with Camera, Create Environment Light Background
Layer (equirectangular sky drawn through the camera). glTF cameras and punctual lights
are parsed by effectcraft-model.
Advanced 3D: per-sample motion blur over the comp shutter, and blend modes / track
mattes / Preserve Transparency composited through the 2D path in depth order.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
3D-1: Classic 3D depth of field renders the camera's Iris Shape (Fast
Rectangle box or Triangle…Decagon polygon), Iris Rotation, Roundness, Aspect
Ratio and Diffraction Fringe as a span-kernel gather blur, with Highlight
Gain/Threshold/Saturation boosting highlights first; tilted layers blur
progressively by per-pixel camera depth. Layer > Camera > Link Focus Distance
to Point of Interest / to Layer (expressions) and Set Focus Distance to Layer
replace the stubs.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
sampleImage renders the sampled layer through the evaluating renderer's footage source
(EvalCtx::footage), cached per thread and frame. File > Import reads .json/.csv/.tsv as data
footage kept in the project. expr.errors collects failing expressions for the error bar;
expr.languageMenu lists the categorised Expression Language menu. Marker keys expose
protectedRegion and cue points; colorDepth, timeToFeetAndFrames, comp.activeCamera.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Extruded text keeps per-character 3D: each glyph's outline is extruded in its own space and
placed by its animated matrix; shape layers extrude their fill outlines (gradients use their
mid colour). Shadow-map bias scales with the texel footprint at the receiver and the PCF
reach (no acne on curved casters), identically on CPU and GPU. Docs: Advanced 3D in
architecture.md, parity table updated (3D, Text).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Advanced 3D comps render their 3D runs as one scene of world-space triangles: model and
primitive layers (meshes, skinning, animation clips by layer time), extruded text/shape
layers, and textured cards for every other layer with their Material Options. Shading is
physically based in linear light: Cook-Torrance GGX + Lambert for parallel/spot/point lights
(AE falloff and cone), ambient lights, image-based light from an Environment light's layer
(equirectangular; cosine irradiance map + roughness mip chain + split-sum BRDF fit), and
PCF shadow maps (spot/parallel/point cube faces). 2x2 SSAA, depth of field as a gather blur
by circle of confusion, back to the working encoding.
The software rasteriser (depth buffer, top-left rule, perspective-correct, opaque visibility
then sorted transparent blending) is the reference and CI path; effectcraft-gpu implements
Accelerator::raster_3d with a wgpu render pipeline (advanced3d.wgsl) and matches it within
tolerance. Environment layers are hidden from both renderers.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Dylan M. Taylor