How to Create an Atmospheric Moon Creation in After Effects Using Red Giant VFX Plugins

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In April of this year, Maxon released a new Red Giant instrument with Geo. This is in part for artists who want to render 3D files in After Effects, skipping the step of rendering the object as a sequence of photos with alpha channels in the rendering software and then adding them to their motion graphics software.

But there’s another aspect to Geo: it renders and renders thousands of objects quickly, and it’s worth considering if you need to create a potentially dangerous and expensive scene like a rockfall or underwater environment. (For more inspiration, check out our collection After Effects Tutorials).

In this tutorial, we’ll create a moon using Geo, with a little help from a UV map from NASA, and add rain in the foreground using Geo’s Clone tool. In the first four steps, we will create a spinning moon, and then we will create rain. In my opinion, Geo’s biggest selling point is its Clone tool, which can clone a 3D object thousands of times, handle it well, and render it quickly, as we’ll see with raindrops; but it can also be snow or stones.

One tool that won’t be covered is Shadow Catcher, which is worth learning when you’re familiar with Geo. If you’re using the Red Giant trial version, take the time to add your own After Effects effects like camera lens blur or flares to your scene, or try the bokeh transition added to Red Giant Universe and real lens flares in Red Giant. VFX set. This includes the ability of the darkening layer so that the glare can be calculated in response to the darkening shapes you place in front of the light.

01. Import the sphere opposite the Geo

(Image: © Heather Sterland)

Open a new composition in After Effects at 1920 x 1080 or 3048 x 2040, whichever you prefer. Create a new body, go to the effects panel and select “RG Trapcode”, then Geo. Open Geometry, select your sphere and resize it to suit your needs.

02. Take the cards of the Moon

(Image: © Heather Sterland)

For this project, we will be using NASA’s UV Map of the Moon, which you can download here. There are two cards in the set: one color card and one movement card. Each was taken using the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s camera and laser altimeters. Import these maps and we can move on.

03. Link the impact and emission maps

(Image: © Heather Sterland)

Drag the imported maps into the composition. Back in the geo effects panel, link the Bump and Emission maps to the files you just dragged into the composition. You will see the sphere change from a plain view to a surface structure and moon pattern. Change the color in Geo to get a regular gray moon face, or choose a red or yellow shade if you’re going for a blood moon.

04. Return and export

(Image: © Heather Sterland)

Now rotate the Moon using the stopwatch in the Geometry part of the Geo tool, then go back to the Geometry settings and activate the stopwatch. Set the degree and number of revolutions and move the marker along the timeline. When finished, add your composition to the Adobe Media Encoder queue and export it as desired. H.264 and HD 1080p settings work well, as do high-resolution JPEGs.

05. Bring the raindrops and choose the material

(Image: © Heather Sterland)

For the rain, I used some 3D raindrops created in Rhino3D for variation, given that falling raindrops are not a typical drop shape and the scene needed a little variety. Drag the 3D raindrop file into the composition. As before, create a new body and add a geo-effect to it. Link the Geo to the newly imported raindrop and in the Geometry section, change its Uniform Scale to about 30% to prepare for cloning.

Once this is done, go to the material settings in Geo and select Clear Glass in the preloaded materials. Either leave the Refraction Index at its default of 1.55, or adjust it to 1.33, which is the true refractive index of water.

06. Start Cloner

(Image: © Heather Sterland)

Enable Geo’s Cloner and increase the total number of raindrops as you see fit. The total is calculated by multiplying the number on the X-axis by the number on the Y-axis and Z-axis to create a matrix. The “Form” field indicates the excess of all clones considered as a whole. For this step, you can simply save the shape as a box.

07. Randomize the drops

(Image: © Heather Sterland)

The X-axis distribution of raindrops can be randomized using the Clone Randomizer part of the tool. Set the Position parameter to about 1000 or as much as you need to get rid of the regular spacing of the original matrix shape. The same can be done for the Y and Z axes.

08. Create depth

(Image: © Heather Sterland)

When creating 3D rain, you typically want the larger, closer drops to move through the frame faster than the smallest, more distant drops to create the illusion of depth. Geo does this automatically because the raindrops are already distributed along the Z-axis and distance. Drag the raindrop layer to an out-of-frame position above the frame, start the stopwatch, then drag it below the frame to make the drops flow in and out of it.

09. Make the final settings

(Image: © Heather Sterland)

Finally, adjust the amount of raindrops in the Clone tool. The more you add, the more blobs you’ll have, but you’ll also end up with more blobs in the foreground. What you really want is lots and lots of background blobs to add a sense of depth. To do this, duplicate the layers if necessary to create sheets of different raindrop sizes. This creates the depth of field needed to create a much more immersive 3D feel in a scene.

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