History
V1.1.1: Fixed a bug related to the aspect ratio of a rotated side of the cube
V1.0: Initial release
 Configuration
CubeGrid 3D is compatible with Final Cut Pro 5.1.2, 5.1.3, 5.1.4 and 6 (and higher) and Motion 2 & 3 (and higher). All screenshots of the controls in this manual are taken from Motion. The controls in Final Cut Pro are the same.
At first you have to drag and drop the plugin CubeGrid 3D from effects menu to the timeline. The canvas will show a grid of plain cubes with colored sides. The parameters are divided into 6 sections, which are described below.
 Section: General
Anti-Aliasing
Switch on/off the anti-aliasing feature of the borders of each side. Note that this features slows down render times a little bit, but gives you much nicer results. CHV suggests that you turn off this option for your animation creation process, if your computer is not fast enough to be able to run this plugin in realtime.
Transparent
Switch this option on to make the cubes transparent. In transparent mode all the light from the cubes will add up. You can adjust the brightness of the whole scene by adjusting the light source.
RandomSeed
RandomSeed sets up an initial state for the internal random number generator.
 Section: Camera
This section defines the position and lens of the camera and the direction where the camera will look at.
Perspective Angle
This defines the length of the lens for the camera.
Distance
With this parameter you can move the camera along the viewing point forward and backwards.
Move Left/Right
Move Up/Down
Move Forward/Backwards
Use these three controls to move the cube along the grid.
Look Left/Right
Look Up/Down
Tilt
These three parameters rotate the camera around the point given by the Move parameters as a center point.
 Section: Grid
This section defines how the single cubes are spread out in the 3D space.
Grid X
Grid Y
Grid Z
Define how many cubes you want to see. The actual amount of cubes is even higher than the values of these three parameters. A value of "1" means that there will be one cube. An increase to "2" adds one cube to each side of the first cube. "3" creates a total of 5 cubes in the specific direction. The maximum number of cubes is 29 x 29 x 29, which is a total of 24389 cubes.
Gap X
Gap Y
Gap Z
Define the distance between the cubes. A value of "0" will assemble all cubes at the same spot (center).
Random Position
Originally all cubes are lined up in a well defined grid. This parameter will scatter the cubes throughout the 3D space randomly. A value of "0" will bring all cubes back to the original grid position.
Random Rotation
Originally all cubes are facing into the same direction. This parameter will rotate the cubes in a random way around their own center.
Ordered Rotation
This parameter rotates all cubes simultaneously around their three axis.
 Section: Cubes
This section defines how each cube looks like.
Cube Width
Cube Height
Cube Depth
These three parameters define the size of the cubes.
Separate Sides
Here you can separate the six sides of the cube from each other. A value of 0 creates a cube. Higher settings move each side further away from the center of the cube.
Animation Amount
Animation Speed
With this option the cubes will be automatically animated. The cubes will move around their designated position in the 3D space. Animation Amount controls how far the cubes will move away from their original position. Animation Speed controls the speed of the cubes.
 Section: Sides
This section controls the textures that will be used on each side of the cubes, as well as the orientation and rotation of each side. To apply a texture simply drag and drop the desired texture to one of the image wells. If you use this plugin with Motion, you have to add the needed texture at first to the Media-tab before adding it to the plugins image well.
With Orientation you can flip the applied clip or image horizontally, vertically or both.
Use Rotation to rotate each side of the cube independently.
Use the control Crop Border to crop any unwanted border from the applied textures.
If no texture is applied to a side, it will use an adjustable color. Each side can be given it's own color. Use the Color control box to select the desired color.
 Section: Light
Enable Light and Specular
Here you can switch on or off the light method for the cube. If this control is switched off, you will see that the cube appears much brighter. This might be confusing. So you have to understand that this control does not "switch on a global light" that illuminates the cube. This control selects between a flat lightning model, which makes the cube shine with full brightness, and a light model with a light source that creates specular reflections with an angle dependant method to illuminate the surfaces.
Light Brightness
Light Diffuse
If Enable Light and Specular is enabled, the colors you select with these two controls are use for the ambient and diffuse light in order to illuminate the cube.
Specular Brightness
Specular Size
Adjust the size and brightness of the specular reflection. This control only has an effect when Enable Light and Specular is enabled.
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| Light model switched off |
Light model switched on
Small specular light |
Light model switched on
Larger specular light |
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