Tutorials
3D cards in the light
Fan out a row of cards in 3D, light them with a warm lamp, focus on the ace, and swing it so it catches the light.
This page is also a lesson inside Phoenix: choose and start 3D cards in the light, and Phoenix points at each control as you go. It takes about 9 minutes.
To follow along here instead, download the starting document, 3d-cards.fla, and open it with .
Movie clips can turn and move in 3D, drawn in perspective. A light shades them by how squarely they face it, and depth of field blurs them the further they are from a focus depth.
Five cards lie flat on the table, each a movie clip on its own layer. The ace is in the middle, on the Ace layer.
1. Choose the 3D Rotation tool
Press W, or click the 3D Rotation tool in the toolbox. It shares a slot with 3D Translation: hold the button down to pick between them.
2. Turn the ace
Drag the ace a little to the left. It turns about its middle, its near edge growing and its far edge shrinking. Dragging up or down tips it back or forward instead.
3. Fan out the others
Drag the two cards on the left to the right, and the two on the right to the left, so they all turn in toward the ace.
Alt-click a card to lay it flat again.
4. Bring the ace forward
Press V for the Selection tool and click the ace. In the Properties panel's 3D Position and View section, set Z to -60. Below 0 is nearer to you, so the ace grows a little.
5. Push the others back
Click each of the other cards and set its Z: 120 for the two beside the ace, 300 for the two at the ends. They shrink toward the middle of the stage, the vanishing point.
6. Turn on the light
Click Lights and Depth... at the bottom of the same section. Tick Shade 3D movie clips by a light, set From to -45 and Height to 30 for a lamp up and to the left, set Color to #FFE0B0 for warm light, and click OK.
The cards facing the lamp brighten; those turned away from it go dark.
7. Focus on the ace
Click Lights and Depth... again. Tick Blur 3D movie clips away from a focus depth, set Focus to -60, the ace's Z, and Blur to 3, and click OK.
The ace stays sharp; the cards behind it soften, the furthest the most.
8. Key the swing
Click frame 48 of the Ace layer and press F6, or choose Insert > Timeline > Keyframe. The new keyframe starts with the ace as it is.
9. Turn it the other way
Press W again and drag the ace well to the right, so on frame 48 it faces the other way.
10. Tween the turn
Right-click any frame between 1 and 48 on the Ace layer and choose Classic Tween. A classic tween turns the card smoothly from one keyframe's pose to the next.
11. Play it
Press Enter, or click the play button in the timeline header. As the ace swings round it catches the lamp, brightest as it faces it and darker as it turns away. Press Enter again to stop.
What you did
You turned movie clips in 3D, set their depth, lit them with a warm light, focused on one card, and tweened a turn so the light plays across it.
Key the cards' Z on keyframes to rack focus from one to another as they move. Clips lying flat on the stage are never shaded or blurred.
For everything this tutorial touches on, see Lights and depth of field.