Build native 3D scenes with meshes and Substance materials

Create parametric shapes, apply textured materials, and light your scene all without leaving After Effects.

Published July 6, 2026

00:01

Introduction

[Jess Libby]: You can make this entirely inside of After Effects 2026 - no additional apps or external vendors are needed, just parametric meshes and Substance 3D Materials working together.

I'm Jess Libby, a motion designer with years spent keyframing in After Effects.

Let's get right into how to build this.

00:18

Create parametric mesh shapes

Open the composition and the supplied After Effects file.

There's already lighting and some text in the scene.

First, let's make a parametric mesh.

It's a fully editable, non-destructive 3D shape.

In the Toolbar, find the Mesh Drawing Tool - it looks like a cube - and click on it.

After Effects will ask if you want to switch to the Advanced 3D renderer.

Click OK.

You can also find the render settings under Composition.

Composition Settings..., and within the 3D Renderer tab, select Advanced 3D from the dropdown.

You need to use this renderer with this feature.

Click and hold the Mesh Tool to reveal the meshes available.

Let's hover over the Sphere Tool and release the mouse to select it.

Double-click the Mesh Tool to make one at the default size in the center of your composition.

Select the Sphere Layer in your Timeline and open the Properties panel to the right of the Composition Viewer.

If you can't find it, enable it under Window, Properties.

You may have to scroll through these panels to find it.

In this panel, you can adjust Transform, Mesh, Compositing, and Material properties.

With the dropdown, we can change the Mesh Type and as I flip through them, you'll notice each has its own unique properties.

I'll select the Sphere again.

Let's increase the Radius by clicking and dragging the value to enlarge it.

And let's move up to the Transform properties and adjust the X Position to align with the O.

Create a plane next, so we have an object to cast shadows on.

Click and hold the Mesh Tool again and select the Plane Tool.

This time, click and drag from one corner of the composition to the other to set the width and height to fill the screen.

Our text is hidden, but we'll get back to that.

The lighting in the scene is dark and harsh

02:03

Set up lighting with environment lights

because all we have is a spotlight.

Let's add another light.

Go to Layer, New, Light...

Select Environment from the dropdown menu.

Environment lights emit luminance from an HDRI image that 3D shapes can reflect, giving the scene more realistic lighting.

I have the Shadow Darkness set to around 70% for a softer look.

Environment lights are only available in the Advanced 3D renderer.

Select the sphere again, and in the Properties panel under the Compositing options, you can define how 3D shapes interact with lights and shadows in the scene.

Under Material, there are default properties to refine the mesh's look, such as Base Color, Roughness, and how reflective or Metallic it appears.

To further style this sphere, we can apply a Substance 3D Material.

Click the Material selection menu

03:00

Apply substance 3D materials

and choose Get Substance Community Assets...

You can download Substance Materials to use in your projects from here.

A Substance Material is a smart, adjustable texture that responds to your scene lighting and can physically displace geometry for added realism.

There's a material already supplied in the asset files, so let's import that one.

Double-click the Project panel, then navigate to the material file - the .sbsar file type - and hit Import.

Now in the Material dropdown menu, the material we just imported is now listed.

Let's select it, and there you go.

The material is applied.

You can see the cast shadows reflect the grooves of this material.

The surface physically pushes out, creating real geometric displacement so it catches light and casts shadows correctly.

We can adjust the material's depth by adjusting the Displacement Intensity.

I'll adjust it to around 50%.

You can increase the Subdivision amount to get more detail in the material.

Keep it as low as possible to maintain optimal performance. 1 or 2 would work well, but you can even leave it at 0 while working and increase it when you're ready to render the final.

We can leave it at 0 for our purposes right now.

Next, let's change the Scale of this material.

You'll see we're getting a seam as we're adjusting this number.

We could rotate the sphere to hide it, but if you wanted to animate a spin, that might not work.

At 50% and at 25%, we're getting a seamless look with this material.

I like the look of it around 25%, so I'm going to set it there.

Below the Material dropdown, click the Random Seed Shuffle icon to switch up the material's variation parameters.

A couple of quick clicks and you get a new look.

This material includes many other settings and adjustments and I encourage you to play with them all.

Each material has its own settings and the amount of customization will vary.

You're able to keyframe animation on any of the material properties that have a Stopwatch icon next to them.

Just click on the Stopwatch and get right to animating. [silent clip playing] To get the text back in the scene, select the Sphere and Plane Layers in your Timeline,

05:17

Combine 3D layers with your text and animations

then drag them below the ROCKY text layer.

Also, we can drag the Plane Layer below the Sphere.

I want the rock to replace the O in ROCKY, so I'll drag the text layer below the sphere, but now we've lost the sphere shadows.

So how do we fix this?

Placing a 2D layer within a stack of 3D layers will break the lighting and shadows between the 3D layers.

Keep that in mind while building your scenes.

We can undo that so our 3D layers stay together.

And we can set the ROCKY text layer to use the sphere layer as an inverted alpha matte.

Let's turn the sphere layer visibility back on.

We can play with this text blending mode to get different looks.

Or if you prefer this layer to react to cameras and lights as well, we can undo all of that and set this layer to 3D using the 3D switch.

Working in complex scenes could get slow depending on your hardware.

Use the Draft 3D switch at the bottom of the Composition Viewer for faster real-time previews while you're working.

Next to the switch in the Renderer dropdown, you can control the render quality using the Advanced 3D Render Options.

Adjust the overall Render Quality and the Environment Light settings.

Use lower numbers for quicker previews and increase the quality for final output.

The Casting Box Size and Location determine how much of the scene calculates environment shadows.

Now try it on your own.

The mesh shapes alone are worth an afternoon of experimenting.

Combine this with the 2D layers you already know and love in a single project.

Thanks for joining me on this one and I look forward to seeing what you create.

Note: Stock assets provided are for practice purposes only. See terms.

What you’ll learn

Create parametric mesh shapes

The mesh drawing tool lets you place fully editable 3D shapes directly into your composition. Choose from multiple mesh types including spheres and planes, then fine-tune size and position in the Properties panel.

Set up lighting with environment lights

Add an environment light to use an HDRi image to cast realistic, reflective illumination across your 3D objects, with adjustable shadow darkness for a more natural look.

Apply Substance 3D materials

Substance 3D materials apply physically accurate textures with real geometric displacement. Most material properties can be keyframed to add animation.

Combine 3D layers with your text and animations

Integrate 3D meshes with text layers using alpha mattes, and keyframe any material property to animate over time. Use draft mode and render quality controls to stay fast while you work.

Instruction by: Jess Libby
Adobe Substance 3D Community Contributor: Lennart Demes

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Create visual effects and motion graphics.

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Cookies are small text files stored by your web browser when you use websites. There are also other technologies that can be used for similar purposes like HTML5 Local Storage, web beacons, and embedded scripts. These technologies help us do things like remembering you and your preferences when you return to our sites, measure how you use the website, conduct market research, and gather information about the ads you see and interact with.

If enabled:

We can improve your experience by tailoring the site and the content to things we think might be of interest
We can better keep track of your preferences — like what language you prefer to use
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View transcript

What you’ll learn

Create parametric mesh shapes

Set up lighting with environment lights

Apply Substance 3D materials

Combine 3D layers with your text and animations

Try these tutorials with After Effects