Build and polish a 3D MacBook scene

Put your recording on a laptop

1. 1

   Click 3D Scene in the left rail: the laptop icon, and switch it on

   Your recording is immediately projected onto a laptop display. The rest of the panel only appears once this toggle is on.

   

   You should see: The preview stops being a flat canvas and becomes a laptop in a 3D room. A 3D Scene bar appears on the timeline.

2. 2

   Drag the ends of the 3D Scene bar to set how long it lasts

   Drag the middle of the bar to slide the whole thing somewhere else. Anything outside the bar stays as a normal flat video.

3. 3

   Under Device, click MacBook Pro or MacBook Neo

   Do this now. They are different shapes, so changing it later undoes any screen fitting you have done.

   

Pick what is behind the laptop

Sit the laptop on a desk

1. 1

   Switch on Desk Surface

   The laptop gets a table under it instead of floating in space. Pick the material underneath the toggle.

   

Point the camera

1. 1

   Click one of the nine squares in the View grid

   Left, centre, and right, each at high, middle, and low. Each square draws the angle it gives you. The middle one is the safe choice: pick whichever keeps the screen readable.

   

2. 2

   Click Wide, Fit, or Close

   How big the laptop is in frame. Wide shows the room, Close fills the frame with the screen.

   

3. 3

   Click Adjust Camera in Preview to place the camera by hand

   Then drag on the preview itself: left-drag orbits, right-drag pans, scroll dollies in and out. Press Enter to keep it.

4. 4

   Click Instant or Smooth for how it gets there

   Instant cuts. Smooth flies the camera in. Click Custom to set the horizontal angle, vertical angle, roll, and framing by hand.

5. 5

   Play across the start of the 3D range

   You cannot judge a camera move from a paused frame.

Adjust the laptop itself

Light it and treat the screen

1. 1

   Set the lights first

   Key Light is the main one: colour, brightness, and an X/Y/Z position. Environment Light stops the shadows going black, and Contact Shadow is what stops the laptop looking like it is floating.

   

2. 2

   Then treat the screen itself

   Screen Glow spills the display's colour onto the laptop and desk. The Display Appearance sliders below change how the projected screen looks without touching your recording.

   

Fine-tune the background and desk

Each background type opens its own set of controls once you have chosen it. Studio gives you backdrop colour, glow, floor roughness and reflection, shadow strength, and rim light. Photo gives you brightness and two rotation controls. Bokeh gives you intensity plus the particle controls. Desk gives you size, position, edge thickness and radius, tint, roughness, and grain.

Fit the recording to the screen exactly

1. 1

   Use Screen Fit if your recording does not sit right on the display

   Tilt straightens it. Offset X, Y, and Z nudge it around. The four Edge sliders stretch each side out to the bezel independently, which is what you want when only one edge is short.

   

2. 2

   Click Reset Screen if you make it worse

   Back to the model defaults.

3. 3

   Use the notch controls to add or size the display notch

   Match the machine you are pretending to be.

4. 4

   Pick 3D placement for each layer you add

   Select a recording, camera, text, or annotation and choose Laptop screen to project it onto the display, or Whole video to float it over the whole rendered shot.

Add the finishing effects

1. 1

   Turn on Screen Reflections for a glassy display

   Clearcoat is the sheen on top; Clearcoat Roughness decides whether it is a sharp reflection or a soft one.

   

2. 2

   Then work down Post-Processing one effect at a time

   Each has a toggle and one or two sliders. Switch each off and on so you can see what it is actually doing.