How CC Glass Creates Refraction in After Effects

CC Glass is a built-in simulation effect in Adobe After Effects that transforms two-dimensional graphics into dynamic, three-dimensional surfaces with realistic light bending and surface highlights. This article explains what CC Glass is, the mechanics behind its refraction simulations, the critical properties needed to control the look, and the standard workflow for generating realistic glass distortion over your footage.

What is CC Glass?

CC Glass is a stylize and distortion plugin bundled natively with Adobe After Effects (part of the Cycore FX package). It is designed to emulate the physical appearance of translucent, glossy materials like glass, liquid, acrylic, or plastic. Instead of using complex ray tracing, CC Glass simulates depth and refractive distortion using a height map—also known as a bump map—derived from the luminance or alpha values of a specified layer.

How CC Glass Simulates Refraction

True optical refraction occurs when light waves travel through materials of differing densities (such as air to glass), causing the light path to bend according to Snell's Law. CC Glass creates a visual approximation of this physical phenomenon through mathematical image displacement:

  1. Surface Normals and Slope Calculation: CC Glass reads the source layer assigned as the "Bump Map." It evaluates the brightness (luminance) or transparency (alpha) of every pixel. High-contrast transitions generate steep virtual slopes, while soft gradients generate smooth curves. These slopes define the "surface normals" (the directional angles of the virtual glass surface).
  2. Pixel Displacement: The effect uses these surface normals to displace the pixels of the layer underneath. Where the virtual glass bends sharply, the background pixels shift drastically; where the surface is flat, minimal or no distortion occurs. This mimics the bending of light through a curved lens.
  3. Specularity and Environmental Shading: Alongside refraction, CC Glass applies a virtual light source to generate specular highlights across the surface ridges, creating the characteristic reflective gleam that makes the refraction appear physically grounded.

Key Controls for Tuning Refraction

The CC Glass effect panel is divided into three main property groups: Surface, Light, and Shading. To dial in accurate refraction, focus on the Surface controls:

  • Bump Map: Specifies which layer in your composition defines the geometry of the glass. Common choices include text layers, logos, or animated grayscale noise maps (such as Fractal Noise).
  • Property: Determines the data CC Glass reads to create the surface shape (typically set to Luminance or Alpha).
  • Softness: Blurs the internal bump map. Higher values round out sharp edges, producing smooth, organic bends similar to thick molded glass, while low values produce sharp, beveled cuts.
  • Height: Controls the apparent physical thickness of the glass extrusion. Higher height increases the steepness of the edges.
  • Displacement: Directly dictates the strength of the refraction. Positive or negative values increase the amount by which background pixels are warped and shifted along the surface normals.

Basic Workflow to Create Refractive Glass

  1. Set Up the Background: Place your background video or image layer at the bottom of the timeline.
  2. Create the Bump Map Layer: Add the graphic, shape, or text layer you want to turn into glass. Pre-compose this layer if you plan to animate it, and hide its visibility in the main composition so it functions purely as reference data.
  3. Apply CC Glass: Create a new Adjustment Layer directly above the background. Apply Effect > Stylize > CC Glass to this Adjustment Layer.
  4. Target the Map: In the CC Glass effect controls, open the Surface tab and set Bump Map to your graphic layer. Ensure the source is set to read "Effects & Masks" if the layer contains masks or effects.
  5. Adjust Distortion: Increase Displacement until the background distorts noticeably beneath the shapes. Adjust Softness to smooth out harsh pixelation along the edges.
  6. Balance Lighting: Expand the Light and Shading controls to position the highlight reflections in a direction consistent with the ambient light of your background scene.