Question: I have eight icons arranged in a circle, a Null object in the centre, and a camera that's parented to the Null. Each icon is set to be a 3D layer, and Auto-Oriented towards the camera. The camera is Auto-Oriented to Point of Interest, and parented to the Null, so that I can adjust the Z rotation of the Null to have the camera orbit the circle (producing the effect that the circle of icons is carouselling around).

Everything else is perfect, but the icons on the sides are somehow inheriting quite a dramatic Z orientation / rotation. I've attached a screenshot below to illustrate what I mean.

I tried [this expression](http://www.motionscript.com/design-guide/auto-orient-y-only.html), but it made the problem worse, and I don't have the expression skills to adapt it to my needs.

How can I have each icon always face the camera, but remain fully level without manually adding keyframes to compensate?

[![Screenshot showing orientation](https://i.stack.imgur.com/73FKm.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/73FKm.png)

Answer: 
Combining camera footage with generated objects is called [compositing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jOkA_vze5A).

The candy scene could be created in three steps:

1. The girl was filmed ahead of a green screen. Green parts of the footage made transparent.
2. 3D scene was created with background furniture and the candies flying – in Cinema 4D or any other 3D package. It was rendered to a movie clip A. And the frames with candies flying towards the viewer rendered with transparent background to clib B.
3. AfterEffects or other compositing package was used to combine the three layers (front to back): clip B, green screen, clip A.

[![compositing](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vWhFf.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vWhFf.jpg)
Yes, you can do exactly that and lots more with this awesome plug-in - [Element 3D](https://www.videocopilot.net/products/element2/) for After Effects (Not free though). You can import 3D models from various programs, create primitives and 3d extrusions based on shape layers and texts right inside of After Effects with cool lighting.

Check the plug-in out and you'll be driven to buying and using it yourself. There are tons of possibilities with that plugin.