3D in AE??

[Ridley Walker]

[Charles Wickware] “What’s the word on going this route as opposed to say working in Maya?
“

Maya is a dedicated 3D application with a myriad of modelling and animation features that are not available in Element 3d or After Effects.

Element 3D is a 3rd party add on for After Effects that allows the use of pre-made 3D Models (OBJ and C4D files) for animation using openGL rendering. It is very nimble, well implemented for use in After Effects but far more limited than a 3D application.

[Charles Wickware]

Thank you, if one were to learn a 3D program, between 3DSMAX and Maya, which one would be best?

[Walter Soyka]

[Charles Wickware] “Thank you, if one were to learn a 3D program, between 3DSMAX and Maya, which one would be best?”

For working with Ae? None of the above. C4D has some cool new integration features in Ae CC — and C4D Lite will come bundled with Ae CC when it’s released next month.

Max also has a pretty interesting-looking bridge to Ae, but I’ve never used it.

For a better answer to your question — what sort of work are you looking to do in 3D?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Charles Wickware]

No, not to work specifically in AE. Just in general, which of the two is considered better? I’d like to begin building and animating 3D models. Specifically something like the rotating aircraft diagrams one would see in the “Dogfights” Military channel show.

Thank you

[Ridley Walker]

[Charles Wickware] “which of the two is considered better?”

Tough call ask 5 people and you’ll get 8 answers. There are several professional applications Maya, C4D, 3DS Max, and some open source as well. Blender is an amazing free product and a good place to start.

https://www.blender.org

Look at the examples of work done in Blender. As Walter says, if you’re working in After Effects and 3D, Cinema 4D is the way to go. Particularly now that C4D is integrated into After Effects CC.

[Charles Wickware]

Thanks a bunch! Much appreciated!!

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

For this kind of animation you can use either Element 3d or Zaxwerks Invigorator/proanimator.
Element is a bit pretentious as to what it can import and how the files need to be prepared but it gives you really neat compositing options. Zaxwerks can import just about anything and it allows for some modeling and messing around with the textures.

You can find good examples for Element 3d on the videocopilot website.
Here’s one for Zaxwerks and AE that I did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H_tG5_DV5Q

You can find plenty of free to use 3d models on the web, so no need to model them yourself unless you want something specific.
Here’s a good resource:
https://thefree3dmodels.com/

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

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