After Effects Alone or 3D Additional

[Joey Foreman]

Could you provide a more specific link?

Joey Foreman
Editor/Compositor/VFX Artist

[Brian Charles]

The first example uses no 3D whatsoever, the second one has an animated character and fallen tree composited onto a still image.

The character animation could be done in any professional 3D software (presuming you can create and animate the character.

Dave is correct that Cinema4D has some advantages for After Effects integration but if you are skilled in 3D and compositing 3D Studio, Maya, Blender, or any software that can do character animation would work. After Effects may not even have been used to produce these videos.

[James Kozick]

Would Cinema 4D Prime version be adequate to create the effects in the link discussed above?

[Jon Bagge]

I’m sure any 3D program would be able to create that animation. However it’s far from trivial to do so. I’d say 3D programs are much more difficult to use than After Effects. If you haven’t used one before you’re unlikely to be able to make something like that without spending some time training.

You have have some luck trying Poser, where you can purchase ready made characters and modify/animate them. Poser is essentially made for hobbyists, and stuff done in Poser will tend to have a certain ‘look’. (which tend to be looked down upon by ‘real’ professionals)
However for quite simple stuff like in your example, I think you can get a decent result without needing to learn complex software.
It wouldn’t surprise me in fact if that example was done in Poser.

You could also use After Effects if you went for a more ‘schematic’ and simple animation. It wouldn’t be 3D in the same way, but I’m sure you could make something equally effective that still looked good.

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http://www.jonbagge.net
Jon Bagge – Editor – London, UK
Avid – FCP – After Effects

[James Kozick]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my question. It was very helpful.