Importing 3D footage into After Effects

Adobe After Effects

Importing 3D footage into After Effects

Posted by Rcmsantos on July 2, 2005 at 8:50 pm

Hi,

I’m aiming to do some nice animations with some footage coming from 3D Software like 3D Studio, but as far as I can see, standard and professional versions of After Effects only can import bmp or vector image/video files (unlike Combustion that is more flexible).
Is there any tool to supress this need, like a plug-in?

Thanks in advance.

Aharon Rabinowitz replied 20 years, 10 months ago 5 Members · 6 Replies
6 Replies

Chris Smith
July 2, 2005 at 10:03 pm

That couldn’t be farther from the truth. AE will import a TON of different formats even very obscure ones.

You could try:

Quicktime (any codec in there. Animation codec recommended).
TIFF
RLA
RPF
Targa
IFF
PIC

The list goes on.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com
Chris Smith
July 2, 2005 at 10:11 pm

After reading your post again, are you saying that AE won’t import 3D files to keep 3D objects in the App?

Or are you saying it only supports the bmp graphics format and vector formats like .ai and .eps?

AE like Combustion is not true 3D and won’t support 3D objects natively. You can import some 3D objects using Invigerator for minimal work (usually logos and type treatments).

But why not do like the 99% of 3D/Compositing work and render out your shots from the 3D app and comp them as 2D files in AE?

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com
Rcmsantos
July 2, 2005 at 11:03 pm

Well, answering to your question:

– I do not know how to work with 3D (in programs such 3D Studio Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, etc.);
– I was looking for some tools that could use 3D objects from those programs and animate them by tradicional ways in AE.

So, by this time I could use footage prepared by other artists in 3D applications in After Effects. As I noticed in your replay, there isn’t that kind of plug-ins, so I probably need to invest some time in tradicional 3D modeling environments, isn’t it?

Thanks for your time and tips.
Solie Swan
July 3, 2005 at 1:00 am

Invigorator Pro at http://www.zaxwerks.com
Mathew Kaustinen
July 3, 2005 at 5:12 am

Heya,

You can also combine the camera/light/layer interactions that occur within 3DS MAX with AE using MAX2AE – https://www.boomerlabs.com/cart/home.php?cat=3

Cheers,

Mathew Kaustinen
Boomer Labs
http://www.boomerlabs.com
Aharon Rabinowitz
July 4, 2005 at 4:17 am

You can also get 3D camera information (Plus a bunch of other hidden 3D channels) from 3DS Max’s RLA/RPF image format output (Provided you set up your render prperly).

However, this is only available in AE Pro.

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http://www.allbetsareoff.com
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