PI3 with 3D

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

Jose, this is a bit too deep for posting in the forum. I teach a 2 hour class on this process.

I would strongly suggest you read the help files from AE on importing Maya projects into AE.

Also, Trish Meyer does a great job of explaining this in Creating motion graphics with After Effects volume 2.

This only works with After Effects 5.5 or greater and it must be the production bundle (Now called “Professional Version”).
Things that are crucial:

1) Save as Maya Ascii (MA) not Maya Binray (MB)

2) Bake all Camera and Null (locator) Keyframes

3) Name All locators (used as nulls in AE) like this: name_NULL or name_null. All caps for “null” or all lowercase. Not both.

4) Do not use or copy an Orthographic Camera. Create a new camera. It won’t work otherwise.

You might try asking about this in the Maya and AE forums. Maybe there’s even a tutorial available here at the cow or elswhere online that covers this subject.

It’s not that’s it’s difficult, but it requires a good knowledge of Maya and AE to make it work well. If you do everything right, when you choose to import the MA file into AE (Same as you import another file), AE will set everything up for you.

Once the comp is set up, drop your rendered 3D footage in there – remember keepo them as non-3D layers. The image is flat – it is a movie of a 3D scene – not actually 3D.

You will need to copy the position, scale, and any rotation for your null objects, and paste it into your 3d AE Layers – do not “replace” the nulls – this will just make your layer invisible.

Hope this gets you moving in the right direction.

Aharon

Aharon Rabinowitz
arabinowitz(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
http://www.pIllusionFusion.com

[Jose Burgos]

[Aharon Rabinowitz] “You will need to copy the position, scale, and any rotation for your null objects, and paste it into your 3d AE Layers – do not “replace” the nulls – this will just make your layer invisible.

Hope this gets you moving in the right direction. “

I see you copy and paste the 3D data into the AE 3D layer.
Yes this is what I was looking for.

Wanted to know how you did it in AE so that when the new version of DF comes out, I can compare.

Thank you,
Jose Burgos

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

Just in case I wasn’t clear…

When you bring the MA file into AE, The camera and Nulls are all set up witht their keyframes.

You need to select and copy the keyframes from the nulls in AE and paste them on other layers in AE. You don’t copy the data from maya and paste into AE.

What is DF?

Aharon Rabinowitz
arabinowitz(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
http://www.pIllusionFusion.com

[Jose Burgos]

[Aharon Rabinowitz] “You need to select and copy the keyframes from the nulls in AE and paste them on other layers in AE. You don’t copy the data from maya and paste into AE.
What is DF?”

Yes you where clear.
Crystal 🙂

Digital Fusion.
Node based compositor with a virtual camera finally coming in version 5.
I think only AE is left as a non-node based compositor.
Since I switched from AE to DF, I have never looked back except when I wished it was possible to composite with a virtual camera.

Take care,
Jose Burgos