Very new to AE please help!

[Francis Hughes]

Hi All,

Im very new to aftereffects so please bare with me. Basically Ive managed to do a very basic animation for a client and he is mostly happy. However he wants me to make his 2D tif in to a 3D layer in AE.

Here is a screen grab to help the above make a bit more sense…

https://img511.imageshack.us/img511/326/picture1vk9.png

Any and all help would be so very welcome

Thanks!
Francis

[Joe Moya]

If you want a true 3D look, then you will need to build the text in a 3D software application. Or, (depending upon how you built the original text – such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop)… you might be able to use Zaxwerks>

If you want the “apperance” of 3D (not true 3D), there are a few work arounds in AE. You can do a search of this site and find the tutorials. The best one in the group is problably Maltannoon’s 3D extrusion tutorial.

Joe

[Nicholas Toth]

CS4?

Extrude an .ai file in blender. Fire out the .obj to photoshop, and import it to CS4.

Otherwise — follow the tutorial listed above — or give a stab at blender!

Zaxwerks is a good option too.

Nicholas Toth
Freelance Animator
nicholastoth.com

[Francis Hughes]

Thanks Joe and Nicholas!

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! Great answers, my sanity and I thank you.

Francis

[david bogie]

> my sanity and I thank you. < Your sanity will be gone when you open Zax or Blender or even contemplate moving the 3D if you're really new at AE. Lights, shadows, camera positioning. 3D is nine times as difficult as 2D and takes up to 20 times as long to render. bogiesan

[Caleb Armstrong]

QFT

Ramen.

point9@gmail.com

[Francis Hughes]

Thanks again to you all for your replies. True to form client has changed his mind and now hates my camera movement and that the animation finishes with the camera looking at the logo at an angle.

Politely put…grrrrrrrrrr.

Cheers again all,

Francis

[Nicholas Toth]

Bogiesan —

I disagree. Zaxwerks has so many plug and play presets, its total cake to work with — whats their motto? Something like creating 30 animations in a day? Read the manual and you could have something created in an hour or two. Don’t be intimidated by Zaxwerks — a novice can learn it quick, and a master can really churn out some high end stuff.

However Blender, can be confusing if its a new interface for you, but there are tons of tutorials available online.

Nicholas Toth
Freelance Animator
nicholastoth.com

[david bogie]

[Caleb Armstrong] “QFT

Ramen.”

yar.

[david bogie]

I was speaking in generalities but I wish to acknowledge and thank you for the contribution to the thread. You are very correct in relating the ease with which interesting objects and camera moves can be created relatively easily in Zax products.

bogiesan