Cinema 4D & After Effects

[Crizak]

I'm torn between Cinema 4D and Lightwave. The answer to this question will largely decide it for me ...

I use After Effects 6.5 quite a bit in video production. How well does Cinema 4D work with AE? Any idea how it compares with Lightwave in this area?

If this topic has already seen the light of day, please direct me to the appropriate page.

Thanks tons,
SZ
Hi spirozero,

I only have limited experience with cinema and AE, but tight integration with after effects is one of the areas where cinema really shines. Maxon provide a plugin for AE which enables it to open cinema projects, complete with lights etc.

someone with more experience should be able to give you more information.

[AdamT]

Cinema easily has the best AE integration of any 3D appl (except 3D invigorator :)). It will output an .aec file with multiple passes, lights, and cameras, all of which come into AE very nicely (with the free C4D->AE plugin). The AE 5.5 multipass tutorial here will give you a pretty good idea how it works: http://www.angie.abel.co.uk/caesite/download.html

[3dg]

Adam is right. The integration between C4D and AE is smooth like butta. My favorite feature being the ability to bring camera data into AE.

One thing I haven't tried is keyframing changes in focal length or other camera parameters and trying bringing that into AE. I might try that this evening, actually.

Gary

[spirozero]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now I'm wondering if the Lightwave folks would say the same thing?

[TimC]

I'm torn between Cinema 4D and Lightwave. The answer to this question will largely decide it for me ...

I use After Effects 6.5 quite a bit in video production. How well does Cinema 4D work with AE? Any idea how it compares with Lightwave in this area?

If this topic has already seen the light of day, please direct me to the appropriate page.

Thanks tons,
SZ

As they have said, cinema and after effects work together very well.

AE will import your render, it will import all your passes and then create a comp that is the correct resolution and duration. All the passes will be composited correctly. If you wish you can output seperate passes from cinema for all your lights and these will be imported into AE correctly. Cinema will export light info on each light and this will translate to your AE lights so you can match it with your composited 3D layers. Your cinema camera will be imported too.

It is really easy to go from cinema > after effects and if lightwave has this kind of bridge then I'd love to see it.

Tim

p.s. if you want to see a tutorial which is related but involves bringing a light from cinema to AE to use as an emitter for trapcode particular (http://www.trapcode.com) then have a look here (http://www.hypa.tv/tims/fusetutorial/fusetutorial.html)

[TimC]

Adam is right. The integration between C4D and AE is smooth like butta. My favorite feature being the ability to bring camera data into AE.

One thing I haven't tried is keyframing changes in focal length or other camera parameters and trying bringing that into AE. I might try that this evening, actually.

Gary

Focal length will work, as I'm sure other parameters will too. Not 100% on the limitations here though but I expect it is limited to similar parameters, the same with lights.

Tim

[spirozero]

Hey TimC - I'm liking the link you provided. Impressive stuff. Thanks!

[Zimbo]

I have been wondering about the AE <-> C4D link also. My question is this, how do the C4D layers come in to AE? I assume its a bunch of 2D planes, is this correct? Is there any 3D information retained after the import?

[Per-Anders]

as i recall lights and camera information is brought in. the actual composition is just brought in as standard layers (this way if you wanted to add in some 3d elements in after effects they would move correctly within scene, and of course your render doesn't dissapear off screen as the camera moves).

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