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Element 3D - AE Plugin
  • skiandbikeskiandbike

    Launches tomorrow and a very ambitious project from Kramer and crew. Not my area of expertise, but looks like a great way to work with 3D objects in AE, especially for folks who are used to a 2D workflow.

    I can't believe this is "only" a plug-in!

  • 23 Replies sorted by
  • nchamberlain13nchamberlain13

    Andrew Kramer is the man! I'm blown away by what you are able to do with this plugin. Especially with how quick it is!

  • Amadeus5D2Amadeus5D2

    thanks for sharing, looks great...3D objects in AE!

  • skiandbikeskiandbike

    It's live! https://www.videocopilot.net/products/element/

  • Amadeus5D2Amadeus5D2

    ...wow what a run, I can't accsses the homepage!

  • mintcheeriosmintcheerios

    I love this thing. Before this came out, I had never done anything with 3d, and a week later I'm already making 3d titles and working with 3d models (though I have been using AE for awhile).

    A birthday video I made for my sister.

  • kavadnikavadni

    Awesome @mintcheerios .. I have bought it too.

    I am looking into shadows seems to be it's limitation .. I notice from AK's blog that he is at work on tutorials for it .. so all looks good.

  • Sephiroth7of7Sephiroth7of7

    @Mintcheerios- have you tried any overlay of 3D objects with motion tracked footage in After Effects using Element? The default tracker in AE CS6 seems to be pretty outstanding; however, I have a hard time getting a realistic 'surface material' look to any of my text or objects. Do you think that Element would help with being able to apply more believable surface texture? I know that they have multiple surface materials listed in the preview, but I wanted to hear what an existing user who wasn't at Andrew Kramer's level had to say about it. I appreciate it!

  • mintcheeriosmintcheerios

    I purchased the Element 3D + Pro Shaders bundle and I feel that it was worth it. Element 3D comes with some basic surface textures, but the Pro Shaders is where you can some really cool looking stuff. If you click on my avatar, you can see another example of the Pro Shaders. Make sure to use the ambient occulsion feature, it really adds realism to the object.

    As far as overlaying 3d objects in 3d space, AK just released a really awesome tutorial on just that. At first, I had the toughest time aligning 3d objects correctly, but he shows how you can use the AE6 3d tracker and make multiple nulls as reference points so you can position things easily. There's also a great explanation on how to fake shadows in that same tutorial.

    http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/3d_truck_compositing/

    The way you can extrude any mask into a 3d object is powerful. You can bang out 3d titles quickly even with a two year old laptop like mine.

  • Sephiroth7of7Sephiroth7of7

    Awesome, I really appreciate it Cheerios. I watched the whole tutorial, mouth agape, like a farmer from the old world seeing a mega-city for the first time.

    One additional item that you may be able to lend some input on that I am still a bit fuzzy with (primarily because I am a complete noob at this stuff)- Element 3D objects CAN accept lighting from After Effects, but CANNOT create shadows in After Effects? I am writing this out so that I get a 10 year old's understanding of what I would and would not be obtaining. From what I've seen- lighting effects can be introduced both in Element 3D AND in After Effects; however, shadows can only be 'faked' using Element 3D and then pasted in AE. Is that close to accurate?

  • franfran

    Having an iMac Snow Leopard, wich software do you recomend to work with this awesome plugin, Cinema4D? I´m totally new in 3D modeling world, I have more or less knowledge of AE and I want to get started with this kind of stuff. I think this combo can be really good, what do you think?

  • franfran

    and! Reallly Cool video Mintcheerios!!

  • kavadnikavadni

    @fran .. I have Lightwave .. on windows. I think before you purchase, you run the trials .. while they all perform similar functions, they are all different in the way they present their options

    There are some free app you can get started with .. here are a couple

    Hexagon a modeler .. http://www.daz3d.com/shop/hexagon-2-5-download-version/ DAZ studio 4 http://www.daz3d.com/products/daz-studio/daz-studio-what-is-daz-studio/

    Beware of DAZ studio it's easy to get addicted to purchasing the premade models .. it can destroy wallets, and marriages.

    There are better apps, those two are free

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    It looks so cool. I desperately want to have a real reason to buy this, but at the moment, I don't (and have too many other projects demanding my time). So I'll wait a while. But it looks fantastic.

    ...and then the new Trapcode Suite came out this week. Anyone see MIR? nice.

  • nchamberlain13nchamberlain13

    Here's something I just finished up that had some heavy element work in it:

  • kavadnikavadni

    Wonderful, I think I need to make the time to sit down with it

  • mintcheeriosmintcheerios

    @nchamberlain13

    Nice job! Some good uses of the gun model.

    @Sephiroth7of7

    Yeah, AE lights work on Element objects, but shadows have to be faked. Andrew Kramer hinted that shadows may be added in a future update. Also you can't do real physics, but there are scripts you can get for AE to make it work.

    Here's my attempt at 3d tracking with AE6 + Element:

  • otcxotcx

    @nchamberlain13

    Nice work. I love details in 3d objects. Really well made. Maby you want to look this

    There only players are real. All other is 3D.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Plus firm has one week sale for Element 3D bundles.

    https://www.videocopilot.net/products/element/

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

  • elkanah77elkanah77

    Something I made for a commercial contest. Finished just a couple of days ago. Made entirely i AE with the Element 3D plugin. Trapcode Particular used just for smoke.

  • mintcheeriosmintcheerios

    Element 3D 1.6 now with world position pass.

    http://www.videocopilot.net/help/element/help_files/#v16update

  • kavadnikavadni

    I bought it a while ago, here is my first effort

    It's a WIP ... it took me about 10 hours ... first effort.

    Key it properly.
    Either edit the model, or split the bed to a different group in e3d
    Texture it and get my head around AE lights.

    Biggest annoyance is the lack of real world measurement. In a 3D application I could measure her legs and then scale everything appropriately. In AE I had trial and error the position of the bed until the pixels match the track ... no parallax between the bed and mattress.

    Biggest feature is the render time ... 18minutes ... I guess about an hour when I turn everything on.

    Comments welcome.

  • kavadnikavadni

    This version only uses E3D for the bars, the room is 4 planes in AE 3 minutes to render ... as it is 11 minutes with motion blur and DOF, compared to 18 with DOF for the two E3D layers.

    This is faster and easier to make

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