How to Export Your Scene From Cinema 4D to After Effects

October 27, 2009

I made this tutorial to show you how to prepare your renders in Cinema 4D for export into After Effects. Then, I go though the process of importing your render into After Effects using Multi Pass, compositing tags and object buffers. I also show you how to change lights and add textures in AE to finish compositing your 3D scene.

88 Comments

Get your own thumbnail at Gravatar.
  1. Bryan Lee on October 27, 2009 said...

    Thank you thank you THANK you sir. I’ve been looking for a tutorial like this. Perfect timing too, I’ve got a project due which I’ve decided to do in 3D.

    tinderbox

    Same here! Have been searching all around the web but did not find anything that was as useful as this video. Thanks!

    Ramy

    Great. Same here was looking for a comprehensive way to get stuff from C4D to AE and this showed me how just in time. Thanks.

  2. tasook on October 27, 2009 said...

    Hey there
    lovely tutorial, very helpful.

    We saw that the cameras were also imported into after effects, but what does that mean? How much can you play around with those? Surely you can’t move them around the 3d environment in after effects, can you? So what’s the point of importing them?

    thanks again!
    t

    brandon thomas

    You can add additional 3D layers/elements in after effects and they’ll be in the right position in 3D space relative to the scene..

    Michael

    Hi all

    Does anybody know how to link ex. a tekst layer to the camera data imported from C4D?
    I tried different options but my text layers is bouncing around the screen. I have done it before but I’m so tired from trying to reach a deadline, that I can’t remember… please help :o ) Mich.

    And Nick, THANK YOU. you bring joy to tons of people! Your tutorials are at the same level as a certain “Dr. Cramer” (And thats high)

  3. The Gorilla on October 27, 2009 said...

    The reason you import them is so that everything lines up in AE. Now, you can add even more elements to the scene and everything stays in the right position because we have camera data in there.

    Raivan

    Nick,

    You hear it all the time- BUT thank you for being so generous with your knowledge!
    I have C4D version 11…not 11.5
    What about the procedure & effects in this tutorial can version 11 NOT do? Thanks again!

    r-

    Raivan

    Addendum-

    I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention! I know next to nothing about C4D, so I please bear with me :/ Is there a work-around to the new feature you pointed out where you can modify the “external compositing” tag’s properties by creating a solid that becomes an alpha matte or luma matte in AE? Is multi-pass rendering my only option in C4D v.11?

    Agustin

    Hi Raivan Did you find any solution to your problem? because i am stuck with the same problem as you…Please help!

    chris culp

    Another method of exporting an alpha matte is to create a plane using whatever dimensions, and give it a unique object buffer with a “Cinema 4D compositing tag”.

    This works in older versions too.

    Peter

    Great tutorial, but if i wanted to make a logo in cinema 4d and then motion track in to a video in after effects. How can i do it; example given here. Please help http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJeseQS-Exw

    The Gorilla

    You will have to use 3d tracking software to pull that trick off.

  4. artomikaishi on October 27, 2009 said...

    Thank you mister GoRilla!
    for taking the time to create this.

  5. budaloco on October 27, 2009 said...

    I never could use the “export After Effects” thingy…The proyect file doesn´t open on After CS4…has anyone experienced this yet?

    It is a CS3-only proyect file?

    Cause if it´s like that…It really sucks…!

    Great tutorial man!

    Keep em coming!

    greetings from Argentina!

    ben.

    brandon thomas

    have you installed the exchange plug in? it’s included in the installation of cinema4d and alloes the .aec file to be imported into After Effects, you just have to drag the plug into AE’s plugin folder, and you should be good to go.

    Ryan Roehl

    Thanks brandon

  6. Ian Ultra on October 27, 2009 said...

    Seriously Nick thanks a whole bunch for this tutorial, I’ve been piecing how to do this from multiple tutorials of lower quality. This one really brings everything together.

    Ian

  7. Joel Lisbona on October 27, 2009 said...

    Very well explained workflow, i think i watched it on Maxon, but maybe it was a shorter version.Thanks man.

  8. Richard Williams on October 27, 2009 said...

    Thanks, Nick! Spot on as usual!!

  9. VancouverMan on October 27, 2009 said...

    All of a sudden the Flash videos aren’t playing for me anymore. Anyone else seeing this? Not seeing it elsewhere. The only thing I can think of is that I have a QT X player open in the background but not sure why that should matter.

  10. budaloco on October 27, 2009 said...

    @brandon Thank you very much!! I´ll try just that.

  11. Ben on October 27, 2009 said...

    Is it me or did you already post this?

    The Gorilla

    You may have seen a shortened version on the Maxon Website.

    Ben

    Ah! Thats it. I thought I was going crazy for a minute.

  12. Stef on October 27, 2009 said...

    Thank you, I really like your cinema 4D tutorials.

    Cheers

  13. Onskin on October 27, 2009 said...

    Thanks for the tips Nick !
    About the ” external compositing ” I don’t see these option, and I can’t create a solid, is there only in 11.5 ?

    The Gorilla

    You should have an External Compositing tag in older versions, but the “Create Solid” is new to 11.5.

  14. Ray on October 27, 2009 said...

    Brand new to the site and C4D, looking forward to learning, thanks Nick!

    The Gorilla

    Welcome to the site, Ray!

  15. Bearpig on October 27, 2009 said...

    Cheers Nick, always wondered the best way of doing multipasses from C4D into AE – never released that’s what object buffers were for!
    Cheers once again dude!

  16. Matt on October 27, 2009 said...

    Nice !
    You should post more of these compositing tuts, because imo they’re the most difficult to get right.

    Thanks !!

  17. semerkhet on October 27, 2009 said...

    Nice and very usefull tutorial as always.

    Thank you.

  18. Kyle on October 27, 2009 said...

    WOW. That was great, thank you Nick. Does anyone know if something similar is possible in Maya? I’m sure it is, but it seems like Cinema 4D works much better with AE than Maya does. I’ve considered ditching Maya and making Cinema 4D my main 3D program. If anyone has any opinions on that to offer it would be great, because I’m having a hard time deciding if it’s worth putting the time and money into learning C4D. Thanks!

    Ben

    IMO maya has better tools to get separate compositing passes/render layers into a compositing software like ae. Its alot like creating different layers in photoshop, where you are able to assign varying objects,lighting conditions, textures, animations etc to individual render layers and then hit batch render rendering everything together. However im not sure that you can import the camera data from maya into different comping software. Will do some investigating and report any findings!

    Ben

    Hope its cool for me to post the links here (let me know if its not!)

    Dated tut from creativecow.net which might help you abit – http://library.creativecow.net/articles/delafuente_rene/maya_cam_imp.php

    Adobe AE-CS4 product support which is much more helpful! – http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7f25a.html

    Hope this helps!

    The Gorilla

    Thanks for the help, Ben.

    Kyle

    Thanks for the info Ben, I’ll have to check that out. I have successfully imported the camera data from Maya into AE simply by importing the maya project file into AE. It’s been a while though, so I may be only half right about how simple it is.

    Ben

    No prob guys. Am hoping to find more info on maya to AE comping… if anyone is also interested/knows anything please just let me know.

  19. Steve Kirby on October 27, 2009 said...

    Would I be correct in thinking that all this can be achieved with C4D version 11 (or 10, in fact). Also, in your example it’s unlikely to be an issue, but if you don’t separate the faces of the cube and attach the external compositing tag to the ‘front’ face, the solid or null object in AE will actually be in the equivalent of inbetween the front and back faces. If your screen had more thickness that would cause drift…

  20. Daniel on October 27, 2009 said...

    Good tutorial! Thanks a lot for the work! Quick question: how do we export simple “nulls” from C4D into AE, if we want references for positioning AE (2.5D) elements in a scene?

    chris culp

    You can export the 3D data of any object by adding the “external compositing” C4D tag to it. Check “3D data” in the render settings, and hit save… that’s it!
    The best part is you don’t even have to render to export all of this data out, it creates the AE file instantly.

    diegoVONdiego

    Wow ! That’s great ! I was sure that External compositing tag wasn’t that useless before 11.5 ! Chris you are my today god !

  21. Julien on October 28, 2009 said...

    woaw! Nice piece Nick!
    If only you we’re a Softimage user! I think I could learn a lot of things. :)

    Anybody knows how can I do this with Softimage?
    (I mean exporting camera data)

  22. John Wahl on October 28, 2009 said...

    I like it….

  23. Fabian on October 28, 2009 said...

    Tried to open the .aec file (that cinema4d had exported) into After Effects CS3. But it gave an “After Effects error: Can’t import file: unsupported filetype or extension”.

    Anyone else have the same problem?

    The Gorilla

    You have to install the C4D.plugin into your plugins folder. You should have that file in your Maxon Folder.

    Fabian

    Okay, thanks Nick… that was it!

    Dan Mountford

    Ive had this problem, i installed the new plugin for cs5 off the maxon site, now it wont even show up with the “After Effects error: Can’t import file: unsupported filetype or extension”. anybody have a clue whats wrong? many thanks.

  24. Toros Köse on October 28, 2009 said...

    Wow just what I needed/asked for! Haven’t watched it yet but it seems to be exactly what I was looking for!
    Thanks alot Gorilla!

  25. Jessica Robbins on October 28, 2009 said...

    Thanks Nick- i love how you were able to explain object buffers in 15 minutes.

  26. vjorchid on October 28, 2009 said...

    Thanks!! this is very helpfull!.
    But i have a question…
    i want to do the same but with a cube faces.
    i want put video on a cube face….
    how can i impot each faces of the cube for replace a diferent video on after effects .

    Thanks :D

    The Gorilla

    For a cube, you can offset the solid so that it matches up to the face of the cube. You may have to do some measuring, but It should work.

    lawrence

    I’m not sure but could you also duplicate the cube, make the copy editable and separate the faces and give each one a compositing tag? Might give it a try later, if it works it should work with any C4D version.

    vjorchid

    Tanks :D

  27. ali on October 28, 2009 said...

    yo nick love the tutoial but just one problem, this external composite tag is it only for r11..

    The Gorilla

    Yeah, This tut was made using 11.5

  28. Wade on October 28, 2009 said...

    Thanks a lot Nick! Thats absolutely what I needed to know!My work is going to be a lot cooler now!

  29. zach blumstein on October 28, 2009 said...

    finally! ive been waiting for this

  30. marsio on October 28, 2009 said...

    Hi the tutorial is great,,,
    I am new in C4d and have some question
    1) why if in the render setteng if I switch the Relative to on ,,and the I save,,,then after effects seems not importing nothing,, If i Switch to on then i can import my files
    2) why the red solid create in c4d in after effects appear rotated of 90 on Y?
    thank M

    The Gorilla

    Not sure about those issues. Anyone else having problems?

    Garus

    I have been having this same issue for some time and have not been able to fix it in C4D. The solution is simple in Ae just rotate it 90 degrees and it is corrected. It does get a little frustrating when you have a few of them in your comp.

    Will let you know if I figure it out!

  31. Lance Bell on October 28, 2009 said...

    Awesome tutorial Nick. You just made me wana to stop learning 3d Studio Max and start learning C4D. Can’t wait for Thursday U-Stream chat. :-)

  32. PalmliX on October 28, 2009 said...

    Dude you rock, thanks again!

  33. luis patricio on October 28, 2009 said...

    Hola, agradezco este TUTORIAL, estoy comenzando en Cinema4d, y no habia podido lograr trasladar desde Cinema a After Effects, muchas gracias

    saludos desde Chile

  34. paulie pastafazoule on October 29, 2009 said...

    Hi Gorilla a super great site,i see how did your renders in Cinema 4D for export into After Effects can you tell me how to do it for final cut 7 and motion 3

  35. kwakka on October 29, 2009 said...

    I’ve got a small problem while trying to export project as Quick Time Movie, Cinema says that it is “Unable to write file”. Works fine with Avi Movie Uncompressed frames. I am using R11.5 on win7 x64. Maybe someone knows how to fix this?

  36. Mael on October 29, 2009 said...

    Thank you very much, this tutorial will make a lot of lives easier. One question though,I only have C4D R10.5 , and the External compositing tags only has a Name and Layer field and nothing else, is there a way to work around this or should i just get R11? anyway, salamat from manila, philippines!

  37. Agustin on October 29, 2009 said...

    Hello! I have a simple question, i have cinema 4d version 11, and in the external compositing tag, i don´t have the option of create solid, i just exported the 3d data and the nulls objects, but my picture or footage doesn´t match exactly with the screen, please help.

    zach blumstein

    im having the exact same problem
    whats up with that?

    The Gorilla

    Creating a solid is only 11.5. Nulls should work though.

    Agustin

    Hi there nick! about the nulls i can´t get it right, i don´t know, but somehow, my footage doesn´t match with the 3d screen i´ve made…is there anyway that you could explain us (cinema 4d version 11 owners) how can we achieve this same effect with out the create solid option on the external composite tag??? Make us happy, please help nick.

    chris culp

    Make sure you’re opening up the .aec compositing file from scratch, using the correct camera, and replace the 3D data null with the footage you have, so it maintains the same 3D space. Everything will align perfectly.

    As far as the alpha matte, create a plane where your footage should go, then add a “cinema 4d compositing tag”. This is in addition to the “external compositing tag”. Add a unique object buffer for it, and add that object buffer to your multipass render.

    This works in previous versions too, good luck!

  38. Mark Yu on October 29, 2009 said...

    Hello sir Nick!..that was an awesome tutorial…i have always been waiting for that tutorial!!!..keep it up…..

  39. luis patricio on October 29, 2009 said...

    Hello.. you used Cinema 4d r11.5 ?

    thanks

    The Gorilla

    Yeah, I used 11.5 but you can still do most of this with earlier versions.

  40. Ryan Ragle on October 30, 2009 said...

    Great tutorial! You forgot to mention one thing that might get people into trouble. It at least got me into trouble when I was screwing around with this same thing. That is the external compositing solid is determined upon the axis location of the object. If you end up using a cube instead of a plane, the axis will be in the middle (unless you change it). Therefor when you do a camera sweep like your example, the plane will end up being slightly off. You can have things go really whacky if your axis is on a different rotation.

    Agustin

    I agree! After hours and hours of trying and trying i finally solve this problem just modifing the axis, if yopu use just a plane instead of a cube, you need to pute the axis at the top left corner, because thats where AE put the nulls. Ok, good luck!

    Agustin

    Hi Ryan, is there any way i can contact with you? because i tought i solved the problem, but no…im haven the same problem as before, can you help me?

    Ryan Ragle

    I can’t really help you all that much if you’re on R11 and not R11.5. I haven’t tried to do this same type of mapping on R11 with nulls only :(

    The Gorilla

    Good tip, Ryan. Thanks for your help.

    Greydog

    Ryan! Thank you! I was trying to figure out where I went wrong all weekend!

  41. Paul on October 31, 2009 said...

    Hey! i’m Really missing out!
    How come the Videos never show up whenever i visit this website.all text is visible but its blank and plain where videos are supposed to be.
    I’m in China– if that will help.

    The Gorilla

    There were some bandwidth issues earlier. Should be ok now.

    Paul

    Can’t see it still.
    Please Gorilla,give me some link i could download the above tutorial.thanks

    Paul

    Hi The Gorilla,
    I understand Vimeo has been blocked here in China along with youtube,facebook and others.that’s why i could not access your videos but somehow i managed.Thanks. u are great!
    what abt a C4D tutorial on how you made the billboard?

  42. umerzafar on October 31, 2009 said...

    great tutorial and some very helpful tips.

    i am a max user trying to learn cinema 4d and right now i am having difficulty producing depth of field with the camera. its tricky here. can you give a short tutorial on how to achieve dof in cinema?

  43. Ameer on October 31, 2009 said...

    Hey, “The Gorilla” Can You Please Make A Tutorial On How To Make That BillBoard Please? It Would Be Awesome If You Would :)

    The Gorilla

    Sure, thats a good idea. Look for that sometime soon. Cheers

  44. Miles on November 2, 2009 said...

    Hey thanks for the great tutorial.
    But I’m still working in V11 and was wondering if you ever came up with the same problem I am having when exporting out of V11. I have followed all the steps but when I opened the AE file my nulls are working on some camera movements but when the camera moves fast some of the videos are off from the actual point its suppose to be. I also know the trick about V11 having to have the axis on the top left.

  45. kaugurs on November 3, 2009 said...

    Nick Thank you very much

  46. Eric Woods on November 3, 2009 said...

    I think this is one of the most focused tutorials you have posted. Very direct explanation from feature to feature. I followed the entire time and picked up some tips I hadn’t know. Thank you.

  47. Angelo on November 3, 2009 said...

    Thanks,It’s cool

  48. Tom on November 4, 2009 said...

    Hi Nick,

    Thanks for your tutorials they are great.

    We are using C4D 11. Have you ever encountered problems with you image buffer luma mattes being 1 pixel too large and giving you a white halo around your object in after effects?
    I seem to get this problem all the time and as it’s a luma matte i cannot fix it with a choker. I fix the problem by adjusting the levels and bringing the whites down on the buffer object but wondered if there was something i’m doing wrong or a better way of going around it?

    Tom

    The Gorilla

    Never had that problem, Tom. Sorry. Anybody else?

    Vadim

    I’ve got the same problem
    What’s wrong?

    Vadim

    Man! you have to make *.mov and multy-pass files. thats all you need.
    NO “white halo” – I promise ;)

    Chris Murch

    I’ve had the same problem and unfortunately everything I tried only reduced the issue (turning off the alpha straight matte option) so your tip about using the levels helped me out in the end. You can check out my version here:

    http://tmdmedia.ca/blog/?p=156

    Also thanks Nick for another great tutorial!

  49. Gabriel Menezes on November 5, 2009 said...

    Yes! A lot of questions answered for me. Thanks !!

  50. antonrhoden on November 6, 2009 said...

    nice video. i was wondering if you can do a video on rigging in c4d? because i have this model of a guy i created but i want to move his arms and legs.

  51. Hafeez on November 9, 2009 said...

    Hello Gorilla, Thankx so much for this tip. Just wondering what would be the best way to replace the screens in this graphic (the square TV kind of things) to some videos. (http://www.maxon.net/products/editions-bundles/editions/broadcast-edition/extension-kit.html) (the graphic on top)

    Using the method you suggested we will have so many object buffers etc. Would that be the way we do it? Kindly comment.

    Ben: Just wanted to add on your reply. Maya to AE is also simple as C4D except that the maya Lights don’t come into AE as C4D does. Also the unit/scales are so different that a small movement of position in AE amounts to a 100 pixel etc, very troubling.
    In my learning experience I found Maya to Nuke using FBX formats the best way to work things out for VFX. For MGFX I think we can’t beat the C4D-AE combo. Thankx, this is just IMHO.

    The Gorilla

    Try adding nulls to everywhere you need a tv, then use the nulls to place the images. Then, you can just use a image buffer for all of them instead of each one separately.

    Hafeez

    Thank you so much Nick, I will try that out. I just watched your interview at motionworks. Truly, truly inspiring!!!!

  52. Lewis on November 9, 2009 said...

    Thank you so so much for this tutorial.
    I had been struggling to do this and you really explained everything for me.
    Keep up the cool tutorials they really help alot.

  53. BaRt on November 11, 2009 said...

    Great! Thx.
    But will be tutorial explaining how to modeling this stuff in c4d?

    Paul Edmondson

    I am really struggling with this. The render set up is identical to the video. I have animated a cube moving along a spline and it comes to the camera. Then I want to add video to the front face, but when I add the tags etc and open it in A fx it is so mis aligned. I have tried the picot points in different places and still cant get it sorted.

  54. Insomni4a on November 29, 2009 said...

    hi can anyone tell more about render setting for rendering movie to AF ? i dont know how to work with multipass.

    now all what i can get is a single pic in AF not movie… :(

  55. Marty on November 29, 2009 said...

    Hey! it was the plug-in it need it to be update…:) Where did you get the billboard from–can we get it for free from you..:)?

  56. Kaups on December 1, 2009 said...

    Hi, I tried this amazing tutorial,bu after i exported to ae(cs4) my object with external comp tag was totally out of position(in ae)?Any ideas?

  57. Brent on December 4, 2009 said...

    I’m getting everything to work but the Object buffer. I added a compositing tag to my object, enabled it, set it to 1 and within my render settings ensured that multi-pass and object buffer one were checked.

    Everything opens up in AE. My cameras and all that stuff is there, but there is no separate folder named “Special Passes” like you have. What am I doing wrong?

    Chatton

    Got the same problem… anyone?

    Chatton

    just saw Stelios’s message a couple of comments below, it solved the problem!

    cheers

  58. Basiljen on December 4, 2009 said...

    this is beatiful, Nick! I send my rays of gratitude 2 you.

  59. Folschild on December 7, 2009 said...

    Anyone had issues with the c4d plug in into AE with Snow Leopard? For some reason my computer cannot recognize the plug-in even when I drop it into the AE plug-ins folder. I run c4d 11.5 and AE CS3 on both my laptop and desktop; my laptop works fine, but only my desktop has Snow Leopard and I think that’s the issue. Anyone know a fix/work around?

    Talljonny

    Having exactly the same. I’m still on C4D 10, but running CS3. All been working fine, installed Snow Leopard and now I can’t import aec files, When I save them out of C4D they come up as photoshop droplet files as well!!

    Please help, it’s sending me crazy!!

  60. Stelios on December 8, 2009 said...

    @Brent. Be sure you’ve checked Multipass render tree. Then in the save section of your render dialog box you will see a new tab called Multi-Pass Image. Write a path in the same folder as your regular image.

    mia

    YES!!! you just totally answered a question to a problem i’ve spent 2 hours searching online for. THANKS!

    now my object buffers/special passes folder is showing in my aec file. thanks again!

  61. Rodolfo on December 14, 2009 said...

    I`m having problems with R11.5 while trying to import a .aec file into CS3. I`ve installed the plugin (C4D.plugin), but when I import the .aec file, nothing happens. In CS4 it works fine. R11 worked fine for CS3 but R11.5 is not working. Any insight !?

  62. mmgh on December 29, 2009 said...

    You have no idea since i’ve been looking for the answer to this question..thanks a lot, i’ve learned a lot of things from you and i hope that you’ll have more interesting tutorials coming up…

    Thanks again.

  63. Jake on January 8, 2010 said...

    I can’t seem to get the lights and camera to show up In AE, every thing else is working except for that.

  64. Osiel on January 9, 2010 said...

    Hey Nick! How are you doing. I found your site a week ago and i ve been checking it everyday since. Love your tutorials, your pretty talented man! I’m also running 11.5 but got some issues when importing into after effects since i can not open the files i believe is the plugin but anyways would like to see a tut on how to create the billboard mainly the process on how to create the lights shining through.Thanks for being such an inspiration. Greets from Canada. Saludos.

  65. lizardhawk on January 10, 2010 said...

    Hi Nick, Hi everyone! Im having problems ive been trying to figure this out for days now. Basically ive done everything in the tutorial ive also downloaded and installed the latest plugin from maxon. When I import i does not bring in the solid object for track matting nor the lights and cameras. Any ideas anyone im really pulling my hair out here.

  66. Kraphik 3D on January 11, 2010 said...

    Your AE + Cinema 4D tutorials are very useful. Thanks :)

  67. lizardhawk on January 13, 2010 said...

    No one will see my comment wayy downn hereeee!

    The Gorilla

    Don’t worry. I see it. Every comment is read! Thanks for watching.

    lizardhawk

    Hi Nick ive done everything in the tutorial ive also downloaded and installed the latest plugin from maxon. When I import i does not bring in the solid object for track matting nor the lights and cameras. Any ideas?

  68. Shawn on January 13, 2010 said...

    Thanks Nick. I’m super grateful for all the work that goes into these tutorials. Super helpful and engaging. I hate to post issues, but I’m running into something really odd with R11.5. The tutorial, as presented, works perfectly. However, if I try to export to a tif sequence, everything gets jacked up in AE. It doesn’t recognize the embedded alphas in the images. This only happens if multipass is enabled. Also, the resulting images show dimensions of 0×0 in the Finder. So weird. Anyone have insight? Thanks again.

  69. lizardhawk on January 24, 2010 said...

    ok

  70. lizardhawk on January 24, 2010 said...

    ok can any one help?

  71. john on January 27, 2010 said...

    Dude i love you, thank you i been looking for this, i have only one problem, after i render my C4D i try to open aec file but it says error its not supported what should i do?

    The Gorilla

    I would re-install the plugin and then contact maxon if it’s not working.

  72. lizardhawk on January 27, 2010 said...

    pleasse anyone?

    sq

    Go to your Cinema 4d >>Exchange Plugin<> “plugins” file,

    try to open the .aec file

    What AE you are running? (it will not work on AE5 :)

    sq

    Go to your Cinema 4d “Exchange Plugin” folder, get the CS3-4 folder and drop it to After effects –>> “plugins” file,

    try to open the .aec file

    What AE you are running? (it will not work on AE5 :)

  73. lizardhawk on January 28, 2010 said...

    ive already done that would you mind having a look using ichat?

  74. James H O'Hagan on February 2, 2010 said...

    Cool Stuff Nick! I support the tutorial idea on how to model a billboard like this one, sure you have some very handy modeling techniques!

    Thanks man!

  75. Zakho on February 3, 2010 said...

    I have waited long for such a tutorial.
    very good and clear explanation tut.
    thanq so much

  76. Yoshi on February 23, 2010 said...

    Is it possible that u can give that border thingy away ?
    I need it for a project

    thanks =]

    The Gorilla

    What border? Are you talking about the billboard? I made it with the primitives that came with Cinema.

  77. Danilo on March 6, 2010 said...

    Hi. Have to admit that I’ve learn a lot from this tut. I appreciate a lot you’ve decided to share it with us. Thanks. Honest.
    Now, I’ve been experiencing some problems when dealing with more than one screen/layer; it just doesn’t work for me; and I’ve done a lot of variations on compositing tags and object buffers.
    Any clue, please?
    Thanks again.

  78. Neal on March 9, 2010 said...

    I’m exporting from C4D with multiple solids (with which to replace images). They are different faces of a cube-like model. When I get them into AE, the solids are all in the same place and not in the right position. Can anyone help?

  79. Stephan on March 30, 2010 said...

    Hai there!

    I hope you can help me! i’m doing everything you said in the tutorial, but when i want to open the ”aec” file in to After Effects nothing happens?…. When i clic on the ”aec” its opening After Effects but i dont see the folders… plees help!!! thnqs anyway.
    stephan

  80. fran on March 31, 2010 said...

    great tutorial nick, helped clarify things greatly. I made something similar to try out, also with a billboard but with a rising semi-opaque screen that eventually tints part of the billboard. i sent the billboard & rising screen to different object buffers but in AE when i place an image on the billboard as per your tut, i set the luma matte to either the alpha of the billboard and the semi transparent screen appears behind the image, or i set the luma matte to the semi-alpha of the screen and only the tinted part of the billboard shows through, sorry about the long windedness but i guess the question is, when there are two interacting mattes in the c4d composition, how in ae do i get the luma matte to see both?

    thanks!

  81. BRIAN P on June 5, 2010 said...

    How do you render the full movie other than Make Preview?
    When I Make Preview, the video is named preview.mov and I have to manually set the dimensions again. Is there a Render button in Cinema 4D?

  82. Andlko on June 16, 2010 said...

    Hey Nick. I’m try to pull video footage inside of letters made in 4D. Like a lumma matte while trying to keep the reflections etc. I made a composite tag with image buffer and the project doesn’t open in AE. Just doesn’t allow me to open it.

    Tearing my hair out. If you could suggest anything that would be grand.

    Thanks mate

  83. Andlko on June 16, 2010 said...

    Sorry composite video into letters

  84. Ted Moore on June 18, 2010 said...

    If any one wants to learn how to do a video wall tutorial I found one on another site…

    http://www.tvgrafx.com/tutorials/start_up_kit/pdf.html

  85. Manuel on July 9, 2010 said...

    Hy guys, hy nick..this is my first comment, and first of all sorry for my english.
    I very like this tutorial, but i still have a problem that i hope you solve me.

    I have my screen as your project, but in my scene, it rotates with a specific position of the ancor point. The problem is: When i create the solid for after effects in the external compositing of the object, ancor point must be only 1)center, top right, top left, bottom right and bottom left. The result is that in after effects, the solid doesn’t rotate in the same way of the screen, but on it own ancor point. How i can do? thanks nick and thanks guys

  86. Brad on July 20, 2010 said...

    I followed the tutorial to a T, but whenever I open the project in AE, the Billboard solid is turned the wrong way in 3D space and I can’t seem to fix it. Has anyone had a similar problem?

  87. Roberto on August 15, 2010 said...

    I have a problem exporting the more than 1 object buffer in Quicktime Format.. it is possible to do this? the only way that I get more than 1 object buffer is in RPF format.. thank you.. great tutorial!

  88. Jason Agar on August 31, 2010 said...

    Now for a real challenge. Go from AE to C4D ;o). Did this for a music video and will never to do it again. C4D to AE is the proper workflow.

5 Trackbacks

  1. By Exporting Cinema 4D to After Effects | Motionworks on October 27, 2009 at 7:06 pm

    [...] Campbell (The Gorilla) has a new tutorial covering techniques for exporting your Cinema 4D scene into After [...]

  2. By 40 great AE tutorials | Detroit Digital Media on November 7, 2009 at 10:43 am

    [...] Visit Tutorial [...]

  3. [...] How to Export Your Scene From Cinema 4D to After Effects [...]

  4. [...] http://greyscalegorilla.com/blog/2009/10/how-to-export-your-scene-from-cinema-4d-to-after-effects/ [...]

  5. By Cinema 4D to After Effects tutorial - tmdmedia on March 10, 2010 at 11:08 am

    [...] Another Grey Scale Gorilla tutorial where Nick shows us how to import a Cinema 4D scene into After Effects. I decided to apply some of my own ideas on to the projects as I wanted to expand on Nick’s idea and have a little fun. You can check out the tutorial here. [...]

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

Comment moderation is enabled. Your comment may take some time to appear.

Follow The Gorilla

Search The Site:

  • Learning Links

  • Motionworks
  • Pariah Studios
  • All Bets Are Off
  • Motionographer
  • FXPHD
  • Squeezeme.tv
  • C4D Cafe
  • Amateurmedia
  • cgpov
  • Cineversity
  • HelloLuxx
  • VisualFXTuts
  • Video Copilot
  • Robert Leger
  • Garus Booth
  • Digital Hitchhiker
  • Base80
  • AE Tuts
  • PSD Tuts
  • CG Tuts