Lightning Fast Animation in Element 3D

Whatever your skill level, this is a brilliant tour round the multi-faceted features of Element 3D, the Adobe After Effects plugin. Its hands-on approach means you’ll soon be at home with creating awesome 3D graphics in record time.

In Detail

Element 3D is a plugin for Adobe After Effects, used to create basic, yet stunning 3D visual effects. Some may find 3D to be tricky and downright complex. Element 3D allows actual 3D models to be created from scratch or exported to Adobe After Effects, and rendered and composited at a high level of quality and impressive speed.

This practical guide will lift the veil of mystery around 3D animation. It will teach you everything from modeling, preparing, and exporting from various 3D programs to match-motion, texturing, and complex animations using Element 3D.

This book is a comprehensive guide to using Element 3D and is appropriate for users of all levels. It will walk you through the basics of modeling objects for Element 3D. Then, you’ll learn how to texture, light, and animate as well as optimize your scenes for quick render times.

You will discover some of the limits of Element 3D, and learn how to break through those barriers to create virtually any 3D scene imaginable. You will also learn how to take advantage of other 3D programs such as Maya and Blender to create content and create stunning abstract scenes in relatively no time, and how to composite 3D animation into motion-tracked live action scenes.

By the time you complete this book, you will have all the information you need to effectively create professional 3D graphics using Element 3D.

What You Will Learn

• Model objects using an external 3D program, and export them to Element 3D
• Optimize your 3D scenes for quicker render times
• Use samples, polygon counts, and machine specifications to optimize your render times and performance
• Apply techniques to overcome the limitations of Element 3D such as group limitations, lack of ray tracing, and no physics system
• Exploit Element 3D by using advanced techniques such as match-motion and object arrays, to create stunning visual results
• Create textures for Element 3D using external programs such as Gimp and Photoshop

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