You will need Adobe After Effects CS6 or Creative Cloud, Element 3D, a photo editing program (such as Photoshop), and a 3D modeling program. Although Maya 2012 is used as the example for this book, any modeling software can be used. If budget is an issue, it's recommended that you use Blender 3D (a free downloadable 3D animation/modeling tool). Additionally, there is downloadable content that is necessary for this book. Please see the next section on acquiring the example project(s).