Okay, so Element 3D is still in its 1.x generation. What's to come? Excellent question! One can only guess. However, some good guesses would probably include integration with After Effects' shadow engine (much like the integration with the lights), reflections, true refractions, and other ray tracing effects (maybe radiosity).

Some other features that would be cool are ones that have more of z-buffering. Closer integration with the AEX 3D engine, which would include better compositing for other 3D layers flying between objects (without the need for generating world position maps), would be an excellent addition to Element 3D.

More particle features (such as gravity and collision detection) will also undoubtedly come into play. Maybe through additional interfaces to particular, we can replace those particles with objects?

However, these are all just wild thoughts, and all of these come with a price. Render times will go up exponentially with all of these features. Let's be real here. Element 3D is still essentially for motion graphics. So, although all of these features would be welcome, who really knows where it's going?