Hello,
I've been working with AE for a couple of years and would like to venture in, and learn a 3D program. Does any one have any recommendations? What is the best 3D program that will intergrate with AE? I'm working on a Mac platform.

Thanks
Ian

I'm currently learning MAya. Really complicated, but the possibilities seems endless.

I have been using Maya PLE and it's really cool. I believe Maya was used in the making of Lord of the Rings etc.

Maya's used in everything. Everything is used in everything. It's really rare for a "Massive™" (wink wink) project as large as Lord of the Rings to rely on one software package for everything. Use the best combination of tools for the project at hand. And if they don't exist, you write them!

ElectricImage is certainly the most Mac-like of any 3D major application (it started on the Mac). It's the fastest software-based renderer you can buy. But it's best suited for rigid figure work (like flying logos, architecture, and the like). I wouldn't recommend it for character animation.

But there is no end to the amount of training books and DVD available for Maya and Lightwave (which has a steep, non-Mac learning curve). Cinema 4D also gets high marks for ease of use and interface.

But if you are just playing around and don't want to spend thousands, you could get by with with something like Eovia Carrera which would be like iMovie compared to Maya's Final Cut Pro.

For Text and 3D importing:
Zaxwerks rules. I checked out the new version and it has a text creator for even quicker 3D text creation.

I've brought in 3D elements an animated them independantly.
Best Bang for Buck fo show.

I use Maxon's Cinema 4D. Integration with After Effects is perfect. You can set up multi pass renders with camera moves and lights and then export an After Effects project file to bring all of the elements into AE for compositing. You can also open Lightwave and other projects in Cinema 4d and then export the camera and most of the light data to AE. You can also start small and then add the features that you need.

<http://www.maxon.net/index_e.html>

to Navarro's last point, Canoa 3D which works inside AE is a pretty good solution, and not very expensive.

In all the 3D app threads, I never hear Softimage XSI.. any reason for this? Here we use XSI and AE and we don't have any problems.

Half Life 2 used XSI and has a free version you can download to create levels and characters with. I'm learning Lightwave (cause that's what the rest of my department uses), but we're ultimately switching over to Maya. Maya has LOTS of Sub menus that aren't very intuitive. Very steep learning curve. There's a plugin for lightwave that supposedly outputs camera data for AE ($25) - I searched in yahoo under Lightwave After Effects. Think it was called TransMotion.

....I'm sorry...someone said Zaxwerks RULES???

yikes.

I'm with Mr. Gerard - Cinema 4D & Maya are the best - hands down...and with the announcement yesterday of Maya 6 UNLIMITED being released for us loyal Macsters, it's a GREAT TIME to be a Mac owner.

- Joe