Book Image

Lightning Fast Animation in Element 3D

By : Ty Audronis
Book Image

Lightning Fast Animation in Element 3D

By: Ty Audronis

Overview of this book

<p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>By the time you complete this book, you will have all the information you need to effectively create professional 3D graphics using Element 3D.</p>
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Lightning Fast Animation in Element 3D
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgment
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Exporting your objects to Element 3D


Before you can really get started with texturing your objects, they need to be sent to Element 3D. Let's start with the lamp (as that's the most complex object that we've made so far). The lamp has several objects that we want to be able to move independently. For example, if the table gets bumped, we'd like the shades to rock a little to add some more realism to your motion.

Element 3D simply won't recognize that your shapes are objects that are separate from your lamp (because of the export/import process). The way Element 3D breaks objects up from one file into several items is done through surfaces (textures, shaders, or materials).

First, make sure that all of your lampshades are centered over your light sockets. The exact procedure covered here differs slightly from 3D package to 3D package, but the principles are the same. For each object and each different surface, assign a unique shader.

The colors that you use in your modeling software are irrelevant...