Valerio Carnevale and Davide Franceschini post a look at a new After Effects plugin they have been developing that will allow users to use the FBX file format to exchange cameras, animation and planes between AE and 3D applications.
Even though After Effects opens Maya files natively, this doesn’t account for other application files such as 3Ds Max.
FBX to AE can be used to import one or more animated 3D cameras and reference solids from the FBX format file into After Effects. The plugin supports cameras and 2D planes that are made up of 4 vertices at the the moment. All you have to do is export your 3D scene as an FBX, and then use the plugin for After Effects to import the FBX file.
The plugin will create a new composition in After Effects that has the animated camera in it and the converted solids. Right not the plugin was tested on Windows systems, but the team plan on adding other platforms to the mix including OS X.
What would be more exciting is if the plugin were able to bring in the 3D models directly into After Effects from the FBX file, along side the cameras, nulls and solids. Because FBX holds animation information, the models would naturally animate in Ae. This would be a step up from using OBJ sequences. One could only hope that to be possible.
The plugin is being offered for free. Check out the FBX to AE plugin for After Effects for more information.
