Learning question concerning AE

[film842]

My project is to produce graphics/3d modeling for an HD broadcast program and I am brand new to 3D. I need to choose the right 3D software package, which I have not done yet, but this question is bugging me.

Do I need to "master" AE first before trying to teach myself a 3D program?

Or could I learn concurrently? I have a comfortable time line in which to accomplish this.

Any opinions appreciated.

[Jockomo]

A good path would be to learn Photoshop then AE then 3d. Jumping into 3d right away exposes you to all of those areas at once so it could be overwhelming.

[film842]

A good path would be to learn Photoshop then AE then 3d. Jumping into 3d right away exposes you to all of those areas at once so it could be overwhelming.

That makes sense. I have worked with Photoshop somewhat since I edit in Premiere a fair bit. Problem is that each time I tackle learning a new software, I have to ingest a whole bunch of functions that I will never use. Whole civilizations come and go while I pound this stuff into my head.

I wonder if there is a way to try and identify what one wants to learn, in advance?

[Gord.T]

Jockomo is probably right. PS is a must and not that hard to pick up. A little harder to master unless you have prior experience drawing/painting.

AE is pretty popular. I jumped into 3D without using it. I have AE and dabble in it but I've still yet to have a situation where I've had to use it. I use Vegas for final editing. But then again that may be happenstance.

3D is a hard animal to master because it covers so many disciplines. A bit of everything to some degree. I think I'm safe in saying most people specialize in one area of 3D like texturing, character or arch modelling, animating, compositing, fluids and dynamics, motion graphics ect.
Expect 3D to be the bear of the 3.

So again, I tend to agree with Jockomo. Although AE is not a prerequisite for 3D, it's nice to have it in your back pocket as another tool.

[triplej96]

I don't think you need to master AE before 3D but it would help the transition to 3D if you new had some knowledge of AE.

As for order seems like a good thing to learn AE and PS first but not 100% necessarily.

I taught my self Avid first, then AE, PS, and now Cinema 4D (3D).

Also if I could recommend a 3D program it would be Cinema 4D.

[film842]

cAn C4D handle terrain mapping ok?

[Gord.T]

I'm not sure what you mean by terrain mapping. You can use the terrain object to get a basic landscape shape and then use a sub-poly displacement texture (height map) to give it more detail.

Huge complex enviroments with mountians, trees and brush are probably best done with a specialty application like Vue.

[film842]

I'm not sure what you mean by terrain mapping. You can use the terrain object to get a basic landscape shape and then use a sub-poly displacement texture (height map) to give it more detail.

Huge complex enviroments with mountians, trees and brush are probably best done with a specialty application like Vue.

I need to produce a large valley with mountains ringing it and then have the ability to move in on the terrain and out again. I don't need extensive textures to produce forest and plants, in fact, might even be able to make it work with a very simple color texture. Not sure what that's called.

Vue does look enticing, but I can't figure out how to get any answers from them directly such as whether or not I can use it with AE...or would even want to. Their website only promises answers in a couple of days. I find that hard to deal with.

[Gord.T]

I guess if your not expecting to do a lot of enviroment scenes it would be hard to justify buying vue over a standard 3D package. You might be able to use a 3D program with camera mapping. That's where you take a photo of the mountians and project the image onto several lo-polygon models. As long as you dont get too close you might be okay.

I've also seen some good results with using procedural textures on the mountians but I think using photos would give more of a photo real look if that's what your after.

Vue Xstream can integrate with other 3D applications through plugins but I've heard the animations on the Vue XStream side gives too much flickering, but maybe that's been fixed. I've heard Vue Infinite gives pretty good animations but it does not integrate directly with other applications. I havn't done any animations with it yet but am doing one at the moment so I'll know more in a few days.

I don't know about the AE end. You can render multipass in VUE then bring in a Photoshop sequence with layers into AE if that helps any. That goes for other 3D programs also.
You could probably bring in the camera also but I'll let the AE guys field that one as I've never done it.

If your just doing a one time enviroment scene for a specific project then I could maybe help you out with getting that done. Although render times can be 1hr per frame sometimes with complex enviroments.

I hope I'm not complicating things too much. Probably am. Maybe someone else will have another take on it.

[film842]

I guess if your not expecting to do a lot of enviroment scenes it would be hard to justify buying vue over a standard 3D package. You might be able to use a 3D program with camera mapping. That's where you take a photo of the mountians and project the image onto several lo-polygon models. As long as you dont get too close you might be okay.

I've also seen some good results with using procedural textures on the mountians but I think using photos would give more of a photo real look if that's what your after.

Vue Xstream can integrate with other 3D applications through plugins but I've heard the animations on the Vue XStream side gives too much flickering, but maybe that's been fixed. I've heard Vue Infinite gives pretty good animations but it does not integrate directly with other applications. I havn't done any animations with it yet but am doing one at the moment so I'll know more in a few days.

I don't know about the AE end. You can render multipass in VUE then bring in a Photoshop sequence with layers into AE if that helps any. That goes for other 3D programs also.
You could probably bring in the camera also but I'll let the AE guys field that one as I've never done it.

If your just doing a one time enviroment scene for a specific project then I could maybe help you out with getting that done. Although render times can be 1hr per frame sometimes with complex enviroments.

I hope I'm not complicating things too much. Probably am. Maybe someone else will have another take on it.

Not complicating things at all. I appreciate your time. I'm beginning to appreciate that one needs to be able to describe one's needs very accurately in order to ask an intelligent question since there appear to be so many many choices of software out there.

So as clear as I can state it: I need a program that I can learn in a reasonable amount of time that will allow me to do simple terrain mapping plus animate some objects on and around that simple surface (no complex surfacing) and then render out to a format that I can edit with in Adobe CS3 for inclusion in the final broadcast HD master. Whew!

Oh, and the software needs to use a format that is easily interchangeable between artists since I might end up hiring some of the work out.

Does that make sense?

[Gord.T]

I'd have a look at C4D then. They have a free demo for their latest out now.
http://www.maxon.net/pages/products/products_e.html
It integrates very well with AE although you can't import 3D meshes without another plugin. You can also render multipass layered psd files.

As for the actual project file being interchangle with other 3D programs, I don't think any of the projects files are completely compatible with each other. But you can export cameras and objects into other files recognizable by other programs. For example you could export your terrain and a .3ds file for max or .lws for lightwave or .obj ect.