3D in AE

[Matt Grunau]

I read in an AE book that AE can support 3d modelling in tga format and treat it like 3d - ie you can rotate your character and see the sides and back, top bottom etc.

Whatever book you read, either stated that in poor way, or you may have misunderstood. The MOST a .tga file can include is an alpha channel, and that is simply a coockie cutter to tell AE what to treat as opaque and how much. .rla files can contain an extra channel (a 256 greyscale, like an alpha), but this is used for depth. AE's 3D fog, for instance, can make use of it, and if you seperate it, Programs like Photoshop (not sure if AE can do it) can use it for depth of field.

But you can not rotate a .tga and see all sides. it is a bitmapped image file and contains no 3D info whatsoever.

 

[surf]

it contains a Z depth info, but you cannot rotate the 3D objects in the image. you can only use the z depth for some 3d smoke effects