Pret-A-3D

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for all your hard work. I sincerely hope this will be merged in the official Blender trunk. You just single-handedly made my job a lot easier.

Paolo- I had to write and thank you for the Blender to AE script. I’m an experienced AE user (thanks also for the “Beginnings of After Effects” post – I’ve been using AE since the CoSA days.) I’m brand new to Blender, though, and I’m looking forward to getting competent. with your script, the Blender/AE combination is certainly a very powerful one! Thanks again.

Hi Herbert.
Glad thisd is helping you. Yes, hopefully it will be possible to include the AEE in the official release of Blender 2.5. That’s why I wanted to have this released under GPL right away. It’s the least I could do after having benefited from the hard work of the Blender developers. Please don’t forget to stop by at Creative COW, we have abrand new Blender forum that is dedicated to people like you who use Blender in the motion picture business.

Hey Paul, wow, a uber-veteran of AE, I’m honored. As I mentioned to Herbert, please be sure to check out the forum at Creative COW. I started that to promote Blender and AE and to have a place where that kind of dialog can happen. Cheers!

this is one of the most useful scripts i have seen for blender, and it is awesome, thank you so much, but i was wondering is there a version that works in 2.5 alpha

@Jean, the port to 2.5 is planned but I wanted to give something that was useful today, instead of months from now. Blender 2.5 is not production quality and is not complete. If you need to work on a deadline today, 2.49 is the way to go, therefore I gave priority to the 2.49 version. Now that the code seems to be fairly stable I’ll start working on the 2.5 version. A lot depends on the availability of some interfaces that were not in the Python API for 2.5. I’ll start working on it probably next week. I’m going to put out a newsletter system for everybody to subscribe to so that you’ll be able to receive news about the new versions automatically. It will happen probably tonight or tomorrow.

This script is essential and should come with vanilla 2.5.

Thanks again.

Paolo, just wanted to say a big thanks for this tutorial; your presentation technique alone is very easy and clear to understand, and as I was searching for tips on how to mix real footage with Blender in AE, this was exactly what I needed for creating, among other things, a music video with a stage set almost exactly like your space station idea. Fantastic work !

Timing is everything, isn’t it, Scott?
Thank you for the feedback. If at all possible, I’d love to see the video when it’s done.

thank you..im new to blender and i appreciate the tutorials thanks again and keep up the good work!!

Hi Paulo,
Just started learning the script. I get the following error in the console when I run it:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/Applications/blender-2.49.2-darwin-7.9.0-powerpc-py2.3/blenderScripts/export_ae.py”, line 496, in main
animationData = getBlenderData()
File “/Applications/blender-2.49.2-darwin-7.9.0-powerpc-py2.3/blenderScripts/export_ae.py”, line 140, in getBlenderData
objs = findExportables(scn)
File “/Applications/blender-2.49.2-darwin-7.9.0-powerpc-py2.3/blenderScripts/export_ae.py”, line 103, in findExportables
objList = [obj for obj in scene.objects if obj.name.endswith(MGX_TAGS)]
TypeError: expected a character buffer object

Any ideas as to what I am doing wrong?
Thanks,
Jef

Jef, that is a problem caused by the PPC version of Blender. Unfortunately it uses an older version of Python, 2.3, which is unable to run the exporter. The AEE needs Python 2.5. The Intel version of Mac Blender works fine.

Sorry.

Ah HA!!!
I can deal with now that I know …

Thanks!
Jef

Sorry to ask Paolo… but it’s not working for me… I tried to export a 3D text and a camera but in AE there is a NULL obj instead of the text… Cosa sto sbagliando?
Thank you, your tutorials are just GREAT.

Hey Sergio.
I’m going to answer in English so that we can share this for the benefit of everybody. I’ll add Italian if you need me to.
After Effects doesn’t support 3D objects. It cannot import mesh data, so you cannot simply export from Blender or Maya to After Effects. You need to render the scene first and the import the rendered footage inside AE. The exporter allows you to import the camera data and “pointers” to objects so that you can add your elements in AE and they will match the camera movement. The Nulls can be used for parenting solids and other AE objects to the location/rotation that the object had in Blender so that, again, you get perfect match without the need for tracking.
The only objects that can be porter from Blender to AE are the Planes with turn into 3D solids.
Hope this helps.

Wow! I missed this! thank you again Paolo. Very helpful and exhaustive!
Molte grazie e saluti da Roma!

Hey Paulo,
Got it working on an appropriate Mac. Great!!

Now a question. Do you know of a method for doing the opposite? By that, I mean take a AE scene into Blender? I have read about a script for this but it seems to not work on Macs due to a Python issue.

Thanks,
Jef

@Jef, I haven’t used that option but if you point me to the script maybe I can find out what is the issue.

@Pret-A-3D
Hey Paulo,
Here is a link to a discussion thread:

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=146849

My usage would be take an AE project into BLENDER to make an object, light, shade and render, back to AE for final comp.

Good luck,

Jef

when i try to use the exporter, and open the script in after effects, all i get in the comp and the footage is color bands..not the blender object i made…any ideas???

Hi Herman.
You need to render the footage in Blender in order to have anything visible in AE. AE does not have support for 3D objects therefore it cannot import shapes from Blender or any other 3D application. The AEE is meant to give you the camera animation, the center of selected objects and the planes that you flagged. You need to render the footage in Blender and then export the scene with the AEE. The AEE will check for the presence of the footage. If it’s not there it creates a placeholder. When you render the footage you can simply use the “Replace footage” in AE to link the placeholder with the clip.
Please be sure to watch the tutorial that I included, http://library.creativecow.net/articles/ciccone_paolo/ae-exporter-blender.php , a lot of these things are explained there.

Cheers.

Hi Paolo! Thanks for the exporter! I’m interested to use it with After Effects 6.5 Pro, so does the script work with that version of AE?

@Magambo, I don’t know, I don’t have 6.5 anymore and I cannot test it on that. Try it and let us know, but I have my doubts.

Hey Paolo!
Have you had a chance to look at the AE to Blender script link I left above? I really believe a full “round trip” tool would be a great addition to AE / Blender. You are more than half-way there already.
Thanks,
Jef

Hi Jeff. Not yet. I have the link opened in my browser but I’ve been swamped with some other stuff. I’ll look at that asap.

Hello Paolo,

Thank you for taking the time to share this great information.
I do have a question, do you see a Blender to Apple Motion exporter anytime soon?
I think it would be great to create some master templates for final cut using blender for the 3d animation, I know they have the exporter for Cinema 4D to Apple Motion.

Hope all is well, and keep up the good work !

Deyson

Hey Deyson.
I used the tag “.MGX” in the exporter in the attempt to set a general standard. Instead of tagging the objects with something like “.AE”. That was intentional so that other script writers can use the tag to create exporters for other programs. I don’t use Motion and right now I’m involved 24/hours a day in another software that I’m writing. I’m not aware also of any exchange format that Motion uses. AE has the JSX plugin, which is just incredibly useful. Do you know what format could be used for Motion? Anyway, if Motion has an documented exchange format than there is no technical obstacle but I don’t see that coming from me right now. Maybe in the future.
Best.

What I do know is the Apple’s Motion uses XML.

Thank you again for your time.

Hi all together,

has anyone running this Script with After Effects 6.5 Pro.

Any Tipps to last more than helpful.

Hi Arnie, unfortunately I don’t think that the JSX script generated by the AEE can run under AE 6.5. There have been several changes to the features of After Effects from version 6.5 to 8.0, the one included in CS3, and the scripting language reflects those changes. Sorry.

Hi Paolo,

too bad.

Thanks for your answer.

any news on the 2.5 version? This script is ESSENTIAL for pro work!

Hi Sam.
I’m waiting for the Python API to stabilize. From the Blender devel list it’s clear that there are many things that are changing almost daily. Blender 2.5 is still in the alpha phase which makes it pretty much unusable for pro work so there is time to bring the AEE to that platform. I don’t want to spend weeks working on a port just to have to start over because the API changes. As soon as the API stabilizes I will start work on it. Please consider subscribing to my notification service to keep in touch with the update. I don’t spam, I never send any email unless it’s relevant to the use of Blender.

Cheers

Thanks!
This is the most important project to make blender used in more studios.

Greetings Paolo,
First off, let me extend my thanks to you for this script. Well done! I am new to Blender, but have been using After Effects since ’01. This script will definitely be of big help to my future film projects. Thanks again!
Cheers,
Michael