Thanks to the great feedback received for the AEE we caught a few bugs. Bartek Skorupa found a workaround for some rounding that was happening at the Python/JavaScript level, hopefully the fix will make the dimensions of those Planes/Solids more accurate. Give it a try a let me know in this thread. Bartek also pointed out that the Empties/Nulls were not exported. That one is also fixed. Other things that are in there: the name of the Null created for tan Empty or an Object was not set correctly, it’s now preserved as expected. I also added a simple filter for those cases where Blender generates object names like “Plane.002″, which is an invalid name in the AE script. It’s now converted to the legal “Plane_002″ so you don’t have to worry about renaming those objects.
Version 1.04 of the AEE is available here: After Effects Exporter for Blender v.1.04 (zip)
Hi.
It’s just two days after releasing the AEE but I got a new version that fixes a couple of issues. Thanks to the great sleuthing by Bartek Skorupa, we found a couple of bugs that escaped my testing. Here is what’s been fixed in version 1.03:
- Camera lens animation. Animating the focal length is not something that should be done lightly and even when you need it, Blender 2.49 makes it very hard to do. Nevertheless it’s now working and After Effects will work with the new data.
- Parented objects not animating. The AEE tries to write an optimized AE script. In doing that it checks if an object has been animated. If not, the AEE will not write keyframes for that object, avoiding wreiting the same position/rotation for the length of the animation. Well, but what if the object has been parented? Version 1.03 addresses this and now parented objects work as expected. If you have a plane that you use as a placeholder and that plane doesn’t animate by itself bu instead follows another object, the AEE will export the keyframes correctly.
- Windows paths. When exporting an animation that has been rendered the AEE tries to connect the rendered footage to your comp. Unfortunately Windows uses the “\” backslash for file separator and that breaks every string exported to JSX. Version 1.03 addresses that problem so now you Windows folks can enjoy all the features of the AEE.
The new AEE version 1.03 is available here: After Effects Exporter v.1.03 (zip)
For years the integration of 3D in the post-processing pipeline has been dominated by commercials applications. Today there is an alternative that I think is worth your attention. I just released the After Effects Exporter for Blender. This program integrates in the File/Export menu of Blender and it allows you to export an entire animation from Blender to After Effects. You can export the camera, lights, 3D meshes, planes, which will create corresponding After Effects 3D solids, and footage. The Exporter even supports multiple passes.
I prepared a 20-minute video tutorial on how to use it. You can find it here at Creative COW. Next to the tutorial there is a link to download the projects files. That link points to a zip archive with all that you need to get started. In the archive you can find the exporter itself, a Blender Python program, a handy user’s manual and the Blender file showcased in the tutorial.
The exporter, nicknamed AEE, is released as Open Source Software and I hope to have it included in the final release of Blender 2.5. While other solutions have been tried before, I believe this is the first time that Blender has such complete support for After Effects. This exporter should streamline your pipeline considerably and I’ll be very interested in hearing about your experience in using it.
Have fun!
