But if you don’t, you need Element 3D.Įlement 3D was originally created as a particle replicator plug-in for After Effects that just so happens to have an incredibly powerful animation, compositing, and material building interface. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Cinema 4D and Cineware’s options when you have more than 30 minutes to build something. Even with Cineware, it still takes quite a bit of processing power and patience to properly light and render out a 3D title, let alone an entire scene. In addition to After Effects, I dabble in Cinema 4D from time to time and understand how difficult it is to create amazing looking titles quickly, export the multi-pass renders, import the multi-pass renders, adjust, and composite in After Effects. Check out his latest and greatest tutorial on the “Grid”. He updates his blog on regularly with mostly motion graphics related content, but sometimes some practical stuff too. He’s a little sarcastic, really fun, and always bursting with useful information for any level of After Effects user. I’m not talking about 3D text that looks like you made it with Microsoft Word presets and somehow got it into After Effects either.įor a bunch of real-world examples and tutorials with Element 3D check out you will be instantly hooked to Andrew Kramer’s tutorial style. Both of which where created by Andrew Kramer, the creator of Element 3D by the way. You can create beautiful 3D text in seconds, and have the ability to dolly and zoom around creating great depth-of-field effects - think of the opening titles from Fringe or even Star Trek: Into Darkness. All of which are amazing in their own right.Įlement 3D is one of those After Effects plug-ins that is worth way more than just the $149.95 it costs.

If you have been around the After Effects community for more than a few years, you have definitely run into reviews and tutorials on the heavy hitters of the After Effects plug-in world, such as Red Giant’s Trapcode Suite, GenArts Sapphire, and maybe even Copilot’s Optical Flares.

Be sure that you have a compatible system including the graphics card. You will also need After Effects CS3 or higher, including Creative Cloud, on either Mac or Windows. There are many significant additions, such as being able to generate a 3D position null object, replace model option, and even a scene relink option. If you are a current Element 3D user and haven’t upgraded from Element 3D 1.5 or earlier yet, do it now! For this review of one of most powerful plug-ins available for After Effects, I am testing Video Copilot’s Element 3D V.1.6.2, along with the Pro Shaders material library.

Video copilot element 3d mac