3D applications are highly effective in composing models and animation, capable of rendering startlingly realistic scenes. It would be great to export the output of your favorite 3D application into Adobe After Effects so you could combine it with other footage and use the tool's many functions to manipulate this data as video. But how should you go about it?

In this two-part series I tackle three aspects of this issue:

• Exporting UV data from 3D applications for use in After Effects
• Generating mattes in your favorite 3D application for use in After Effects
• Taking advantage of the OpenEXR format using After Effects plug-ins from fnord

I tackle the first of these aspects, UV data, in Part 1. I address the other two aspects, mattes and OpenEXR plug-ins, in Part 2.

Requirements

In order to make the most of this article, you need the following software:

After Effects

• Try
• Buy

Prerequisite knowledge

To benefit from this article, you should have a basic understanding of where UV data is used in your 3D program and how to generate and manipulate it if necessary. You should have a firm knowledge of After Effects and understand the principles of pre-composing and ordering effects to achieve your desired result.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

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