See what’s possible with Cinema 4D Lite
Learn about Cinema 4D Lite, the 3D creation and animation software included with After Effects that makes it easy to integrate 3D elements directly inside your compositions.
Published
Introduction
[WAVE FORM] >> Adobe includes a light version of Cinema 4D [WAVE FORM] by MAXON Computer with Adobe After Effects.
This makes it easy to integrate 3D elements inside After Effects compositions.
Not only can you import native Cinema 4D files as composition layers, but you can export 3D cameras and lights as well as 3D shapes and text layers as Cinema 4D files.
Let's see how this is done.
In this composition, which is part of a video created by the very talented [Stephan Needleman for O'Neal], we have some animated text and a camera animation.
The objective is to give the text a bit more depth and add some deformation to it as well.
Let's double click and open the text pre-composition.
Exporting After Effects text to Cinema 4D
All we have to do is go to the File, Export, MAXON Cinema 4D Exporter.
We will be prompted to select between two options, Extrude Text as Shapes, provides the Highest fidelity export, or Preserve Editable Text to Maintain the ability to change font and text content.
Selecting the first option will convert the text layer into a shape and then export, this way the exported shape will be identical to the After Effects text.
And although, we won't be able to edit the text inside Cinema 4D, it's recommended for accuracy.
The second option will create editable text splines inside Cinema 4D, but since some parameters of the text layer aren't taken into account, for example, kerning.
There's a good chance that the text placement will be slightly out of place.
If there's a chance, you may want to change the text in the native Cinema 4D file, then this is the option for you.
Let's go with the first one.
As I'm happy with what the text says, so I choose accuracy.
Press OK.
And find a cosy place to save the Cinema 4D file.
That's just about it.
Let's load the newly exported file into After Effects.
Replacing text layers and adjusting extrusion
Let's Import, select the file and press Open.
Now, let's go to our composition.
And with the flat text layer selected, let's Alt drag it to replace it.
So it retains all the effects.
Click on this, Alt drag, click on this, Alt drag.
As you can see now, our text has a slight extrusion.
If I want to change the amount of the extrusion, all I have to do is select my Cinema 4D footage and press Cmd+E to edit the original.
This will bring up Cinema 4D and allow us to edit any of the file's properties.
So lets trail this, open and let's go and find the extrude objects that create the extrusion for each letter.
I'm going to click and then Shift click, and then use my command to add to the selection.
This way I've selected all the extrude generators.
In the Object tab, in my Attributes Manager, I go to my Movement and increase from 20 to, let's say, 78.
And then I'm just going to save the file.
Back in After Effects, we can see the updated file.
We can also export strokes and other shape effects.
Let me show you a quick example.
Let's go back to our original text comp,
Exporting strokes and shape effects to Cinema 4D
and what I'm going to do is select the wave and the form, and go to the Stroke.
Let's make a Stroke of 5px and let's double click on the color to make it red, just so that we can see it.
And there you go, we have a red stroke.
Let's repeat the exercise and export as Cinema 4D file.
File, Export, MAXON Cinema 4D Exporter.
Let's click OK.
And let's override the Cinema 4D file.
Press Save, and Replace.
Now let's go back to our composition.
And you'll see, we now have a stroke around our text.
By the way, if you're wondering why the stroke isn't red, that's just because the three Cinema 4D layers have some tint affects that change the color to a shade of gray.
Adding deformation to text with Cinema 4D deformers
To close off this brief demonstration, let's add some deformation to our text.
Select the Cinema 4D footage and Edit Original.
Trail open the hierarchy inside Cinema 4D and let's add a Bend Deformer object.
I'm going to rotate it 90 degrees on the P and 90 degrees on the B and press Enter.
Now I'm going to drop it under the parent now and increase the Strength.
I am going to turn on my Keep Y-Axis Length, move it slightly off center and change the mode from Limited to Unlimited.
I can tweak the value if I wish.
And now I'm going to rewind and play.
And this is what the animation looks like.
Let's save this and go back to After Effects.
The text is now deformed inside our composition.
And that's an overview of the Cinema 4d Exporter functionality in After Effects.
