Cineversity

Hi all - wondering what might be going on here.  I have a C4D project that I’m saving in AEC format, importing into AE, and I end up with my solid rotated in what appears to be 90 on the X axis.  Wondering if I’m doing something wrong that I should be correcting in C4D itself.  Additionally, the scaling of the object, per my animation in C4D, doesn’t appear to be working properly.  Again, wondering if I’m doing something wrong.  Sample project files attached, including a screenshot of the AE project after import on my system.  This is C4D R14 and AE CS6.

For clarity, the green plane in the AE screen is the rendered C4D object in the source video and the red plane is the actual solid in AE as exported by C4D.

Any thoughts?

Hi Ryan,

To clear that, please do the following:

In C4D—create a plane, in the “Attribute Manager”—set the Orientation of the plane to Y+ or X- or Z+ etc. Have an eye on the Axis in the editor view while doing so. The Axis is not changing!

So the origin axis comes in correctly, but as long as Y is the needed orientation in C4D, you might change that in Ae later on—here the parameter with NO keyframes are to use. (... or if possible, fix is in C4D in the first place ;o)

BTW, I stick with the Z orientation for the plane. (If you check the External Compositing file settings, you might notice that there is only a X and Y parameter.)

All the best

Sassi

Brilliant!  I never thought of that.  I’m sure eventually I might have, but you saved me the time and frustration of messing around with it.  Ugh.  Thanks much, Dr Sassi!

You’re welcome, Ryan.

I’m glad I could help.
Yes, it can take a while—as two applications have to be explored.

Have a good one

Sassi

And unfortunately I don’t get all day to play in either one of these - this is my “fun job” so I don’t get to learn and stay up to speed on this stuff.  Ramp up then ramp back down…

I hope you get more chances to have “fun Jobs”, Ryan.
It is certainly a nice combination C4D/Ae ;o)
Take care

Sassi

This definitely solved the orientation problem.  Thanks again!

The scaling is still an issue, though.  I’m wondering if using the scaling tool translates properly to AE?  Do you know one way or another about that?

Hey Ryan,

This is the help content comment for that:

External Compositing Tag
All objects to which this tag (s.a. Compositing Programs) is assigned will be exported as a Null Object containig animation information regarding position and rotation to a compositing project file. These files can then be placed into applicable compositing applications.
Assign this tag to the Cloner object when exporting cloned objects (also applies to other Cloner objects such as the Array object, etc.):

I can only suggest a hack, that worked for me so far, so no official guarantee, hehe.

You can take one parameter from the scale and connect it to a light source (intensity for example). Set the color of the light to black, so it has no effect on the scene. (XPresso, if that is new to you, let me know)

In the aec file this light will be exported. In Ae you connect this Intensity value with the scale of the object in question.

temp = thisComp.layer(“Light”).lightOption.intensity;
[temp, temp, temp]

which you get with the option click on the parameter clock in Ae and then the rubber-band @, to connect the Intensity with it. Scale should work fine then. It’s not a documented suggestion, but with lights information is smuggled since many years into Ae.

All the best

Sassi

Hahaha, that’s an awesome work around.  Very clever.  Good to know that scaling doesn’t come across, though.  Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.  Thanks again, Dr Sassi.

You’re welcome Ryan,

I’m always very carefully when I suggest these things. There is certainly a reason why scale is not supported “natively”. My initial suspicion would focus on Ae, as it is not “really” a 3D application, which is palpable in many areas. However, a non-parented object might (should?) work all the time in that way. I have no idea if a nested hierarchy would work. However, the test is normally done very quickly. ...and perhaps I’m too careful with that.

Have a great weekend

Sassi