Multi part 3D CAD

[Dj20000]

Hi All

I am very new to After Effects and would like to know if it is possible to achieve my goal.

I am making a short product-based clip. It will include rendering a 3D part of a product, but the product is an enclosure with a circuit board inside it.  I would like import the full 3D part and having multiple part open up , with the circuit board being placed inside the enclosure.

How should I approach this?

[Rick Gerard]

If you are using 3D models, I suggest using Blender (free, open-source, powerful, HTTP://blender.org) and doing everything there. It will be a lot less work than using After Effects.

If you must use After Effects, consider purchasing Element 3D from Video Copilot. That will give you the most streamlined workflow.

If you cannot purchase Element 3D, use the Advanced 3D rendering engine to put each component on a separate layer. You may need to create some track mattes to hide edges.

From your project design description, I would guess that after you get a handle on Blender, the time to create a 10 second animation would be under an hour. Using Element 3D, maybe an hour and a half, or using After Effects without 3rd party effects, two to three hours after you have spent the time reequired to learn the basics of the AE workflows.

[Mylenium]

Don't bother with AE, use a proper 3D program. Converting the IGES/ STEP files or whatever you have will require that anyway as will grouping the sub-assemblies and whatnot. AE is useless here.

Mylenium 

[Dj20000]

The CAD file was developed using Autodesk Inventor , it has tools inbuilt which can do rendering but the output would be PNG files for each frame.  But the only issue is that it can not be dynamically be changed on a video editor for example if I need to change angle or size so was thinking it would be great if it could be done in after effects for that additional flexibility.

[Mylenium]

Export a 3DS, OBJ, DXF or whatever from Inventor with what limited control you have there, convert it via Cinema 4D or other 3D programs if necessary. Again, you cannot open any native CAD format in AE.

Mylenium