STEP BY STEP COMBINE CINEMA 4D AND AFTER EFFECTS
01 DESIGN THE SCENE
Create a scene in Cinema 4D, then animate the camera and any object that requires animation. Make sure the geometry that will be exported to After Effects is subdivided properly with either Quads or Triangles as Trapcode Form works best with ‘correct’ geometry. For every object other than a camera and a light which needs to be represented in After Effects, add an ‘External Compositing’ tag to it.
02 EXPORT THE OBJ
First, select the object in the Object List and double-check that it has an External Compositing tag. Go to the Object List menu and select File>export Selected Objects as… and select Wavefront OBJ. Save the OBJ file. Save the Cinema 4D file and open After Effects.
03 CREATE AN AFTER EFFECTS COMPOSITION
With After Effects open, import the Cinema 4D file directly into the Project
window, either by dragging and dropping or with File>import>file. Drag the Cinema 4D file onto the ‘Create a new composition’ icon at the bottom of the Project window, this will create a new After Effects composition based on the Cinema 4D file. Press the Extract button in the Effect controls of the Cineware plugin to add a camera and a null object (from the External Compositing tag) to the scene.
04 USE CINEWARE TO WORK WITH TRAPCODE FORM
Create a Solid layer and then apply the Trapcode Form effect to it. Ensure that the After Effects camera view is set to Camera to use the Cinema 4D camera. In the Base Form dropdown of the Form plugin in the Effect Controls window, choose OBJ Model then press the Choose OBJ... button.
Select Add New OBJ and import the OBJ Model. Make sure that Rendering is set to Motion Preview. Now use the Transform scale to resize the model to the correct size.