Some of you may be familiar with Paul Tuersley’s excellent scripts allowing for the importation of cameras and other objects from After Effects into Cinema 4D. But sometimes your workflow calls for a different approach.

Eric Henry has developed a clever process for importing the animation data of objects and/or cameras into Cinema 4D from After Effects. Here’s his introduction and overview of the process:

Here is an After Effects-centric workflow for translating animation in After Effects to Cinema 4D. It relies on XPresso to drive animation in C4D by referencing values in a text file containing AE keyframe data.

Essentially, this is an expanded version of the process described by Jamal “Nimpsy” Qutub for using AE tracking data to drive X and Y position in C4D:

http://maxon.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=42002

Nimpsy’s process, in turn, relies on Rui Mac’s Text Read node (and an XPresso network apparently described in a tutorial by Base 80. I never got my hands on the this tutorial, but Rui Mac was kind enough to supply me with his node, and I was able to replicate the network from the screenshot included in Nimpsy’s post). Long story short, I expanded Nimpsy’s process to include not just X and Y position, but all the AE transform properties.

So, once you have an animated mockup in AE, a corresponding model in C4D, and the finished template files (included here) the workflow goes something like this:

1. In AE, add a default expression to any animated properties
2. Convert the expression(s) to keyframes
3. Copy and paste keyframes into a blank Excel spreadsheet
4. Transfer values to their appropriate columns in Excel template file
5. Save as a space-delimited .prn text file
6. In C4D, configure your scene to match frame rate and size of AE mockup
7. Merge in appropriate C4D rig file
8. Zero out model position and rotation and parent to bottom of rig hierarchy
9. Locate the “Text Read by rui-mac” XPresso node and direct the “filename” parameter to .prn file
10. Repeat this process for each object in your scene, including camera
11. Select your camera as the Scene Camera. Scrub through your timeline. Your object(s) should move, scale, etc. as they did in your AE mockup.

A more detailed explanation of these steps is included in the ReadMe.

For the ReadMe, examples and template files, download Eric’s AEtoC4D .zip archive here.

NOTE: Because C4D uses absolute links for referencing files, the path to the .prn file in the example .c4d file will not work. You’ll need to manually re-link it.

Movie Critic Elvis Mitchell does these great interviews on NPR. The latest interview is with Writer/Director/Actor Eli Roth.

Eli Roth began shooting super 8 films at the age of eight, after watching Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” and deciding he wanted to be a producer/director. Roth made over 50 short films with his brothers and friends before attending film school at N.Y.U., where he won a student Academy Award and graduated Suma Cum Laude in 1994. He worked in film and theater production in New York City for many years, doing every job from production assistant to assistant editor to assistant to the director. By the age of 20 Roth was development head for producer Fred Zollo, and eventually left to write full time. To earn his living, Roth did budgets and schedules for such films as “A Price Above Rubies” and “Illuminata,” and often worked as a stand-in, where he could watch the director work with the actors. In 1995, Roth co-wrote “Cabin Fever” with friend Randy Pearlstein, and the two spent many years unsuccessfully trying to get the film financed. Roth left New York in 1999 to live in Los Angeles, and within four months got funding for his animation series “Chowdheads.” Roth and friend Noah Belson (Cabin Fever’s “Guitar Man”) wrote and voiced the episodes, which Roth produced, directed and designed. The episodes were due to run on W.C.W.’s #1 rated series “Monday Nitro,” but the C.E.O. was fired a day before they were scheduled to air, and the episodes never ran. Roth used the episodes to set up a stop motion series called “The Rotten Fruit,” which he produced, directed and animated, as well as co-wrote and voiced with friend Noah Belson. Between the two animated series, Roth worked closely with director David Lynch, producing content for the website davidlynch.com. In 2001, Roth filmed “Cabin Fever” for a shoestring budget of $1.5 million, with private equity he and his producers raised from friends and family. The film was the subject of a bidding war at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival, eventually going to Lion’s Gate, instantly doubling the “Cabin Fever” investors’ money. “Cabin Fever” went on to not only be the highest grossing film for Lion’s Gate in 2003, but the most profitable horror film released that year, garnering critical acclaim from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Empire Magazine, and such filmmakers as Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, and Tobe Hooper. Roth used the “Cabn Fever”‘s success to launch a slew of projects including his newest film Hostel II.

click here for the interview: Eli Roth Interview