In this lesson, we’ll cover a few key techniques for simulating 3D animation, using regular 2D layers. We’ll take into account all their advantages and disadvantages. We will use expressions to create a rig for such animations in order to remove some of the manual work and make them as flexible as possible. Then we’ll style it with effects to make the animation even more expressive.

In this lesson, we’ll focus on the benefits and drawbacks of creating 3D in After Effects. We’ll consider when it’s better to work with the built-in 3D features, using various engines instead of another software. Then we’ll create a few simple 3D models and demonstrate to you how to quickly animate them and use them as a basis for more complex animations. In addition, we’ll analyze cases when we can take advantage of expressions to work with 3D.

Based on three animations, you’ll learn generators and deformers for simple animation in C4D Light. We’ll cover modeling basics, demonstrate to you how to work with textures and use Xpresso for automatic animation without setting keyframes. And we’ll finish the lesson by showing you how to stylize the picture for our project and how to prepare the project for import into After Effects.

We’ll show you a few options to integrate a project from Cinema 4D into After Effects. And then we’ll take a look at the possibilities and approaches to stylizing 3D material in After Effects.

In this lesson, it’s time to combine all styles into several complex illustrations consisting of 2D and 3D graphics. We’ll analyze issues you may deal with and will suggest approaches to solving these issues. What’s more, we’ll take a look at the rig and animation of the spider, for which we will use a completely new custom script with a limb system for advanced rigs.

In this lesson, we’ll assemble two scenes from all the animations. You’ll learn how to add auxiliary animation in order to liven up our scenes. What’s more, you’ll have a look at how to deal with really complicated compositions containing a dozen of complex animations, without going crazy with the render time.

During the course, we use a lot of custom scripts. So, now it’s time to learn how these scripts are created and what software is used to develop them. Also, you’ll find out how to debug their work, modify them and adapt them for your own purposes. From this point on, you’ll be able to develop your own approach to work and form your own workflow.

We’ll show the breakdown of the most difficult parts of our project. Also, you’ll see how to combine the frame-by-frame animation in a 3D environment.

We’ll attach all the course materials and scripts so that you can check out all the details of the project.