3ds Max + AE: Learn VFX, Camera Tracking and Compositing

Add Drone and other live footage to your workflow by using built-in tools from 3ds Max and Adobe After Effects.

4.65 (232 reviews)

Udemy

platform

English

language

3D & Animation

What you will learn

Take drone and other live footage, camera track it accurately, and composite 3D elements into the footage for a convincing visual effect.

Camera track footage using Adobe After Effects.

Match 3d models to your tracking information in 3ds Max.

Composite using After Effects to accurately match lighting, color, etc. of the two footage tracks (rendered 3D and live action).

Why take this course?

There are few better ways to present a project to your clients than through aerial fly-overs of a proposed building. Drones have made it easier than ever to aerial footage of your projects sites. In this course you will learn to take drone footage (or really any kind of footage), whether it is shot by you or someone else, and composite in your 3D creations easily and convincingly. 3DS Max and After Effects already have all the built-in tools that you need for creating visual effects using 3D composited into live footage. Follow this course and you will be amazed at how quickly and easily you can be up to speed, creating your own movie-like effects, using software you probably already have access to.

This course is broken down into three main sections:

Inside of After Effects -- This is where I will show you how to generate and export 3D camera tracking data for later use in 3DS Max.
Inside 3DS Max -- From AE, we will get a camera the exactly matches the zoom angle and movement of our live video footage, but in Max we will have to adjust its scale and rotation in order to get it to match with the real world. Once we have that, we can add any 3D elements we want to the footage.
Bring It All Back Together In After Effects -- This is where we will do some compositing. The goal is to make the 3D animation elements and the live footage mesh together seamlessly and convincingly.

This course is hands on. You will be following along with me creating a basic aerial fly-over. You will learn the exact workflow that you need, plus a ton of tips and tricks that will help you to not get hung up when you graduate to your own projects. I have already done all the troubleshooting for you, so learn from my experience. Check out the promo video to learn more about me, and about the project you will creating in the course.

Join the course today for lifetime access!

Check out my other Arch Viz / 3D courses as well (More about those at the end of this course). I have learning opportunities for all levels, and courses that cover various different aspects of the industry.

*This course uses the latest and greatest in the two main software packages that are discussed.

**Frequent updates and additional lectures

***Lifetime access to all content and future content

Screenshots

3ds Max + AE: Learn VFX, Camera Tracking and Compositing - Screenshot_01

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3ds Max + AE: Learn VFX, Camera Tracking and Compositing - Screenshot_04

Reviews

Aleksandar

June 26, 2023

Some things should have been elaborated better. 1. Importing the .JPEG image files - if it is recommended it should be explained. 2. Scaling of track points - they were invisible at 100% in my case.

Caleb

January 19, 2023

For the money this was really sloppy. He glossed over so many things and seemed like he didn't care at all. Do not get this, there's better classes out there

Ruben

April 29, 2021

The course gives all the information you need, but not in the optimal way. I found the presentation a bit sloppy, with many off-topic sections that reduce the pace of information transmission. This slow pace makes the process seem more complicated and slower than it actually is, which is a missed opportunity. If this course had been better prepared and re-shot so that all the creator's thought processes had been filtered out, this would have been a much more enjoyable and faster learning experience. I hope the creator can upgrade the course, because it contains a lot of valuable information and is essentially a comprehensive one.

Jakob

February 28, 2021

The narrator doesn't seem to have planned the tutorial enough in advance. I was several times distracted because the narrator was not on point all the time. Compared to other tutorials on udemy, this is not what i was expecting. Free sample Video does not work with AE CC 2021, had to render new mp4 file to make it work. Narrator meanders too much...not enough detail explanation with the tracking part. The text example Tracking was confusing, drifted from main theme of tutorial. 3ds Max explanation could have been a bit more beginner friendly. I can use the tutorial because I made several tracking tutorials on youtube before and knew more or less what this was about. A beginner could have trouble if something does not work properly. The merging and masking of the 3D objects was good explained and helpful.

VijayAnandKumar

May 15, 2020

Amazing... Getting more into the basic details Helps us to understand better .... Thanks to Adam for his valuable tips!!

Maurizio

March 30, 2020

So far so good. I have no knowledge of after effects but i think i could just do what i need to when it comes to camera tracking, matching and compositing of a simple animation just by following the steps. A proper course in After Effects is needed to explore the software of course but this gives you a kickstart to start doing animations and camera tracking which is what's needed in the industry.

Hawk

March 6, 2020

The first lessons using Adobe After Effects was great. I never knew those features existed within AE. So cool to import drone footage and set up the tracking. Adam even goes into what to do if you run into issues with that.

Marc

December 25, 2019

I would have liked to have the files he used for to compare with my files, or just the final results. Anyway, it was really good

August 14, 2019

It could have been more detail even if it's not an actual project. Not Detailed at all even for the Basic course.

Christopher

June 14, 2019

I loved the step by step process (and tricks) to go through what could be a tricky workflow. It was well presented. I felt like there were a few things skipped and even though this only was to show the process of bringing in AE tracked aerial footage into 3D Max I wish it was taken to the final completion of a presentable deliverable. I think the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was it seemed like Adam was limited in or not used to using Mental Ray but wished he used V-Ray as he's used to using. I understand it was to show how to use included or free plugins/render engines but wished he just took it a few steps further into a polished final piece. Looking forward in watching some of his other tuts.

Esteban

December 4, 2018

Muy bueno, aunque ya que es un tema bastante dificil de llevar a la practica, creo que seria mejor si hubieran mas ejemplos especificamente del trackeo en AE y como llevar esa informacion a un 3ds Max con un proyectgo de arquitectura que no sea preciso moverlo, sino acomodar la camara a el mismo.

Adam

June 28, 2018

In the video in which you track the footage, the video skips. The tracked video on my end also skips. It would be nice if you talked about why that is happening.

Richard

May 8, 2018

The course so far has been really really good, seeing I have never used Adobe After Effects ever before, just absolutely never used it, the clear and concise instructions on how to achieve what has to be done is outstanding, I'm so pleased as to my progress so far, I'm absolutely hoping that this course carries on with this same high class, clear and concise instruction to the very end.

Patrick

February 21, 2018

The course was an eyeopener. I had no clue that after effects nulls could be transferred to 3dsMax for tracking. This was exactly what I needed to learn.

Joseph

January 17, 2018

Pretty good and fast paced... straight to the point. Some informationis not given much background or reasoning. more like step by step instructions.

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