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Since 3D ProAnimator AE works inside of After Effects it lets you work on your 3D elements at the same time you create the 2D elements. This eliminates the wasteful process of 'round tripping' back and forth between After Effects and an external 3D program.

ProAnimator is specialized for 3D Motion Graphics, so titles, logos and other types of animation are faster to create than other 3D programs. Since it's not as complicated the software is also easier to learn and faster to use.

ProAnimator also does near real-time ray trace rendering. This means you get true reflections and beautiful images in record time.

Continue reading for more details.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 3D PROANIMATOR AE AND 3D PROANIMATOR STANDALONE

3D ProAnimator AE is a plug-in that works inside of Adobe After Effects. 3D ProAnimator Standalone doesn't need After Effects and works by itself. Typically, AE artists like the plug-in version because it lets you work with 3D elements at the same time you work with your 2D elements. This saves tons of time you usually waste 'round tripping' which is what happens when you have to bounce back and forth between After Effects and your 3D program. Less round tripping means faster workflow, higher quality design and no wasted time. It's a huge advantage over other 3D programs.

DIFFERENT BUT QUICKLY FAMILIAR
3D ProAnimator doesn't use ordinary keyframes to create animation. This may seem odd but in reality it takes about 10 minutes to learn and once you 'get it' you can create animations in minutes that would take days with a keyframe program.

$200 WORTH OF FREE STUFF
When you buy the program you'll get over $200 worth of animation presets, object styles, materials and lens flares for free. This free stuff will help you get up and running fast. Presets can help you create billable work right away. They are also easy to customize so making them your own is fast and straightforward.

REAL-TIME 3D RENDERING

Boy isn't that an over-used buzzword these days! So let's put some quotes around 'real-time' and tell you what this really means. Zaxwerks has developed a new rendering engine called the Reactor Rendering System. It is a hybrid GPU/CPU system that will do GL rendering and Ray Tracing. It uses the latest advances in rendering technology to give you high quality final rendering pretty darned fast. Actually, 'pretty fast' doesn't do it justice. Our users say 'incredi-freakin-ly fast' is closer to the truth.

We've done comparisons between Maya, C4D and Reactor and what takes a couple of minutes per frame in the other programs is taking a few seconds per frame in Reactor. Tests were with millions of polygons, with textures, on real-world hardware like laptops and moderate desktops.

Can you slow it down? Sure you can. Depends on what you throw at it. But to get real shadows and ray traced reflections this fast is shocking and very very liberating.

REAL-TIME CAMERA FOCUS WITH DEPTH OF FIELD

If the beauty of an image is your thing then being able to control the focus of the camera is huge. 3D ProAnimator 8 lets you set what's in focus and then move the focus distance as an animated value. This gives you the ability to highlight a subject, focusing attention on the part that matters, then change the focus to highlight another subject. It's a truly cinematic look reserved for special occasions.

The best part is that it takes little additional rendering time. So when we say real-time we really mean it.

INSTANCING (AUTOMATIC OBJECT DUPLICATION)

The third big new feature in 3D ProAnimator 8 is called 'instancing'. Instancing, in simplest terms, is object duplication. However it duplicates objects in a way that's incredibly fast, and makes it easy to populate a scene with hundreds or even thousands of objects and still keep the rendering speed nice and fast. You can instance objects made of one piece, like hearts or stars. You can instance objects made of multiple pieces, like houses or cars. You can instance words or logos and you can even mix all of these kinds of objects together! There are lots of creative uses, so watch the video and see the power of instancing in action.

OBJECT DISTRIBUTION

The fourth big new feature in 3D ProAnimator 8 creates big things out of small ones. Object distribution has always been a part of 3D ProAnimator but in version 8 we've made it much more flexible and powerful. We've added many new distribution styles which make it easy to create environments, backgrounds and objects made up of other objects.

Simple distributions are like arranging objects into rows, rings or grids.

There are lots of uses for simple distributions like this. But the cool part comes when you can distribute objects into the shape of other objects, such as logos or other 3D models. That's when things get fun. The flexibility of 3D ProAnimator lets you try simple or fancy in a way that's so easy and fast that you don't limit your designs based on the amount of time it takes to see if something is going to work. You can just try, try, try and get where you want faster, with fewer steps.

The merging of flexibility with increased workflow speed can't be understated. With most 3D programs your budget gets wasted when clients make changes. Each change causes a domino effect of rework. But changes in 3D ProAnimator are quick and easy and can be made at any time in the production process.

For example, say you start off with a circle of stars, then you turn it into a sphere of stars, and then you turn that into a sphere of words. You end up in a completely different place than where you started because the design evolved as you created.

Now as if that's not enough, all of these distributions can be animated in the timeline. So you can turn one massive distribution into another with the objects swarming and flying from one to the next! Fantastic!

It's all incredibly easy and, before 3D ProAnimator, only available in the most complicated of 3D softwares. Watch the video to see it in action.

IMAGE-BASED LIGHTING

Image-Based Lighting, or IBL for short, is a way of lighting your entire scene by using nothing but a picture! You read that right. All you need to do to get completely realistic lighting is to choose a picture of the environment and 3D ProAnimator 8 takes care of the rest for you! There's no need to be a lighting expert.

Change the lighting from an exterior beach to an interior studio to a nightclub with a single click. The image sets the mood and the software creates the lighting, shading and reflections.

It's an easy way of getting an epic look. And it's really really fast.

REAL-TIME AMBIENT OCCLUSION

The sixth big new feature in 3D ProAnimator 8 could be called the reality feature. The formal name is Ambient Occlusion but you can think of it as corner darkening. This feature darkens the corners and crevices of 3D objects in a way that gives the effect of bounce lighting but without the enormous rendering hit. It makes your objects look much more realistic, and thankfully we figured out how to add Ambient Occlusion in production at real-time speeds. There is no more excuse for your work to not look realistic.

PROCEDURAL RANDOMIZATION

Nothing in the real world is totally perfect. Unfortunately most things in the computer world are perfect. So you have to take extra time to make things un-perfect. That's where our new randomization features come in.

Randomization works hand in hand with the instancing and distribution features. Instancing creates hundreds of objects and distribution arranges them into shapes and patterns but what happens when the patterns are a little too regular? You randomize them!

These three features together are fantastic at populating your scene with lots of 'stuff'. Sometimes you just want to fill the frame up with stuff and you aren't too particular about the fine points of where that stuff is. Want an extra 100 objects? No problem. Randomize their rotation? Done. Randomize it a little more? Done.

And what if you are particular? What if you do want that third object from the left to be rotated an extra four degrees? Well 3D ProAnimator has you covered there too. Even though your objects are being distributed and randomized you can always come in and tweak an individual object so it's in just the right place.

That's where you get 'powerful' and 'easy' combined. You get projects done quicker and easier, but still have the ability to fine tune individual elements to make your project perfect. Overall it saves you time and reduces your headaches.

NORMAL MAPPING

3D ProAnimator has always supported bump maps to give your textures realistic bumps and dents. However, it's now time to take Bump maps to the next level.

Say hello to Normal Maps. Have you seen those blue and pink pictures that look kind of funny? Well those are Normal Maps and they will make your textures look ultra realistic!

We have upgraded all of our materials to use normal maps. This means that when you buy 3D ProAnimator 8, you are also receiving 200+ realistic materials with normal maps, reflection maps, specular maps, transparency maps and diffuse maps. This is a huge value in itself, and we're including it for free with the program. Dang, we're really nice.

We'll still support bump maps so all of your old textures are safe, but if you know how to build, buy or download materials with normal maps, you'll, you'll be able to add luscious-looking textures to your everyday work.

ProAnimator Plug-in for After Effects

• This plug-in only works in Adobe After Effects.
• It is not compatible with any other host.

Macintosh

• Host: Adobe After Effects CC 2017 and higher
• Mac OS X 10.12 or higher

Windows

• Host: Adobe After Effects CC 2017 and higher
• Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10

NOTE: If you run into any compatibility issues please contact us at support@zaxwerks.com and provide your system set up.

Version 8.6.0 - Major Release

• Real-Time Rendering
  • Optimized OpenGL and Ray-Traced Renderer- Our Open GL and Ray Trace Renderer is now faster than ever! Create hundreds of thousands of polygons without having to worry about slowdown. Everything updates in real-time with texturing, lighting and shadows.
  • Auto-Rendering- With Auto-Rendering, whenber you make any changes the scene automatically renders. No need to keep having to click the Render Test button to see what your objects look like.
• Depth of Field - Use Depth of Field to create highly realistic images where some objects are in focus while other objects are out of focus.​
• Instancing
  • ​Instanced Objects - With instanced objects, the program automatically duplicates as many objects as you want without slowing down the program. These objects can than be distributed using the distribution tools.​
    • New Distribution Types - Use new distribution tools such as assigning your objects to take on the shape of a different object, or other simple shapes such as cubes, spheres and more.
    • Materials - Apply the same material or different materials to the instanced objects.
    • Randomization - Use our randomize controls to place objects in random positions instead of scattering objects one by one.
  • Instanced Text- With instanced text, you can set the text to be instanced by character, word, or paragraphs. This lets you distribute walls of text to create amazing text backgrounds quickly and easily.
• Normal Maps
  • Applying Normal Maps - Our Material Editor gives you the ability to load either a noraml map or bump map to create realistic effects.
  • Realistic Material Presets - Our material presets have been re-edited with normal maps for ever more realistic effects for your objects.
• New Lighting Controls
  • Image Based Lighting - Apply Image Based Lighting for highly realistic lighting effects for your scene.
  • Shadow lights - Create a light that doesn't affect your scene, but has the ability to cast shadows.
• Note: Wireframe and hidden line rendering styles are no longer supported. If you have any old projects that are using wireframe or hidden line rendering, the material will render as a solid color instead. You may use the Grid Shader as an alternative for Hidden Line rendering.
• Added global reflections. You can now use a single map for all reflections in the scene.
• Added global reflection rotation. By setting a rate of rotation the global reflection will keep moving so the reflections don't go dead when objects stop moving.
• You can now parent Light Tracks to Objects so an object can carry a lighting track along with it. This is especially good for adding blinking lights to graphics.
• Added a new type of auto-rotation for lens flares that enables you to make flares trace the edges of 3D objects.
• Materials can now be dropped onto trusses and each truss can have its own material.
• Fragmented objects render much faster.
• Added foreground compositing, so you can overlay screen UI or pre-rendered scene elements.
• Fixed memory leaks, especially when using motion blur or depth of field, that were causing crashes during long renders.
• Lots of stability fixes.
• On the Mac you can now load a project file by dragging the project file onto the application icon.
• The split arrows now stick to the end of your cursor better.
• AutoSave files are now cleaned up better.
• Shape tools can now be used to draw custom profiles without crashing.
• Reflections using multiple shaders now render properly.
• Fragmented objects new render better using the OpenGL renderer.
• Stretched glows are no longer clipped.
• Selecting and editing objects that are children of other objects works better.

Version 7.0.0 - Major Release

• Lighting
  • Light Tracks & Light Actions - Create your own lighting animations using the familiar Pose and Transition system.
  • Use Light Brightness Actions to set up light animations where lights fade, blink, pulse, or flicker on and off.
  • Light Rotation Actions can be used where lights rotate randomly such as in a concert, bar or club.
  • Light Color Actions create light color animations without use of keyframes.
  • Advanced Lighting Controls - Create your own lighting animations using After Effects keyframes.
  • Use Fan controls for lights to fan out, or converge at a point.
  • Work with Parallel, Point or Spot lights to create a realistic 3D environment.
  • Lighting Fixtures - Dozens of lighting fixture presets.
  • Variety of Trusses and Pipes - Create complex trusses such as box, triangular, rectangle trusses, or laced and ring pipes with a click of a button.
  • Lens Flares - Dozens of Lighting Flares can be used for any lighting effect. Contains a wide variety of flares to use for professional stage effects.
  • Flare Editor. This lets you create extremely realistic glows and spikes to produce the perfect flare for your scene.
  • Light Cones - Customize your light with dozens of different beams such as hard, soft, smooth, wash, and many other moody lights.
  • Lighting Rigs - Use lighting rigs to instantly add stage elements to your project.
• Gorgeous Photo-Realistic Materials - Over a hundred highly detailed, seamless materials.
• Newly Designed Interface - Re-designed buttons and easier to read text.
  • Auto-Save - The Auto-Save feature automatically saves your project so you have a backup of your file as you're working.​
  • Increment and Save - Automatically increments your save file so you have multiple versions of your project file as a back-up.

Version 6.0.0 - Major Release

• Ray Tracer Renderer
  • ​Refractions - Create realistic looking materials that simulate the effect of glass, ice, or water.
  • Ray Trace Reflectivity - Make surfaces reflective. You'll be able to see the other objects in the reflections!
  • Falloff - Apply to make the reflections fade off over a certain distance.
• Ambient Occlusion - Darkens corners and areas where one object is close to another to add realism for shadows.
• Ray Trace Shadows - Create more realistic shadows than using Shadow Maps.
• Object Fragmentation - Break apart objects into little pieces!
• Grid Shaders - Create Grids or different line patterns. Useful for creating tiles.
• Collect Files - Used to collect all media files that are being used by materials.
• Import Images - Select images to import and they automatically get mapped onto 3D Planes. It's easier than ever to create 3D backgrounds.
• Trace Background - In the Object Drawing window, use the '.' command after tracing a background image to instantly transfer the background image onto the object you are tracing.
• Layer Tracking - Track ProAnimator objects to any After Effects 3D Layer. You can still apply rotations or other effects even though it is tracking another layer.
• Increased Number for Layer Maps - Apply up to 16 Layer Maps for your materials.
• Shadow Catcher Plane - Select a 3D After Effects layer to use as a shadow catcher layer.

Version 5.0.0 - Major Release

• Improved 3D Text engine increases the compatibility with many font types.
• Customizable Workspaces
• Object List lets you select objects easily.
• Integrated Drawing Window lets you use familiar tools such as the Pen, Pencil, Shape, Text, Selection to build and edit professional logos
• Cornering and Auto-curve Pen tools allow you edit or draw curves with ease.
• Use Gradient/Noise Shaders & Blend Modes to create sophisticated texture maps without having to leave the program.
• New UV, Spherical, Planar, Cylindrical, Cubic, or Camera View mapping lets you create different looks for your 3D Objects.
• Object deformation lets you bend, fold or twist your objects.
• Parenting allows you to track objects from one Object Track to another Object Track.
• Batch Project Rendering allows you to render multiple projects in one sitting.
• Multiprocessing lets you render faster than ever.