3D modeling and After Effects 7

Question

I am trying to find a way to improve my ability to do 3D modeling/animation that works well with After effect 7. I could move to CS3 Master Collection, but can't handle the price. I am currently using ULead's Cool3D, but am looking for something better. I recently located "Art of Illusion" that seems pretty cool.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

>I disagree with those C4D naysayers. Those that talk like that have
>probably never used the app in a production environment instead of as >a hobbyist. It rocks and there's none better for AE integration IMHO.
Well, you can get just as nice AE integration in MAX or XSI and there are several scripts for Maya and Houdini. That one is a rather weak argument, especially coming from someone who seems to jump from one program to another as it fits his argumentation (or would you like to go hunting for some of your past flaming XSI and MAX endorsements and elaborate on them?). I have used C4D ever since v5.21 in our company's production and certainly think that lets me know its strengths and weaknesses well enough and gauge its advancement (or lack thereof in several areas)...
>That's pretty funny. Lightwave is used a bit in the professional
>world but the rest...not so much...and superior features?! That's one >guy's opinion.
Well, have you ever looked at Realsoft 3D? It had n-gon SDS long before C4D even dreamt of it. Until this day it has one of the few native patch surface renderers that don't need tesselation and offer infinite resolution, it has pretty decent particles, dynamics, a tree generator, GI... Similar things could be said for Truespace.
And you are also forgetting the original posters question: It has absolutely no relevance whether a program is used in the "professional" world when stepping up from a even more simplistic/ basic program like Cool 3D. Compared to this one, even Cheetah 3D feels like stepping up from a 10 year old used car to something new...
Also, what's quite annoying in your logic is that we all have to "look up" to some things we can never hope to attain, only to be counted as "professionals". Following that line of thinking, we'd all have to ruin ourselves by buying Maya and Renderman licenses and then go bankrupt 'cos it doesn't serve our needs. Trust me, I have used Maya and tried Renderman and they are both sons of ******* if your workflow is not particularly tailored to them. So in the end: What would you have achieved?
There's nothing wrong taking a look out of the window from time. Today's seemingly lo-fi hobbyist tool may evolve into every pro's darling tomorrow. It has happened with C4D (which was a rather ugly, not so feature rich duckling pre v7) and can happen to others as well.
And be honest: Before Maxon started properly marketing C4D and Bodypaint in the US around v8/ v9 did any of you know it? I doubt that and your comments would have been quite different a few years ago... I'm reasonably you would have assigned it the same lack of "professioanlism" (there's that ugly word again) as you do now to other programs.
Mylenium