Softimage to AE?

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SI2AFXAuthor: Thomas Volkmann
A tool to transfer animation to After Effects. Quoted from the mailing list:

Put the scene-Camera and the nulls that you want to export into a group Select the group and run the script A .jsx script is created that you can run inside AfterFX. It creates a new Comp with Camera and Nulls Loosely based on an old Script from Helge Mathee's Mindthink-tools.

This one was spotted on si-community in a thread started by Werner asking for a lost script that transfers cameras, nulls and lights to AE.

Related: Some other tools were mentioned as well in that thread: ScreenInfo, junki's AEtoXSI script. A collada based workflow was proposed as well using this AE-Plugin: http://www.clintons3d.com/aecollada/index.html.

local backup: tv_SI2AFX.zip

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Werner
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Softimage to AE?

Post by Werner » 15 Jun 2011, 11:28

Hi guys and girls,

I remember seeing a cool addon a while back that makes exporting cameras, nulls and lights from Softimage to After Effects easy. It was done by an Asian guy ( not the old on from Helge). I am sure I saw it on this site....can't remember....argh%$*^%*&^4! :-\

I can't find this any more, and was wondering if someone else knows what it was called.

Regards

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Hirazi Blue
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by Hirazi Blue » 15 Jun 2011, 12:37

Could it be you're mixing up two things?
A tool named AfterEffects to XSI has been posted here by "an Asian guy" AKA junki, :D
but that was an importer to bring AE data into Softimage AFAIK...
;)
Stay safe, sane & healthy!

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rray
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by rray » 15 Jun 2011, 12:48

A few years ago I've written a tool called screeninfo that calculates the screen XY position of an object, and can export the 2D animated position to AE. No 3D though.
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

renisancex
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by renisancex » 15 Jun 2011, 18:19

There is an fbx workflow for After effects do some research going that way you should be able to get the results you want

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rray
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by rray » 19 Jun 2011, 02:45

Haven't had a closer look at it, but this might also be something to look into...
http://max3d.pl/forum/showthread.php?t=57262
softimage resources section updated Jan 5th 2024

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pdesopo
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by pdesopo » 28 Jul 2011, 03:07

Is there any update for AE CS 5.5?
Btw, an exporter to .ma would be really nice, dunno if easier to write though.

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dwigfor
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by dwigfor » 28 Jul 2011, 20:38

I had some free time and tried out XSI->AE and AE-> XSI

http://www.armoredsquirrel.com/scripts/ ... to_AFX.zip
Exports the position of 3D objects in 2D “screen space”. Useful for corner pinning objects in AE to rendered 3D objects, or getting light positions to attach lens flares to. Read the usage instructions in the XSI script. This download includes both the XSI and AE scripts.

You need to change one of the lines of code to make this work in CS5. I think you need to change it to:
File.openDialog

http://www.armoredsquirrel.com/scripts/ ... ort_v4.zip
This script exports the camera, lights, nulls, and polygons from XSI to After Effects. From XSI you generate an XML file with the provided script, then import the XML into AE. This script was originally written by Helge Mathee in 2005. I have gone in an made it a little easier to use by automating some of the setup steps.

http://www.d3d.it/download/cs5.rar
Updated importer - they changed the code for opening dialog box in cs5 - this has the new code.

http://www.xsibase.com/forum/index.php? ... adid=42836
AE -> XSI (from Junki)

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pdesopo
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by pdesopo » 29 Jul 2011, 10:18

Thank you for your reply dwigfor.
Unfortunately none of them work.

BN_XSI_to_AFX
When I execute it from AE I get this error: "Unable to execute script at line 107. null is not an object"
Creating a new comp seems to help but what I get is just a null object and is not clear to me the relation to my SI scene.

XSI_to_AE_XML_Export_v4
It seemed to work somehow, even if the results seems to be unpredictable. Sometimes it creates weird nulls in SI viewport, other times it delete the selected object. Randomly I'm getting this error:

Code: Select all

parameter (...) is null or not an object - [line 130]
the line 130 looks like this:

Code: Select all

log('<key'+x3d(selection(i),frame)+' color='+shader.parameters('color').parameters('red').value(frame)+'|'+shader.parameters('color').parameters('green').value(frame)+'|'+shader.parameters('color').parameters('blue').value(frame)+' intensity='+shader.parameters('intensity').value(frame)+'>');
It's a shame as this seemed pretty interesting. The only two times it actually worked I've got in AE the cubes built in precomps. I'm wondering what I would get with more complex objects.

P.S. after more tests it seems that it works fine when the camera is not animated. As soon as I animate the camera I get the error about the line 130.

Edit: Somehow it seems to work now, don't know yet if it's related to order I select the objects on the scene.
So, it seems the only thing I cannot export is the light.

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dwigfor
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by dwigfor » 29 Jul 2011, 23:59

In my short test, I rendered a quick capture from SI of 2 cylinders with cones on top. Rotated the camera flying around it. At the peak of the cones, I placed a null.

In After Effects, I was able to import the null positions (2d screen space) and apply an advanced lightning effect to the movie using the nulls' position.

I think the biggest thing to watch out for is that you are using Square Pixels and same resolution and fps.

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pdesopo
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by pdesopo » 30 Jul 2011, 00:32

dwigfor,

thanks for double checking.
My last test yesterday was working really well and like I said I'm surprised to find also the model exported in AE as precomp, that could be something really handy.

Any luck exporting the lights? That's the only thing that actually didn't work for me.

Ramon
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by Ramon » 07 Mar 2012, 10:36

Bugs with viewport after import script in cs5.5
Cs5 works fine
any updates for cs5.5?

knekke
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by knekke » 12 Mar 2012, 09:55

You could try the script I posted on the mailing list (attached .py in the last post):
http://groups.google.com/group/xsi_list ... ac2121cf6f

isxsi
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by isxsi » 24 Apr 2012, 04:06

this is a AE import Collada plugins.

http://www.clintons3d.com/aecollada/index.html

Newcomer (<20 posts) alert: please use the URL tags - HB

Murrit
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Re: Softimage to AE?

Post by Murrit » 04 Dec 2012, 14:17

Thanks very much, giving it a go.



Thanks knekke, that .py scripts works perfectly for my camera and static cube... in CS 5.5, the other scripts from dwigfor worked 100% but only for AFX 3 (I don't have 4).

Thank you, thank you, thanks you.....

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