Export Your Unreal Engine Camera to After Effects

In this tutorial, I'll show you how I take the camera and other 3d information out of Unreal Engine 4 and import it into Adobe After Effects.

My new Unreal Engine for Motion Graphics course is now out!

Buy Winbush a Coffee 😉
-----------------------------------------------
WINBUSH DEALS FOR YOU with my Affiliate links!
-----------------------------------------------
Get 15% off all Boris FX plug-ins, including Sapphire, Mocha Pro or Continuum

Buy anything from the Pixel Lab store below

Great news for everyone I now have an affiliate code which will save you 10% off your purchase on Dem Earth v4!

FOLLOW ME SOCIAL MEDIA:

#UnrealEngine #AfterEffects #Cinema4D

0:00 What up what up
0:21 Marketplace Asset
0:40 Starting in Unreal Engine
4:30 Export Camera Info from UE
6:15 Bringing Camera FBX into C4D
10:15 Setting Up C4DImporter for After Effects
11:35 Importing Camera Info into After Effects
14:38 Like and Subscribe :-)

[philippzakrzewski]

Hey Jonathan,

Thanks for another great tutorial :-) Two quick additions though:

Firstly, you can probably save yourself a lot of hassle by just importing your C4D project into AE directly and then using the Cineware effect (which lets you 'export' the animated camera and any null objects you defined in C4D earlier).

Secondly, I was having a really bad time yesterday, making the imported camera animation match the UE render. It was always a bit off and since I had to replace a screen in the render with a video in AE, I needed absolute precision.

After a lot of trial and error I realised that you have to...

a) ...offset the render and the imported animations by one frame (i.e. the render from UE starts at frame '0', but the camera and null object animations have to start at frame '1').

b) ...go into the 'Advanced' tab underneath the 'Composition Settings' and set the 'Shutter Phase' to -90 degrees, so that the motion blur inside AE matches the motion blur that was rendered inside UE.

Once that's done anything that's added inside AE matches the UE animation perfectly (FYI, my entire workflow was based on 25fps).

Hope this helps :-)

[fabiano]

I'm doing all my intros in After Effects for a VR project. Your video just saved me lots of time! Thank you so much for that info!

[Roystoncinemo]

The reason for the camera to be rotated is due to diffrent axis in diffrent software. C4d axis is Y up but in unreal engine its Z up. So it can be fixed in fbx import or export dialog box, there will be up axis dialog box.

[JasonKeyD]

once again, exactly the info I needed! (to export an animated camera with some reference geo). You're the man 🙏

[griffithpictures]

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT TUTORIAL any graphics artist learning Unreal should watch. You are a true pioneer sir. I had messed with C4d as a throughput, but I never did your GROUP OBJECTS in C4. I always parented to a Null, which somehow didn't work. I am curious if you ever considered pulling in the cinema 4d scene directly into after effects, and then using the included After Effects plug-in to EXTRACT ALL, which places a Camera and lights (and possiblty nulls). I ask, because I think I did that and failed. But I hadn't tried it with the GROUP method. I'll get back to you! Well done!

[arnejohanndigernes]

Winbush you are a legend with all the content you are pushing out, every time i search something you come up with the solution.
Big respect and thanks!

[VESCreativeServices]

Thanks for this. For simple moves like this dolly push this mostly works fine. For anything complex, it's anyone's guess. Some work fine. Some who the hell knows what's going on, objects aren't in the right place in C4D, camera isn't point the right way, etc. Very frustrating process

[judgeworks]

This is amazing. Thankyou for always sharing so many easy to follow, straight forward tutorials. So helpful.

[JonJagsNee]

legendary info! Glad it's out there for more people to use :)

[DonTNguyen]

for Maya use the "Maya to AE live Link" Feature to import camera and null information into AE. For Blender there's a Import-Export Adobe After Effects addon to export the camera out of Blender.

[Moscowmetaverse]

Oh, I also had a camera request from UE for subsequent compositing in Ae by the post-production guys. I also tried in every possible way to export the camera to cinema 4d and it was always in another place, then turned out.
My solution was this: export the camera from UE to an FBX file, and then import this fbx into 3ds Max ... and voila! 3ds Max reads exactly the position of the camera and objects that you unload from the sequencer. and then from 3ds Max we again unload to FBX and I already uploaded this file to Cinema 4d
and it works!

[LiveUPMedia]

winbush this is absolutely incredible, i think this is exactly what ive been looking for, basically i am filming my talent on a green screen with the camera still on a tripod, then im keying it out in fusion > exporting into an EXR > then importing into unreal engine either on an image plane or into composure and then making the camera moves unreal engine, making all my camera movement in the environment around my subject / the image plane then im exporting the cg plate BG and then separately exporting the stencil/media plate layer FG. THEN im compositing it back together in Davinci fusion. its working but im loosing quality in my EXR throughout the process and also loosing control over the color spaces. so what im thinking is now just temporarily adding the pre-keyed exr media into unreal, doing my camera movements, rendering out the cg background then hopefully exporting the scene like you are doing here fbx etc and then creating a compositing 3d scene for fusion and adding the RED raw shots straight into the 3d scene, does that make sense?? ive been looking for someone doing this!! what do you think

[JEXDESIGNS]

Thanks Winbush - you have been so helpful in my transition into UE from C4d. If anyone is having trouble with the camera being randomly offset (and rotating the axis as in Winbush tutorial) try a different version of Cinema. I was using r19 and no luck. But with R23 bingo - all worked fine. Just thought this would be useful to share. Cheers

[nickfilms]

Been waiting for this one Winbush! Thank you! -Nick

[jasonjames]

I'm very surprised someone hasn't made a " camera to external composite " plugin yet . Money to be made $

[Andronmeda]

Most helpful and interesting Channels!!!

[mpha]

hi
thanks for tutorial
can make video tutorial for
import tracking of after effect or mocha pro to unreal engine
and can use track to match by unral engine
thanks

[mihaiwilson]

sah-weet! Just what I needed. Thanks again Winbush!

[hellohogo]

this is so painful, but such a great video of explaining it.

[EddyNewhope]

Second time you've helped me out in a week. Thanks man!