It's hard enough to find parking but why do people have to use up two spots!

Here's another experiment using Element 3D to simulate shadows for this mid-sized helicopter. Mini-Chopper are Compact and great for traveling! Also great for shadow examples in small spaces.

Element 3D doesn't do native shadows (yet...) but using some simple techniques I was able to cast realistic looking shadows underneath the helicopter. Sometimes a simple black solid with a mask will work and for more accurate shadows you can even use a copy of the model from a top view.

I even placed colored lights in the scene to match the environment lighting from several angles.

Element DOES have Ambient Occlusion so if you need inner-object shading, don't forget to use the Ambient Occlusion options to add depth to your scene. See the example below:

I'll be making some short tutorial tips for this technique and others and remember these work well in other situations besides working with Element 3D, like using particles or stock footage that need shadows to integrate with a scene better.

See sample image

I just updated our Element Help page to include 2 new tutorials to talk about some of the less flashy features of Element 3D. These should really help you get going with the plug-in and hopefully show you some tricks you may not know about. I probably should have had this done when we released the product but here they are now! More tutorials in the works soon.

Beyond the Basics:
Everything you need to know to get started!

• Customizing UI
• Adding textures
• Basic texture mapping options
• Using animated custom texture maps
• Material settings overview
• Force Opacity
• Using multiple Groups
• Lighting & Ambient Occlusion

Importing Objects & Building Materials:
C4D tips, OBJ exporting and more!

• Exporting 3D objects for Element 3D
• Exporting from Blender & 3D Max (works with other software too)
• Tips for working with C4D files in Element
• Exporting multiple materials to view in Element
• Rebuilding materials with texture images
• Illumination maps and Occlusion maps
• Advanced Shader design and adjustments

Visit Element 3D help page

In this exciting new tutorial, we'll create an impressive 3D logo right inside of After Effects using the new plug-in Element 3D. First we create masks of the logo and use Element to extrude and animate the final result.

The key to a dramatic title like this is lighting! You want to keep things dark and add subtle contrasting lights. You definitely don't want to have everything lit up and bright or it will be less mysterious and therefore unmysterious. Which is not a word, which is why it is bad.

Watch the Tutorial!

Then check out the Plug-in!

Here is the final result that we will be creating!

Here's another dramatic logo I created with our new plug-in Element 3D using extruded masks. I used the Pro Shaders for the surface and I'm currently working on a short tutorial for this project right now! For those who saw an early version of it, I updated this one with some additional moving parts. Watch it in full screen baby!

The plug-in just came out last week but be sure to check it out!

This project with DOF took less than 7 minutes to render with my Geforce 580 at 720p.
Not too shabby.

The dust has not even settled after releasing our new plug-in Element 3D and we already have a maintenance update for our new plug-in Element 3D because that's how we roll!

We're dedicated to making this plug-in rock solid and we appreciate the feedback and responsiveness from you guys. Our team has been working through the night to fix a few bugs and improve the plug-in and the update is now live. New customers will automatically get it and previous customers just need to reinstall the plug-in.

Element 3D Update Page:

You'll also notice that inside the plug-in we added a handy notification that will tell you if a new update is available so you can stay current. BTW: The download system will also automatically add a new download try to your account when we release updates. We really tried to make this process as easy as possible!

IMPORTANT: Please be sure to update your graphics Drivers from ATI.com or NVIDIA.com for best performance with ELement 3D! We found some of the auto-updates for the drivers don't have access to the latest unless you go to the website.

On mac, the driver updates are inside the OS updates so make sure your system is up to date for newest drivers.