3dsmax to aftereffects camera script - convertion to target camera

[stevesideas]

I am using a max script to output my 3ds max camera movement to aftereffects. The only thing is it needs to be a target camera for the script to work so I need to convert my non targeted camera to a targeted version. I was hoping I could just lock the target to the camera and everything would be fine but I cannot seem to do that because of circular linking problems. Does anyone have any ideas ?

[joconnell]

Copy and past the camera's movement to a null, link the camera to it, turn on target and then link the target too.

[stevesideas]

Obvious when you know how. Ta

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Isnt there like max to AE plugin in latest advantage pack from autodesk that can do it for u ?

[stevesideas]

Yes, you are right...I've just checked youtube with that feature shown. I think the last time I installed the subscription pack I had problems with physx. Will try again. Thanks

[LarsSonparsson]

Isnt there like max to AE plugin in latest advantage pack from autodesk that can do it for u ?

Yep, but that sucks big time. What we have tested, it's messing things a lot and sometimes even corrupting your files.
Moved back to Max2AE, because it's still the best plugin for the job.
If you are testing it anyway, be aware that your system decimal "separator" must be "." as in US keyboard setup, not ",". Otherwise you will get some really crazy results.

[stevesideas]

I did test it last night. Luckily my system was already set to the "." so I didn't have that issue. The problem I am having is trying to link when I have an existing aftereffects file open. It seems I can only link to the 3dsmax state sets file by starting a brand new aftereffects project. Bit odd !

[stevesideas]

Im also a little bit concerned about the corruption side of things. Are we talking aftereffects or 3dsmax or both ?

[LarsSonparsson]

It happend in Max. First some saved versions of the same scene lost the State Sets. Then at some point we couldn't open those scenes anymore.
That happen in two different scenes and after that we stopped using it. It could be just some system/max version etc. error. I just wanted to give warning about it.

[stevesideas]

ok. Cheers for letting me know. I do save incrementally so that should reduce the risk. Not had any problems so far with that kind of thing so fingers crossed. The camera export was exactly what I was looking for so thats really helped.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

State sets are disaster I hate them, hope one day we get maya render layer support...

[stevesideas]

I'm having success with them regarding exporting camera position and null objects...its very good actually, but not tried anything further like render passes etc.