Bryan Clark

design, animation, illustration, with a dash of geek

Cinema 4D to After Effects CS5 – .aec import fix

Posted on June 9, 2010 by BC

Just a little help to any motion design readers out there. Hopefully it will save you the frustation I experienced.

If you’ve recently upgraded to C4D 11.5 and AE CS5, you may find that importing an .aec file doesn’t work like it did before. Even after copying the proper plug-in into your AE folder, any .aec file will still be ghosted out. After some trial and error, I finally found the reason: The plug-in that shipped with C4D 11.5 is outdated.

Here’s the new plug-in at Maxon’s site. Unzip it and drop it into the Plug-ins folder inside your AE application folder, and all will be well again.

If you haven’t used an .aec (After Effects Composition) file before, it’s an exceptionally helpful way to marry Cinema4D and After Effects, by syncing up 3D environments and cameras to avoid extra renders and speed up production time. Here’s a tutorial from Maxon to get you started.

34 thoughts on “Cinema 4D to After Effects CS5 – .aec import fix”

Adam on June 19, 2010 at 9:03 am said:

Thank you, you saved me a chunk of time!

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Mia on June 26, 2010 at 12:45 am said:

thanks! i had to open AE, then import the file, but it totally works!

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- Mitch Hardison on January 7, 2011 at 1:45 pm said:
  
  thanks for this info! That got it working
  
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  - bryanclark on February 6, 2011 at 5:12 pm said:
    
    My pleasure! I’m glad to know it helped!
    
    I wasn’t sure if anyone would even need this info, but it’s one of the most popular posts on the blog, haha.
    
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Toros on September 18, 2010 at 2:17 pm said:

thanks alot man! saved me alot of time!

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- DW3D on September 22, 2010 at 10:28 am said:
  
  The link to the plugin goes to a dead page. Can someone give me another resource?
  
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Jhon on September 23, 2010 at 1:13 am said:

http://www.maxon.net/downloads/updates/plugins.html

All U need is here. Enjoy

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bryanclark on September 24, 2010 at 10:28 am said:

I’ve updated the post to reflect the new link. Thanks, Jhon. And thanks for bringing it to my attention, as well, DW.

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Loco on October 4, 2010 at 1:20 pm said:

Thanks a-lot man.

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robgilchrist on December 5, 2010 at 5:20 pm said:

Thanks, just what I was looking for.

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Alberto Santos on December 7, 2010 at 9:48 am said:

Super tip. I’ve been looking for this for so long. TNK U

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rob3D on December 29, 2010 at 7:20 am said:

Thanks! 😉

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E Richer on December 29, 2010 at 12:11 pm said:

Thanks! saved me a bit of a frustration

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jimmidahand on January 5, 2011 at 5:27 pm said:

thanks!

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Mitch Hardison on January 7, 2011 at 1:38 pm said:

I have been working on this problem for hours now. Just found this article. THANK YOU!!!!!

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bryanclark on February 7, 2011 at 12:11 pm said:

So glad this is helping people. I threw it online on a whim, but never realized how many people were having the same issue.

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dan on March 9, 2011 at 9:27 am said:

THANKS BRO WORKS FINE~

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Steve on July 15, 2011 at 12:26 pm said:

Thank you endlessly. I just started using this workflow and the aec problem has been driving me CRAZY!

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morgado157 on August 5, 2011 at 7:13 pm said:

Cara, vc me Salvou.. Muuuuitissimo obrigado

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nav on October 17, 2011 at 7:20 am said:

what if I want to import c4d 13 project into AE cs5? couldn’t find any plugin around.

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LaveMiPCconJabon on December 18, 2011 at 12:35 am said:

For R13 and CS 5.5 There is a Download, the first in the list. 1.9MB

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Motion on January 5, 2012 at 11:17 am said:

I place the plugin in my plugins folder, yet can’t import AEC files from cinema.
when i force ae to import the project it either says “dynamic link to adobe premier failed” or that it can’t recognize the file type.

what gives?

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Fadi on February 20, 2012 at 2:57 pm said:

Hey Guys
I have the R13 new version of Cinema 4D and when I save a file as an After Effect, the file itself has a yellow exclamation mark and cannot be read by After Effect. I have the updated plug in, but not sure if the plug in works for R13 version. Help…

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Caleb on February 28, 2012 at 6:15 am said:

Thank you so much
Im currently a student at Full Sail University and they don’t teach Cinema 4d. I have been asking teacher and looking for the solution to this for a while and finally found it.
Thank you again

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Jeff Klein on March 6, 2012 at 3:30 pm said:

If anyone is still having problems try checking the “Relative” checkbox when exporting the compositing file out of C4D. I am using R13 and CS5.5 and even though I had the most recent plugin installed, the AEC file still wasn’t being imported correctly (there was no error message, yet nothing got imported). I finally tried checking that box and it solved the issue, although I’m not sure of the reason because I never had to check it in the past.

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moho on April 13, 2012 at 4:32 pm said:

thanks!

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visitor on April 19, 2012 at 6:54 am said:

thank you..

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Alwyn on August 23, 2012 at 2:49 am said:

i cant download the plugin

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Slovett on December 28, 2012 at 8:31 pm said:

New link here: http://www.maxon.net/en/support/updates/plugins.html

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- OutdoorExplorer.tv on January 9, 2013 at 11:45 pm said:
  
  Thanks a ton! I’ll update the post.
  
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Mike on January 17, 2013 at 2:54 am said:

I’m running AAE CS6 and Cinema 4D r12. Am I SOL, or will one of those patches work? Because I tried putting the CS^ patch in, andf nothing worked. 😦

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Abdelali on April 8, 2013 at 8:04 pm said:

thank you so much, i appreciate this info so very much 🙂

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pushkar kundu on November 6, 2013 at 6:11 am said:

Thanks man! great help

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Mahnsan on January 25, 2015 at 10:53 am said:

Thanks Mate!!! I was getting really frustrated with it!

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