Adobe After Effects allows users to create cinematic movie titles, intros, and transitions, remove an object from a clip, start a fire or make it rain, or animate a logo or character. The vendor states that with After Effects, users can apply motion-graphics and animation to any digital object.
$20.99
Per User Per Month
Autodesk 3ds Max
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Autodesk offers 3ds Max, 3D modeling and rendering software for design visualization, games, and animation. The vendor states that users can produce professional-quality 3D animations, renders, and models with an efficient and flexible toolset to help create better 3D content in less time.
$235
per month per user
Pricing
Adobe After Effects
Autodesk 3ds Max
Editions & Modules
Annual Plan (Paid Monthly)
$20.99
Per User Per Month
Monthly Plan
$31.49
Per User Per Month
Annual Plan (Prepaid)
$239.88
Per User Per Year
Monthly Subscription
$235
per month per user
Yearly Subscription
$1875
per year per user
3-Year Subscription
$5625
3 years per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe After Effects
Autodesk 3ds Max
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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Flex pricing available for limited usage. Minimum plan $300 for 100 tokens. 3ds Max costs 6 tokens per day.
[Adobe After Effects] is a beast and VEGAS Pro is just a baby when compared to Adobe. It doesn't match [Adobe After Effects] when it comes to the feature and performance it offers.
I use Blender, Maya is expensive learned it once but about the same as 3ds Max, just more expensive. Blender is great, open source and hard to learn, but work it. But since I have so much experience in 3ds Max it is my go to software.
Back when 3d programs were becoming more powerful and
stable, 3d Studio (yes, it was 3d Studio before it was 3ds Max, more on that
later) and Maya were owned by different companies. At that time, you had to
Adobe After Effects is well suited for creating short video projects that require intricate animation, like 5 minute or 1-minute countdowns, credit roll-ins, outros, and video bumpers. It is also useful for creating animated elements that can be incorporated into video projects, like animated key titles. For longer videos, I would recommend using Adobe Premiere Pro instead.
For print media for marketing and for 3d animations for web spots and TV ads/movies/programs. It is less suited for quick 3d graphics or images that you get from AI image programs, but it is much more powerful than most AI image programs.
After Effects is great for creating motion content once and easily exporting it to various formats such as web, broadcast, GIF, etc.
After Effects is the industry standard for motion graphics. While I’m an Apple user and have used Motion in the past it is not as feature rich and most clients will expect you to use After Effects.
After Effects is great for complex UI animation. Tools like principle and Flinto are great but are quite cumbersome for complex UI animations.
I will renew my use of After Effects since it's affordable and always has been reliable. They also always continue to update new features and add new things to compete with other software out there. I also like all the 3rd party plugins out there that keep my interest for the future and new toolsets and creative solutions.
It satisfies 95% of my 3d visualization need. The left over 5% is handled by a few other programs. If Max just can't perform a specific task I can do that elsewhere and then bring it back to Max to finish up. But, it's rare that this occurs in my work
If you have a good computer setup then the program gives you no issues whatsoever. Only if you decide to run multiple tasks on a lower end unit will you then get bottlenecking which really isn't Adobe's fault to begin with. I used to have problems in the past but with newer technology, it has since been a smooth ride.
It is a very difficult program to learn to use and even harder to use well. But once you get to using it it is a great software package to know how to use. Getting to be good at using it takes lots of use.
Adobe customer support is wonderful. They genuinely care about their product and the end user experience. The products they create have always been innovative and continue to improve. They have a huge chunk of the user market in their field and still strive to improve. This is such a big deal for me and other small business/organizations that need their products and don't have a large voice on our own.
I find Adobe After Effects to be superior to iMovie and Final Cut Pro in that I am able to do much more with the software. It isn't as limiting as the other two. I also like that it isn't an Apple product. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Apple. There is a bigger learning curve with After Effects, but once you get the hang of it, there's really no comparison.
In Autodesk 3ds Max you can do camera animation with ease, its complex in Cinema 4D. Even I think same with light setup. Setting up light is quite easy in Autodesk 3ds Max as compare to Cinema 4D. Overall Autodesk 3ds Max is less complex in compare to other 3D softwares.
3ds Max has one of the best control tools that can help someone to sculpt almost anything. With the vertex tool and polyline edit function we can create almost any complex geometry.
Default rendering is equipped with almost everything that is needed for process, V-Ray for 3ds Max is the best 3rd party plugin for getting crisp renders.
The four view port tools for viewing the model helps from each and every angle. The moment and selection tools in the 3ds Max are quit easy to operate.