[Maya] [AE] Exporting Maya Camera to After Effects

Heres a technique for baking and exporting your camera data from maya to after effects.

*Baking in CG means rendering or fixing something down so it doesnt change. For instance- baking lighting into a texture, or in this case- baking keyframes into every single frame so there is no interpolation.


1) Make a copy of your maya scene file and name it file_camExport
2) In Maya, select the Camera. From the Channel Box hilight any attributes that have keyframes
3) Edit--> Keys--> Bake Simulation (choose "From Channel Box" in the options)
-- if the camera is in a group (camera+aim), make sure to bake both the camera and camera_aim
4) Create--> Locator, name it null_01 and move it to where you want to insert your element in ae. Bake Simulation
5) Select the Camera and null_01 in the Outliner, and File--> Export selection
6) Open the .ma file in After Effects and use the nulls to position your layers





And another way that comes in handy sometimes:
1) Duplicate your Render camera in the Outliner
--- if the camera is in a group, select the duplicate camera and press shift+P to remove it
2) Select original cam, then ctrl+select the duplicate cam
3) Animation menu---> constrain---> select point constrain, then select orient constrain
--- this locks the duplicate cameras path to the original
4) Open the graph editor and check the start/end keyframes for the camera.
--- Make a note of the rounded framerange (ie: frame 142.3-215.7 would be baked as 142-216)
--- if you have any other attributes being animated (zoom, center of interest, etc), select the entire range of keys and copy them 1 by 1 over to the duplicate camera.
5) Select only the duplicate camera in the Outliner
6) Open the Channel Box, and right click--> unlock any greyed out attributes. Next, select the attributes you want to bake (ie: Translate, rotation, focal length)
7) Edit--> Keys---> Bake Simulation options
8) Select "From Channel Box", and set the Start/End values to the keyframe numbers you wrote down earlier
9) Bake keys for frame range
--- to speed up the baking process, select an empty window so maya doesnt have to redraw all the frames
10) Goto Create--> Locator, name it null_01, and move it to the location that you will insert the 3D layer in AE
11) If you want to lock it to a moving object: select the object or locator and ctrl+select the locator in the Outliner
12) Constrain---> point constrain, orient constrain
13) Select the attributes and bake the keys, then you can safely delete the constraints for your camera and locator
14) Goto Rendering Editors--> Render Settings and double check that the Renderable Camera and Image Size options are setup correctly
--- this will affect the resolution and settings of the exported .ma comp
15) Select the duplicate camera and null_01, then select File--> Export selection

and there you go. A note of warning, there are tons of reasons the import might fail depending on how the scene is set up!