Adobe After Effects vs. Autodesk 3ds Max

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe After Effects
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
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 8.2 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 EffectsAutodesk 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 EffectsAutodesk 3ds Max
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFlex pricing available for limited usage. Minimum plan $300 for 100 tokens. 3ds Max costs 6 tokens per day.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe After EffectsAutodesk 3ds Max
Considered Both Products
Adobe After Effects
Chose Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects stands out for its comprehensive set of tools for creating motion graphics, visual effects, and animations. Its seamless integration with other Adobe software, vast community, and extensive tutorials make it user-friendly. It offers a wide range of 2D and 3D …
Chose Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects is a great bridge from still graphics and vector, to motion graphics. The integration with Premiere makes things work seamlessly and the way it can ustilise native PSDs and ai files makes working in Adobe After Effects ideal for most clients.
Chose Adobe After Effects
The other tools we use are part of the Adobe CC Family and they complement each other very well. We chose Adobe After Effects because it is far superior in terms of functionality and output to any other application in the market and it met our design needs perfectly well.
Chose Adobe After Effects
In Adobe After we can do Motion Graphics, 2d Animation, Text Animation, 3d Animation, Video Editing, Chroma Key Cutting, Visual Effects, Color grading, Motion Tracking all this can be done in After Effects only, and I have been using this software quite a while so it's a …
Chose Adobe After Effects
I have used Adobe Premiere Pro, Camtasia, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Apple Keynote. All of these programs allow you to do some level of animation. However, Adobe After Effects is specifically designed to create advanced and dynamic effects and animations for video. Though you …
Chose Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects is available for both windows and macOS with no software level performance degradation. Final cut pro is available only for Mac os on apple devices which let's file sharing between windows difficult. File sizes also vary for same level of editing. After …
Chose Adobe After Effects
Before switching to Adobe After Effects we were using Camtasia Studio to edit videos and it's a great video editing software but it couldn't provide us with the complex video effects that we needed to implement for our videos so we switched it to After Effects for that purpose.
Chose Adobe After Effects
[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.
Chose Adobe After Effects
Photoshop is good for simple video editing, but it doesn't have animation or audio help and it takes a while to get your video put together in a way that looks good. iMovie is also just for simpler video editing and lacks the extras that After Effects have that really turn your …
Chose Adobe After Effects
We use these tools in conjunction with After Effects not as a replacement. Apple Motion does many of the same things as After Effects and in some ways is more intuitive. However, After Effects is bundled with software we absolutely must use and is the industry standard. New …
Chose Adobe After Effects
Because of our use of other Adobe products, and how they all play well together, we never really looked at using any other product.
Chose Adobe After Effects
It is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud that I sign monthly and is full of possibilities. Most of them I've not yet explored. Adobe has a large library of tutorials and we can find a huge number of tutorials on YouTube for free to teach how to use it better or find some plugins …
Chose Adobe After Effects
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 …
Chose Adobe After Effects
iMovie motion graphics limitations are just that, limitations. Motion Graphics in [Adobe] After Effects are very easy. [Adobe] After Effects opens many more doors for typography, visuals, and 3D animations that are leaps and bounds cooler than anything you can do in iMovie. …
Chose Adobe After Effects
Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro are quite similar in the sense of their functionalities as far as I'm aware and the interfaces are more or less similar. But Adobe After Effects is preferred over Final Cut Pro mostly because of the fact that it is part of the Adobe …
Chose Adobe After Effects
I haven’t used any direct competitors. I’ve used plenty of other paid and free photo and video editing programs, but none as full featured and powerful as After Effects, which makes it a pretty simple choice to use and buy if you need something that can perform like it can!
Chose Adobe After Effects
Compared to other software, Adobe After Effects is more useful for motion graphics and composition. Adobe After Effects is simpler and easier to use for video editing and adding effects.
Chose Adobe After Effects
Adobe Illustrator is used for creating templates, logos, cartoons but you can animate the beautiful logo or cartoon with the help of a camera and 3D space, it worth the experience no matter what...
Chose Adobe After Effects
After Effects is the halfway point between simple editing software like Premiere Pro and complex 3D suites like Cinema 4D. It offers a balance of speed and functionality for mid-level production.

I also prefer it over Apple Motion and Black Magic Fusion, mostly due to being in …
Chose Adobe After Effects
After Effects is on par with most of these other non-Adobe software. It is able to edit, create, render, illustrate, stabilize video content; and so much more.
Chose Adobe After Effects
After Effects is more versatile for animations than Premiere for sure. And now, with the .mogrt templates, it can be great for keeping consistent animations and branding guides when sharing work with other animators
and editors. I also like their 3d plugins and advanced …
Chose Adobe After Effects
We have taken After Effects because Adobe Animate is completely focused on animation rather than other things which After Effects can handle very easily, like we needed a program which can handle the professional animation, speed up our workflow, and can do various things like …
Chose Adobe After Effects
Obviously I use Premiere to edit and After Effects to post-produce. In the past I used 4D Cinema to create objects to insert in the videos, but now with a few external plugins all the objects you want are inserted.
Chose Adobe After Effects
After Effects doesn't need to be compared directly with Premiere Pro. They should be looked at more like a pair. One is the right hand and one is the left. You can do things with either, but if you use them together you can do much much more. Using AE can help make your …
Autodesk 3ds Max
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
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.
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
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
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
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.
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
Maya is an overall better rendering program.
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
[Most] people like to use Maya for modeling but Maya is only good for soft surface modeling not for hard surface. The [Autodesk 3ds] Max has no limitations in this field, it is open to [making] hard or soft surface modeling. [It] even has great command on fx effects [made] by …
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
3ds Max provides me with good animations, as well as rendering images and stability for my gaming models. Therefore, I prefer it over Maya software
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
Blender is a very small and quite easy-to-use software but it lacks some of the things and for that, you need a lot of addons. So that's not a good thing. 3ds Max on the other hand is big in size but it can do pretty much all the tasks by itself.
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
Best for rendering and geometry flexibility. Interphase is also superior. The stacking of modifiers is unique and allows for combining, and turning on and of which makes presenting options very agile, and clear without destroying the geometry. It's easily reversible. All others …
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
Complex models are very easy to make in 3ds Max compared to other software, as Autodesk provides safety and security for your data and there are always there to serve you better. My experience with Autodesk was remarkable and Upmarket integration with other plugins makes 3ds …
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
Sketch-up week to be vertically integrated to produce concept all the way to high-end render, an animation (effects, particles, soft-body, etc..) All 3 other softwares are fully capable, it just comes down to what software an operator is most familiar with and if it works in …
Chose Autodesk 3ds Max
Some functionalities are not available on the other software we use.
Best Alternatives
Adobe After EffectsAutodesk 3ds Max
Small Businesses
Autodesk Maya
Autodesk Maya
Score 9.2 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Blender
Blender
Score 9.2 out of 10
Onshape
Onshape
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Animate
Adobe Animate
Score 8.2 out of 10
Rhino
Rhino
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe After EffectsAutodesk 3ds Max
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.9
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe After EffectsAutodesk 3ds Max
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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Scenarios where Autodesk 3ds Max is well suited: 1. Modeling less complex geometries. 2. For beginners it is good, meshes, poly's, vertexes etc can be easily understood. 3. Easy UI and interoperability. Scenarios where it is less appropriate: 1. Inbuild Rendering (Scanline) can be made better. 2. Performance over low end/Old Pc's need refinement. 3. Bulky Size on disk. 4. Animation is the area which can be made better also.
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Pros
  • 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.
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  • V-Ray 3ds Max is an awesome third-party plugin for architecture renders in 3ds Max.
  • Complicated models can be made in a simple way in 3ds Max also P-particles, M flow works better then before.
  • Interface is very easy to use. Very open, attractive, and very much ease of use for new users.
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Cons
  • I would like the Re-Link file structure to mimic Premiere.
  • I would like to see native .obj importing and manipulation.
  • I would like to see better audio editing available within Adobe After Effects. if it could be given a separate layer/panel.
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  • working in 2d is very frustrating and unreliable. It just lacks the precision
  • How scaling affects units (or doesn't) There needs to be a way for modifiers to address a change of scale in the object.
  • Booleans are not intuitive. Especially for architecture, creating an opening and putting a door or a window is an incredibly cumbersome process.
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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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
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Usability
There's a lot of features and functionality that Adobe After Effects offers that can be hard to navigate at times. Depending on the depth you plan to use the software for, that can take some time to learn. The built-in templates and tutorials really help soften that learning curve. Once you get past some of the basics, it's fairly simple to use.
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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.
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Support Rating
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.
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I have contacted support many times and have had a good experience. They have always been helpful
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Alternatives Considered
I've created videos with Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe PhotoShop (with the GIF function), as well as Canva and other online products. Adobe Premiere Pro does not have the same capabilities for creating vector-based content, meaning if that is necessary, Adobe After Effects is superior. The video format functionality of Adobe PhotoShop is more basic and works similarly to Adobe After Effects, so I would choose to use Adobe After Effects over Photoshop for video-making needs because of the increased capability.
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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.
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Return on Investment
  • Adobe After Effects has a great impact on business as maximum work can be done in one software
  • To run this software you need to have good configuration system
  • Motion Graphics, 2d Animation and video editing can be done in one software
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  • Having to take comments on and re-render a set of single multi-camera shots wastes a lot of time, as there is also an error "batch render." Slows down my completion of a job, even for the most minor image updates.
  • Not being able to offer my freelance/contractor services period in-house on studios that are exclusively Mac. They don't even offer Autodesk 3ds Max as an option because they have never been able to see it in action. Huge loss of potential hires, with my 33year 3DStudio/Autodesk 3ds Max experience
  • When most current version is needed I jump onto the subscription temporarily and this eats severely into my profits. As clients want lower and lower prices with international and AI competition. Especially when I know many International houses for a fact use pirated 3D software.
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ScreenShots