Damn you Adobe.

So my original intention to create my animation was to create 3d object files using Maya and import them into After Effects and animate them.

I got as far as creating a coin and exporting it using Photoshop as a .psd only to find out that you are no longer able to import 3d psd files into After Effects as of CS6. So 3D is a no go.

I'll probably end up using Illustrator to create the elements of my animation and importing them to After Effects and use the camera depth of field to give my animation a 3d space.

I don't think the aesthetics would have been very nice in 3d anyway and it would probably take a long time to get the animation done, using 2d elements from Illustrator will be a faster more convenient way of animating.