(5/5)
Freebie info is at the end of the article
broadcastGEMs are more of a toolbox for the artist that goes above and beyond plug-ins. There are no rendered comps, no movies, nothing completed. That's your job. Make it yours. The package is targeted to broadcast professionals who are under tight deadlines and lots of pressure to create neato cool graphics cheaply. broadcastGEMs is totally on the mark. To steal a tagline from one of my favorite sites, istockphoto.com, it's the designers dirty little secret.
Read the rest of the article and see some samples... oh yeah, download the freebie, too.
What are broadcastGEMs?
broadcastGEMs are comps, FFX and other helpers for After Effects. There are premade mattes, backgrounds, text effects, reflections, buttons and lower-thirds. They are complex comps that would take quite a while to create from scratch. The great thing about this product is that the hard part is done for you and you get to modify and tweak them until your heart's content.What's so great about broadcastGEMs?
The projects are very well thought out. Just look at the impressive stack of effects that cohabitate on a single layer.
Every effect is clearly labelled so that you know it's role and there are also comments on the layer so that you know what to tweak. Of course, you can adjust anything, the comments are just a way to help you along.
broadcastGEMs Volume01 AE Pro Series also comes with seamless tiles that can be used with text, as backgrounds or used as displacement maps. They're mainly rock textures and they're very colorful and organic. They're used in some of the "Expresso AEPs", or preset comps, but you can also use them for your own nefarious purposes.
Roland Kahlenberg, creator of broadcastGEMs, is an Adobe Certified Trainer and he really knows the program inside and out. I know the program really well too and I teach AE at an art college, but I have to say, I've learned a bit while going through the the broadcastGEMs projects. He uses certain techniques which I've never tried.
I don't think Roland considered that broadcastGEMs would also a great learning tool for newbies of AE. When I first started using AE, it would've been great to have broadcastGEMs. I could've studied the complex techniques and deconstruct to see how they're put together. They're not tutorials by any means, but some of us don't have the patience to read a manual or tutorials and would much rather just dig through some cool projects to see how they tick. When my pa was a kid he and his brothers got new watches for Christmas. Within a week they had taken them apart to literally see how they tick. They never got the watches back together. The same concept applies here, except you can always keep a "safe" copy of the projects in case you "break" them.
This product is targeted to broadcast professionals and although I do not work in broadcast, I do work under tight deadlines at the post-house where I work (yes, I have 3 jobs... and a toddler). I do a lot of graphics for corporate videos for big companies that are penny-pinching and self-restrained. This product would allow me to crank out the goods in no-time and allow me to customize each. This product is perfect for someone in my position.
Take a look at the sample I've included on the page - my cute kid playing in the leaves. It's an animated mask with a border, a moving organic-looking background and dynamic text that looks thick and textured. It literally took me 5 minutes to throw this together. Imagine what could be done with a little more effort, eh.
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