I wasn't at the meeting since I'm clear across the country, so I'm living vicariously through those who were lucky enough to attend. First, Dave Basulto has posted
some images from last night's MGLA meeting on his site.
Second, Chris Meyer of
Cybermotion had some great things to say about the meeting in a post to the
AE List.
Imagineer Mocha was shown. It's a planar tracker that uses the technology in the more advanced
Mokey and
Monet. Chris says, " It did some pretty darn amazing things, including continuing tracks successfully when large portions of the tracked object went off screen."
Marco S. from
Digital Anarchy showed
PlasmaFX and
ToonIt! Chris says about ToonIt! " It was also an excellent example of the role frame rate plays in whether we perceive something as real or fantasy; keeping the result at normal video rate didn't look like you would expect it to."
Peder Norrby showed
Trapcode Form (codename Flux). Form is the plug-in that people are really keyed up for the release, which will hopefully still happen this summer. It's similar to Particular but does lots of other cool things. Chris says "The couple of examples Peder showed using displacement maps and alpha mattes were particularly impressive".
Sean Safreed showed
Magic Bullet 3 at the meeting. Chris says "...the new UI... it makes things soooo much easier for quick, broad strokes to get the look you're after without having to come to terms with a bunch of sliders (however useful they are)."
MGLA |
Join MGLA's Mailing ListLabels: CyberMotion, Digital Anarchy, Flux, Imagineer Systems, Magic Bullet, MGLA, mocha, mokey, monet, PlasmaFX, Red Giant, ToonIt, Trapcode, Trapcode Form
Red Giant Software announced the release schedule for several Trapcode plug-ins, Magic Bullet Looks and Instant HD Pro.
The first week of July, Trapcode 3D Stroke, Shine and Starglow, will be available as FxPlug plug-ins for Final Cut Pro, Motion. The three plug-ins will also be released for Premiere Pro and Avid. All will support floating point and will retail at $99 each. I demo'd these plug-ins in Motion 3 at NAB and they're pretty much the exact same plug-ins you love in After Effects. Trapcode 3D Stroke does work a bit differenty, though.
Magic Bullet Looks is scheduled for August availability.
Matt Armstrong at Studio Daily says, "Another thing of note is that Looks will be free to demo, test and use, with purchase only required in order to render it. This means anyone can create looks for your color correction, save then and pass them off to their editor, colorist, producer, in order to give them an idea of the look they are trying to achieve." Don't worry, Toolfarm will have the new Red Giant demos available, too. Yeah, I can tell you were worried for a second there.
Instant HD Pro v1.0 is a new product for upresing footage to HD will be out in August for $399. The original Instant HD retails for $99. The PRO version includes the original Instant HD which has been updated to handle both interlaced and progressive sources for greater flexibility (no more deinterlacing!). Two HD up-conversion options to deliver the results you need. It will sell for $399.
You'll have to wait for September to get your hands on the highly anticipated Trapcode Flux, which will be released as Trapcode Form. I prefer the name Flux. I wonder why it was changed? Form looks quite a bit like Trapcode Particular but it works with shapes and surfaces instead of particles. I've talked to some of the guys beta testing and they're blown away by it. I saw it at Peder Norrby's party at NAB and it does look super cool.
Labels: 3D Stroke, Avid, Final Cut Pro, Flux, FxPlug, Instant HD Pro, Magic Bullet, Motion, Premiere Pro, Red Giant, Trapcode
Recipient to Receive $10,000 Prize
Stockholm, Sweden, April 20, 2007 - Trapcode, developer of visual effects and motion graphics tools today announced that Peder Norrby of Trapcode is honored to present Ken Perlin the Trapcode Award of Excellence on Monday, April 23, 2007. This reward also includes prize money in the nomination of $10,000. The ceremony will be held at New York University at 7:00 PM in the main lecture hall of the Warren Weaver building.
Trapcode is presenting Ken Perlin the Award of Excellence for his genius algorithm called Perlin Noise that Ken Perlin generously published to the public. This code produces pseudo-random numbers that are very useful in computer graphics for creating clouds, fog, smoke, and organic looking textures and shapes. The code has been incorporated in best-selling Trapcode products Shine, Particular, and the soon to be released product named Trapcode Flux. You can see the effects generated by these software applications in feature films and TV shows such as Matrix Revolutions, The Day After Tomorrow, Sin City and CSI Miami.
Ken Perlin is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University. His research interests include graphics, animation, user interfaces, science education, and multimedia. In January 2004 Perlin was the featured artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2002 he received the NYC Mayor's award for excellence in Science and Technology and the Sokol award for outstanding Science faculty at NYU. In 1997 Perlin won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his noise and turbulence procedural texturing techniques, which are widely used in feature films and television. In 1991 he received a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation.
About Trapcode Trapcode (http://trapcode.com) is a one-man company founded in 2001 by Peder Norrby. Over the years Trapcode's software tools have become part of the industry standard in motion graphics and visual effects. Trapcode focuses on creating groundbreaking, robust technology that is easy to start using for beginners and has many complex features for advanced users.
Trapcode is a privatley held Aktiebolag (AB) based in Sweden. All sales and support are managed by Red Giant Software (http://redgiantsoftware.com).
Labels: Flux, Particular, Red Giant, Trapcode
