In this episode of Red Giant TV, Harry Frank shows you how to re-create the Music-to-Light effect (seen last season on Heroes), using Trapcode Particular 2. He'll also use Mojo to alter the color, and Knoll 3D Flare to add to the effect.
Introducing Knoll 3D Flare (Beta), a new free set of tools that allows you to easily create Knoll Lens Flares in After Effects 3D space. This add-on for Knoll Light Factory Pro 2.5 in After Effects includes fantastic features like Edge flare-ups, color linking, Z-depth intensity, and full 3D obscuration.
Features
3D Camera Aware: Link a lens flares to a 3D Light's XYZ position.
Z-Depth: Distance of flare from camera effects flare's intensity.
Multiple Lights: Apply to every light in your comp.
World Scale: Control the amount of flare scaling relative to a light's distance from the camera
Edge Flareup: As flares near the edge of the comp they automatically brighten and flareup replicating natural lens phenomena.
Full 3D Obscuration: All 3D layers in your composition can be used to obscure the flare. As the 3D light travels behind a layer, the flare dims and goes out.
Full RGB Obscuration: As the flare passes behind one or many semi-transparent layers, it mixes the layer colors into the flare.
System Requirements: Adobe After Effects (CS3, CS4) + Knoll Light Factory Pro 2.5
We have broken down individual elements in Knoll Light Factorys collection of presets and basic effects and added movement, changed brightness, scale and other parameters over time for each, then combined them in an imaginative combination to create one single original light effect.
Multiply that times 104 and you have a dynamic, useful extremely varied adjustable collection, that will add orignality to dozens of broadcast design project.
Back in January I presented the "Top 10 Must-Have Plug-ins for Adobe After Effects" at MGFest in Chicago. The presentation was only 22 minutes so that really didn't give me much of a chance to show off the capabilities of the plug-ins and I wanted to do a feature on this for Toolfarm with lots of movie samples.
Several people have asked me about the list and wanting to republish it, so here it is. (If you want to republish the list, go for it, just please link back to Toolfarm). First, a bit about the criteria and some notes.
The plug-in should be a single plug-in and so I tried to avoid big plug-in packages when possible. There will be notes included about the product when needed. The plug-in had to be unique, fast, powerful or something I've used a lot and it fits into my workflow. If it hit 3 of the criteria, I would consider it for the list.
This is MY opinion, not because I was paid to say this or because the plug-ins come from a manufacturer that gives us higher margins. It's very tough to seem unbiased, but I want you to know, it is all my opinion here.
These are in no particular order (but I do have a clear favorite).
The list was created in January 2009 and a few new plug-ins that I really like were not included in the list. I guess they'll have to wait for 2010.
Without further ado.....
1 Red Giant Primatte Keyer
Description: A Perfect Key the First Time! The simplest, fastest green-screen tool available that even extracts keys from challenging DV and low lit sources by sampling the background color and clicking.
Why I Like It: With my book about keying (Greenscreen Made Easy) out on the market, I've been doing quite a few seminars on keying. People always ask which keyer I like the best. I've been showing Primatte quite a bit and did two presentations at NAB at the Red Giant booth. I find that Primatte is easy to show because of how it works. It's not a matter of fiddling with a bunch of numbers to get the right settings, but dragging around your mouse and clicking big buttons. It works in a very visual manner, which is perfect for artists (who aren't engineers). Also, Primatte has everything I need in one tool.
Easy to use and very fast
Built in DV Deartifactor, Spill Suppression, Color Matching and Light Wrap
Description: ReelSmart Motion Blur Pro automatically tracks every pixel in a sequence and blurs based on calculated motion.
Why I like it: Again, with the greenscreen book, I've realized how incredible this tool really is! Have you ever tried to key footage with motion blur? Not too easy and the results aren't usually very good. You can shoot with a high shutter speed but then you lose all of that natural looking motion blur. This is where RSMB steps in and adds that natural looking footage back into your shot, without blurring the whole frame, just the movement in the video.
Also great for compositing 3D, which I have in the example below.
RSMB has adjustable tracking points for problematic footage
Description: Telcine-style color correction within After Effects, Premiere Pro & Final Cut Pro, giving you full creative control over the color and look of your images.
Why I like it: Color Finesse gives you total control of image, much more than just curves, levels, hue/saturation. You can make adjustments in HSL, RGB, CMY, and YCbCr color spaces, and have individual control over shadows, midtones, and highlights, as well as overall correction.
Has 32 Bit Float support... so why is this important? It allows you to have much more flexibility and allows AE to be used in higher end productions and more cinematic work. You will have more contrast between your blacks and whites. For details on working in 32-bit Float, check out Stu Maschwicz's article on 32-bit float workflow in AE on fxguide.
It ships with After Effects so it won't cost any extra.
Cost: $595 (Buy | No demo at Toolfarm, but you probably already have it if you have AE)
Sample: Just a couple of screenshots...
4 Red Giant Knoll Light Factory
Description: Light effects from John Knoll for photo-realistic sunsets and motion graphics.
Why I like it: Maybe this is just the kid in me, but plug-ins get bonus points for being fun to play with and easy to use and KLF is both. With KLF, you get natural looking lens flares and loads of great presets that are customizable. I really like the fact that you can set up an obscuration layer so that when an object moves in front of the flare, it dims or turns off.
Tons of variety for one type of effect (not a one trick pony)
Use presets or the Lens Editor to build your own flares.
Auto tracking
As with all of the Red Giant products, one license works in multiple host applications on one machine, so you don't need to buy multiple copies.
Description: Create 3D text and primitives without having to learn a 3D program.
Why I like it: I've attempted to learn a true 3D program and give up after about 30 minutes. I have bad depth perception (that's why I used to hit so many things with the car). ProAnimator makes it so easy to create slick looking 3D elements directly in AE and with a short learning curve. I picked up the plug-in quickly without using the manual (that is how I roll).
Nice presets
Track the After Effects camera and lights
Export wireframe versions for that techie, futuristic computer environment look
Description: 3D Particle system that produces various natural effects like smoke, fire and sparks and also organic and techie-style graphical effects that are very useful for motion graphics design.
Why I like it: I love how it looks and all of the presets. I'm a sucker for presets. I don't read manuals so presets help me get going. I just modify them until I get something I like. Particular has loads of fantastic presets, plus you can preview them and what you've created realtime in the Effect Controls window.
Particular is tightly integration with AE's Camera & lights - oh, wait until you see version 2!
Particular has a complex physics engine, allowing you to fully control your particles, again, new improvements in v2.
Inexpensive, especially considering all it can do. Particular is one of those tools you can use on a multitude of jobs and it will never get old.
Description: Damage creates an extensive variety of digital and/or analog defects/errors in your footage.
Why I like it: It's another plug-in that is fun to play with! I've used the plugin for many creative purposes - interference with a hologram popping on, a luma matte for a gradient wipe, and grungy moving backgrounds and grungy text. My favorite part is the little blue button that randomizes the effects. The effects do have a TON of sliders so it's not always clear on what needs to be adjusted to get the effect needed, and that little blue button is just what I need to get started. The plug-in is very fast for previews and renders and is CHEAP at just $99. Also, one license works in multiple hosts on a single computer (AE, FCP, PPRO, Combustion).
Description: Remove an object from your shot quickly without much work.
Why I like it: I showed Motion Key as part of BCC5 at NAB08 and found that this plug-in absolutely blew people away. If you've ever had to rotoscope something out of a clip of video, you know how tedious and un-fun it can be. Motion Key takes all the work out of it by using Optical Flow technology. It's now sold by it self as a single unit and is also included with Boris Continuum Complete 6.
Description: Academy Award winning keyer. It is simple to use and is particularly good at tackling reflections, semi-transparent areas and hair.
Why I like it: I know, two keyers on the list! What gives? You know I recently worked on a book, right? I have used a lot of keying tools in the past 2 years! Keylight is a very powerful keyer and when others can't do the job, Keylight can usually handle it. It is easy to use, fast and has built-in spill suppression. Keylight gives several ways to view the matte/key, and it's included with After Effects, so most of you already own Keylight. Also, Toolfarm also put out some great training for Keylight called Professional Keying with Keylight, that I highly recommend picking up.
Samples: I thought I'd just put the trailer for the Keylight training up. It will give you a good idea about what the plug-in does.
10 Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks
Description: Define the style of your video or film, regardless of on-set conditions, with powerful imaging tools.
Why I like it: This is my favorite plug-in of the lot. It is extremely easy to use, as the interface was designed for artists, not engineers. It comes with a huge library of Looks that are fully customizable and savable. It's lightning fast because of GPU acceleration. It can make video with flat lighting look amazing and it's also great for matching your foreground and background when compositing greenscreen. I use this on pretty much everything, including photos.
Cost: $399 (Buy | Try) Quick Looks now available for $99 (presets only).
Samples: Here's one from our German friend at MyToolfarm.
And here's a promo for a greenscreen contest that I used Looks on the webcam shots to spice them up.
Late Entry: Boris Continuum Complete 6.0 3D Object Filters
Description: 5 new plug-ins in BCC6 that extrude text, paths and eps/Illustrator files.
Why I like it: Easy to use and very fast (hardware accelerated). It works with the native AE camera and lights and everything except the text type window is in the native AE Effect control window. There are loads of options and loads of presets. All bevels can be customized with paths and did I mention the real-time previews? This will certainly make the 2010 top 10 list (but who will I bump?!)
Samples:Here's the finished video shown at the Boris FX Booth at NAB09.
Here's a tutorial I put out a couple of weeks ago.
And here's a tutorial I did for Boris FX. I plan to do a few more tutorials on these fan-diddly-tastic plug-ins.
Honorable Mention: Noise Industries FxFactory Pro
Description: Revolutionary VFX package with over 300 hardware accelerated plug-ins
Why I like it: I really was going for no big packages but just individual plug-ins in this list however, this one is a little different. Why is it different? With FxFactory, you can create your own FxPlug effects for Final Cut Studio without writing any code. Okay, I know this is for FCP and not AE, but, it's still an excellent package of plugins that are VERY fast and have unlimited expandability (you can download more plug-ins at the FxMarket).
New Filters for Apples Aperture Allow Photographers To Add Lighting and Cartoon Effects to Their Images
San Francisco, CA - February 4, 2009 - Digital Anarchy, a leading provider of cost-effective special effects software for Adobe and Apple products, today announced the release of two software products for use in Apple's Aperture. Knoll Light Factory generates lighting effects that dramatically enhance the natural or man-made lighting in photographs. ToonIt! Photo creates cartoon-like images from photographs, freeing artists from time consuming techniques such as hand painting and masking. Both products are currently available for Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.
"Customers have responded tremendously to our Photoshop plugins and asked if they could get the same functionality for Aperture," said Jim Tierney, president of Digital Anarchy. "This release gives photographers and digital artists a great way of working with images that theyre managing in the Aperture environment.
Aperture gives photographers the ability to manage large groups of images and work with RAW files. By using image processing filters like ToonIt and Knoll Light Factory directly in this environment, it is easy to design with multiple images and compare the results side by side. The Aperture workflow can be a huge time saver when dealing with Digital Anarchy effects and empowers photographers by giving them complete creative control.
Knoll Light Factory is a powerful tool for enhancing stock photos, wedding/portrait photography, and landscape photography. The plugin creates extremely realistic lens flares and other lighting effects, including sun rays, street lamps, headlights, candle flames, light rays, and glows. These lighting elements and vibrant graphic effects are not available natively in Aperture, and go far beyond the standard lens flare found in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Light Factory has been used in many feature films and television shows, and was originally written by John Knoll, Academy Award winning Visual Effects Supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic, to create the Photon Torpedoes in Star Trek First Contact.
ToonIt! Photo analyzes photographs and then creates flat regions of color and outlines that produce a cel-shaded cartoon look. A believable toon effect is almost automatic, and Aperture users have a great deal of control to customize the cartoon with different paint styles, shading and outlines. One of the key features of ToonIt! is its ability to translate the details of the human face and form into a believable cartoon. This process is great for turning a sequence of photographs into a graphic novel or cartoon sequence with very little work involved.
The products are available for Aperture 2.0 and higher. Both products run on Macintosh OS 10.4, 10.5 and higher, and are native to both Intel and PPC systems. Aperture is a Mac-only application. For Windows/Vista use, Knoll Light Factory and ToonIt! are available as separate products for Adobe Photoshop.
About Digital Anarchy
Digital Anarchy is a privately owned company in San Francisco that creates high-quality creative software for professional photographers, Photoshop artists and graphic designers. Since 2001, our tools have solved a wide range of design issues, from masking out bluescreens for commercial still photography to generating custom lighting effects. Digital Anarchy products work in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop, PS Elements, and related design applications. For more information, please see the company's website at www.digitalanarchy.com or call 415-586-8434.
Re-Branding of Digital Anarchy Video Plug-Ins Now Complete
San Francisco, CA, January 13, 2009 - Red Giant Software, with popular products including Magic Bullet Suite, Knoll Light Factory and Trapcode Suite, today introduced Datamator, a plug-in set for creating data-driven animations for news programs and corporate videos. Red Giant Datamator (formerly Digital Anarchy Data Animator) turns charts and graphs into compelling animated masterpieces in After Effects. Datamator includes a set of eight plug-ins that make it easier for videographers to create graphs and charts directly in After Effects instead of using PowerPoint or re-creating graphics from scratch.
"We have worked hard to make Datamator a solid product that delivers fast 3D data charting in After Effects," said Sean Safreed, Co-Founder and Director of Product Management at Red Giant Software. "With this release, we have completed the re-launch of the full line of the former Digital Anarchy video plug-ins for broadcast designers. We are committed to updating and enhancing these tools with user-driven features."
Highlights
True 3D capabilities Most charting software is limited to fake 3D, but with Datamator, users have control over built-in cameras, lighting and rotation, including true After Effects Comp camera support for easier animation.
Complete Control Once the data is inside Datamator, users can easily customize every aspect of their charts and graphs. It is easy to adjust colors, typefaces, grids, legends and labels, and create alpha channels, or choose from popular presets. Datamator even has a way to check for updated data in the original file.
Updated Speed and Hosts Version 1.5 delivers a new render engine that is more than 2x times faster than the previous version. Users with four or eight core machines will see even greater speed increases. This version is specifically updated for Adobe After Effects CS4.
Combine with other Red Giant plug-ins such as Radium Glow for truly eye-popping imagery
Pricing and Availability
Red Giant Datamator supports After Effects 7.0-CS4 on Mac OS X including Intel Mac and Windows (XP and Vista). The product is available now for $99.
About Red Giant Software
Red Giant Software LLC is a San Francisco-based company that develops professional tools for digital video production. Products are available as plug-ins for popular video editing and effects applications, including After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, and Avid. All tools are based on production-proven technology developed by visual effects veterans.
New Light Version of Looks Offers 100+ Presets with One Click
San Francisco, CA, January 12, 2009 - Red Giant Software, with popular products including Magic Bullet Suite, Knoll Light Factory and Trapcode Suite, today introduced a new color correction tool suited for budget conscious film makers that want professional quality tools. Magic Bullet Quick Looks, a light version of Magic Bullet Looks) offers the fastest way to give clips a classic film look. Users can choose from 100+ presets to get the look of popular films including: The Matrix, Bad Boys, Saving Private Ryan, or TV shows like CSI.
Highlights
100-Look Library More than one hundred unique Looks, conveniently organized by category in the Look Library, are a great starting point for defining the mood of any scene. The presets range from simple exposure and film process emulation to radical color changes. Best of all users can use the Look Theater to browse through the library using their own images - finding a look couldn't be easier.
Professional Looks quickly - and on a budget Quick Looks offers the same professional presets as the more expensive Magic Bullet Looks tool, but offers a streamlined interface without the tools to create custom Looks. Instead, choose a Look from the library, adjust a single Strength control. It's that simple.
Blazing speed with DeepColor RT Maximize performance with the power of the DeepColor RT engine. Play back SD and HD (720p) projects in real-time by efficiently using the system's graphics processing power. The next-generation DeepColor RT engine preserves quality in every application host so that 10-bit projects remain 10-bit.
Add warmth to wedding videos, even when shot on cloudy days
Pricing and Availability Magic Bullet Quick Looks is a light version of the full Magic Bullet Looks tool with the same speed and quality but without editing tools for $99 USD. Quick Looks is a plug-in for both Mac OS X and Windows users running Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion, or Avid Xpress Pro/Media Composer. The product is available now for purchase at http://toolfarm.stores.yahoo.net/redgimabuqul.html
About Red Giant Software Red Giant Software LLC is a San Francisco-based company that develops professional tools for digital video production. Products are available as plug-ins for popular video editing and effects applications, including After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, and Avid. All tools are based on production-proven technology developed by visual effects veterans.
A perfect compliment to the Red Giant Motion Graphics Bundle that is 50% Off today, and for the Trapcode Suite and Reality Bundle from earlier in the week, we bring you Rerendered templates for Adobe After Effects. These are gorgeous and inexpensive and can of course, be reverse engineered. Click the movie you like to see the template
In addition to the Red Giant and Trapcode Bundles, we're offering Complete training for Trapcode Particular from Class on Demand. (DVD | Download).
Also, check out Trapcode Presets from LME that are highly affordable and can be completely reverse engineered. They're not in the sale but they'll take your Trapcode plug-ins to the next level.
I should also mention that we'll have some awesome training out in the next week or so for Trapcode Shine, Starglow and 3D Stroke so all of you who have picked up these great Trapcode products this week, there's training on the way!
Digital Anarchy is fully focused on their Photoshop plug-ins and have some new tutorials on their site which use Knoll Light Factory for Photoshop.
Creating Volumetric Light (pops) - We all know the look of a beam of light bursting through the clouds or coming from the top of a dusty (and otherwise dark) cave. Usie Knoll Light Factory in conjunction with some of Photoshop's built-in filters to create this look very easily.
Blurring Elements (pops) - On high resolution images, Knoll's light flares sometimes show thin lines that don't look realistic. This tutorial talks about ways to deal with this problem and produce natural looking lens flares. This movie may take a few minutes to load.
Free Update of Knoll 3.0.2 is the First Digital Anarchy Product to be Released for Vista x64
San Francisco, CA - September 24th, 2008 - Digital Anarchy, known for its high quality creative software in the Photoshop market, today announced the full compatibility of their popular Knoll Light Factory plugin with Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Windows Vista 64-bit (x64). Photoshop CS4 64-bit is streamlined to take advantage of the faster performance and better memory handling that Vista x64 supports. Digital Anarchy’s Knoll plugin, which enhances the lighting in Photoshop images to produce dramatic or natural effects, takes advantage of that speed and performance increase with version 3.0.2.
Jim Tierney, president of Digital Anarchy, said, "Photoshop CS4 is a big release for Adobe and Vista x64 offers the potential for greatly accelerated performance. The performance bar keeps being raised with the ever increasing size of digital images and incredible but processor intensive new CS4 features like Smart Filters. Making certain that our entire product line for photo manipulation performs well in Photoshop CS4 has been an important priority for us."
Digital Anarchy's other Photoshop products have been fully tested to support Photoshop CS4 in both Mac and Windows 32-bit environments. These Digital Anarchy plugins will be updated for the Windows 64-bit environment in Q1 2009.
Knoll Light Factory 3.0.2 for Photoshop CS4
Improved performance: Version 3.0.2 supports 64-bit Windows (Vista x64).
Better usability: Version 3.0.2 has UI improvements and bug fixes.
Photo-realistic lighting effects: Used in films and TV to produce realistic lens flares and lights.
Real-Time Preview: The main Preview Window now supports real-time manipulation, as well as the ability to resize and zoom in/out.
100+ Light Presets: There are now 110 great starting places when looking for that special flare.
16-bit Color Support: Light effects now render out to higher bit depths, which reduces banding and outputs better looking glows and gradients.
Mac Intel compatible: Full support of all new operating systems.
All sales and support questions for Knoll Light Factory for Photoshop CS4 should be directed towards Digital Anarchy at digitalanarchy.com. All improvements, except Vista x64 support, are supported in Photoshop 7.0 and higher.
About Digital Anarchy
Digital Anarchy is a privately owned company in San Francisco that creates high-quality creative software for professional photographers, Photoshop artists and graphic designers. Since 2001, our tools have solved a wide range of design issues, from masking out bluescreens for commercial still photography to generating custom lighting effects. Digital Anarchy products work in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop, PS Elements, and related design applications. For more information, please see the company's website at www.digitalanarchy.com or call 415-586-8434.
Sale of Video Products Allows Company to Fully Concentrate on Photoshop and Professional Photography Markets.
San Francisco, CA - August 4, 2008 - Digital Anarchy, known for its high quality creative software in both the broadcast and Photoshop markets, has announced today the sale of their full video product line to Red Giant Software. For seven years, Digital Anarchy has made a name for itself by delivering innovative software for visual effects, video editing and 2D animation in the film and television industry. Effective Monday, August 4th, the company will transfer sales and support of 12 plug-in products for host applications that include Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, Avid systems and Autodesk systems.
This asset sale will allow Digital Anarchy to focus on their other core market, Photoshop plug-ins for photographers and digital artists. Since 2004, the company has released tools that help professional and hobbyist photographers to uniquely create a fully digital portrait studio. The company has recently focused on software that provides custom graphic effects, and plans to release new innovative products by the beginning of Q4 2008. Digital Anarchy is also considering development for related host applications like Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture.
Jim Tierney, president of Digital Anarchy, said, "We have been a leader in the After Effects and related markets since 2001, but have decided to focus on the Photoshop and digital photography markets. We’re excited about some of the opportunities there and are looking closer at current customer needs. Developing more creative and productive technology to service the wide variety of Photoshop artists and digital photographers is an important part of our strategy moving forward. In making this decision, it was important that we find a company who would take excellent care of our current film/video customers, and we think Red Giant Software is that company."
Photoshop Products Kept; Video Products Sold.
The sale of its video products will not affect Digital Anarchy’s Photoshop customers. Digital Anarchy has retained its full Photoshop product line and will continue to provide the quality software and support that the company is known for. These Photoshop products are: Primate Chromakey, Backdrop Designer, Knoll Light Factory, and Texture Anarchy. All sales and support questions for Photoshop products should be directed towards Digital Anarchy at www.digitalanarchy.com.
Digital Anarchy has sold the following video products: 3D Assistants, Data Animator, Anarchy Toolbox, Geomancy, Psunami Water, Text Anarchy, ToonIt!, Microcosm, Color Theory, PlasmaFX, Chaos Stock and Knoll Spark Pack. Already a recognized video plug-in company, Red Giant Software has rebranded and reissued some of the Digital Anarchy products, and pulled others off the market temporarily for future re-release. All sales and support questions for video products should be directed towards Red Giant Software at www.redgiantsoftware.com. Existing Digital Anarchy customers will be fully supported for product upgrades, updates and changes.
About Digital Anarchy.
Digital Anarchy is a privately owned company in San Francisco that creates high-quality creative software for professional photographers, Photoshop artists and graphic designers. Since 2001, our tools have solved a wide range of design issues, from masking out bluescreens for commercial still photography to generating custom lighting effects. Digital Anarchy products work in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop, PS Elements, and related design applications. For more information, please see the company's website at www.digitalanarchy.com or call 415-586-8434.
About Red Giant Software.
Red Giant Software LLC (www.redgiantsoftware.com) is a San Francisco-based company that develops professional tools for digital video production. Products are available as plug-ins for popular video editing and effects applications, including After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, and Avid. All tools are based on production-proven technology developed by visual effects veterans.
New Updaters Released for Composite Wizard and Image Lounge
(San Francisco, California - May 28, 2008) Red Giant Software, publisher of a line of professional digital video tools, including Magic Bullet, Knoll Light Factory, and all Trapcode products, today released Trapcode Horizon.
This new Adobe After Effects plug-in is a unique mapping tool that ties the After Effects camera to a 3D world. After Effects users can use Trapcode Horizon to create photorealistic backgrounds and QuickTime VR-like experiences.
Red Giant Software also made available Composite Wizard 1.4 and Image Lounge 1.4. These new versions add support for Adobe Creative Suite 3 and Mac Intel. Each product updater is available for $49 USD. To learn more, please visit these links:
Gradient and Image Map Modes Choose from gradient or image map modes in the plug-in, each offering a unique way to provide interesting backgrounds. Gradient mode offers both point and line generation. Point mode generates smoothly blended color regions from up to 8 points on the virtual sphere, while line mode creates converging lines of colors that are perfect for generating a sky gradient.
3D Camera Integration Horizon ties automatically into the After Effects 3D camera, so that the background image is always correctly drawn from the active camera's field of view. The automatic camera motion means that other 3D effects like Trapcode Particular and Form will move correctly with background and provide the viewer with a much-needed orientation in 3D space.
Trapcode makes software for visual effects and motion graphics. The focus is on creating robust, user friendly, affordable, and versatile products. Trapcode has nine products: Shine, 3D Stroke, Sound Keys, Starglow, Lux, Particular, Form, Horizon, and Echospace. All plug-ins support After Effects.
Trapcode is a privately held Aktiebolag (AB) based in Sweden. Founded and operated by Peder Norrby.
About Red Giant Software Red Giant Software LLC (http://redgiantsoftware.com/) is a San Francisco-based company that develops professional tools for digital video production. Products are available as plug-ins for popular video editing and effects applications including After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, and Avid. All tools are based on production-proven technology developed by visual effects veterans.
I've recently uploaded the tutorial Getting Started with the 3D Camera and Layers- 2. It's for After Effects 7.0 and higher. I go into a little more detail about camera blur and depth of field, as well as other ideas for bringing life to still images. If you haven't viewed the first tutorial, you can find it here.
If you have any questions about the projects and the technique, please post to Toolfarm's Expert Forums and I'll do my best to help.
New Version Has Improved UI, Real-Time Preview, and Support for Intel Mac and 64-bit OS
San Francisco - October 9th, 2007 - Digital Anarchy, a leading provider of cost-effective special effects software for Adobe and Apple products, has released version 3.0 of the acclaimed Knoll Light Factory. The new features in this Photoshop package give increased control over the look of hundreds of lighting effects, and further the creative abilities of photographers and designers to enhance existing images or create original works.
Version 3.0 introduces a complete redesign of the user interface, with a simplified layout, new functions, a quick Preview Window, and preview thumbnails for light presets. The Light Editor has been integrated into a single interface that can be moved and resized to the user's workspace. An additional 50 light presets give users additional pre-made effects that range from naturalistic to dramatic.
Some of the exciting features in Knoll Spark Pack 3.0 include:
New User Interface: The UI has been redesigned for ease of use, including previews of light presets and access to editing functions in one window.
Real-Time Preview: The main Preview Window now supports real-time manipulation, as well as the ability to resize and zoom in/out.
100+ Light Presets: There are now well over 100 great places to start when looking for that special flare.
16-bit Color Support: Light effects now render out to higher bit depths, which reduces banding and outputs better looking glows and gradients.
Mac Intel and 64-bit Windows compatible: Full support of all of the new operating systems and religious preferences.
Obscuration Layer: Use a grayscale mask to partially obscure the lights, and make more realistic effects when lights are being partially blocked by an object.
Tint Layer: Use a separate layer to change the flare color for easier compositing on complex images.
Randomize Feature: A Randomize button and slider let users organically discover fun new effects.
Undo Functionality: Multi-level undo allows for an improved workflow when designing lights.
Pricing and Availability
Knoll Light Factory 3.0 is priced at $149 USD. An upgrade path from version 2.0 to 3.0 is $89.00. Until October 31st, it will be available for $129 and the upgrade will be $79. The product is available for Photoshop 7.0 and higher, including CS3, and Photoshop Elements 3.0 and higher. The product also works in other drawing applications that fully support the Photoshop API.
For Macintosh, Light Factory runs on OS 10.3 and higher, and is native to both PPC or Intel systems. For Windows, the product runs on Windows 2000, XP Pro, XP Home, Vista 32-bit and Vista 64-bit systems. Demo filters and samples are available at www.digitalanarchy.com.
About Digital Anarchy
Digital Anarchy is a privately owned company operating out of San Francisco, Calif., that creates high-quality creative software for broadcast designers, 2D animators and professional photographers. These tools solve a wide range of design issues, from creating text effects and background design elements, to masking out bluescreens for commercial still photography. Digital Anarchy products work in conjunction with a wide range of products from companies like Adobe, Apple and Autodesk. For more information, please see the company's website at www.digitalanarchy.com or call 415-586-8434.
Digital Anarchy is a registered trademark of Digital Anarchy Inc. All other brand names, product names, service marks, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.
I know many of you have been eagerly awaiting the AE CS3 upgrade for Knoll Light Factory for Mac.
Here you will find the latest software updates and any relevant downloads for each product. The updates will include fixes to known products and feature updates.
I've heard from someone inside Red Giant Software that the new Universal/AE CS3 upgrade will in fact be FREE and it may be out sooner than they anticipated.
In other words, if you don't own the current version of Knoll Light Factory, get it now and get your upgrade for free when it comes out.
Save $100 on Knoll Light Factory Pro! KLF should be in every visual effects artist's toolbox. It works in Adobe After Effects 5.0 (5.5 or later for Mac OS X), Adobe Photoshop 6.0 (7.0 or later for Mac OS X), Apple Final Cut Pro 3 and above, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Motion and Avid, Electric Image Universe 5 and discreet combustion.
Trapcode Suite is another must have. Get it for $695 through March 31 (regularly $749). Trapcode Suite includes Shine, 3D Stroke, Particular, Lux, Starglow, Echospace and Sound Keys.
Alright, we'll stop being so secretive about it! This will let you plan a bit more. The products below are the products that will be featured at half price during the sale week, only on the dates shown.
Also, Trapcode Suite and Knoll Light Factory Pro + KLF Training (when purchased together) are 20% off all week. See the ad on our home page for the details.
