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.
In this episode of Red Giant TV, Michael Park returns to us with a fantastic tutorial on creating a Christmas tree (complete with lights and star at the top) with Trapcode Particular. You'll also use Trapcode Starglow to enhance the look.
Ring in the holidays with style! Trapcode Particular Presets: Holiday Pack includes 55 Particular based After Effects compositions featuring backgrounds, reveals, and sample type animations, composed at 720p and 1080i. Perfect for the holiday seaon -- this volume features a collection of elegant and useful compositions using a mix of festive colors, along with snow, star, ice, light, and ornament elements. Mix and match to create hundreds of combinations, save time, and add value to your production. Designed by freelance motion designer, Harry J. Frank.
Starts in 45 minute! You still have time to join us!
Toolfarm is proud to sponsor a free online seminar featuring Adobe After Effects CS4 and its powerful integration with Adobe CS4 Production Premium. Harry Frank will be presenting a project using Trapcode Particular and Michele Yamazaki of Toolfarm will be showing the newest plug-in from Red Giant, Magic Bullet Mojo.
In this eSeminar you'll learn how:
Steve Whatley will show the deep integration between After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro delivers time-savings and a smoother workflow on every project, so you can stay focused on doing your creative work.
Particular 2 expands your creative options by offering realistic natural effects, lighting control for shaded particles, 3D camera integration, custom shapes, depth of field, and physics controls
Red Giant's Magic Bullet Mojo helps you achieve a subtle coloring effect to warm up actors' skin tones while backgrounds and shadows get a cool blue treatment - all while keeping your talent in focus.
The best particle generator (TP2) is still the best, and has pushed particle creation in After Effects so far, other companies won't be able to catch it!
In the end, my gripes with Particular 2 are small and if you didn't pick up Particular in version 1, it is a must have in version 2 if you do any particle effects what so ever. Don't let the $399 price tag fool you. You want the best? You're getting it!
Greg Kupiec (The Ether) and Andrew Kramer (VideoCopilot.net) will show you some of their AE chops. Toolfarm's good friend Harry Frank will present the awesomeness that is Trapcode's Particular V2. This is a meeting you definitely do NOT want to miss if you're in the vicinity of Hollywood.
The votes have been tallied and the winner of the AE Tuts+ Logo Reveal Competition, sponsored by Toolfarm, is Morten Kühl Christensen and two-penguins.com. It's a gorgeous piece. Morten is the winner of these wonderful prizes!
Software: 1 x Trapcode Suite 2009 (worth $899)
Training: 1 x Class On Demand Complete Training for Trapcode Particular (worth $95)
1 x Toolfarm Trapcode 3S Training (New Release) worth $39)
1 x Trapcode Form Training with Harry J. Frank (worth $24)
Plus membership: 1 x 1 year Plus membership (worth $117)
Twitter is such a great resource. This one popped up on my radar today. It's from Being Studios and it's really cool. Don't have Particular v2 yet? Download a free demo here.
A great demonstration by Maltaannon of a must-have new plug-in from Trapcode!
We've all been waiting for this moment. Trapcode has finally released the second version of the most popular plug-in in the After Effects world - Particular. In this tutorial I'll present some of the new features of this amazing plugin creating four small projects. We'll start off slowly and then move to some more advanced things, but as always - Peder Norrby (who is the founder of Trapcode and the plug-in developer) had made all the new features super easy, and the Particular itself is now even more accessible and robust.
Features explored in the tutorial:
Light Streaks- Streaklet, Shading, Position Subframe, Light Emitters
Dark Alley- Shading, Trapcode Lux, Light Falloff
Micro Particles- Textured Polygon, 3d Rotation, Spherical Field, Emission Extras
School of salmon- Textured Polygon, Orient To Motion, Motion Paths, Turbulence Field
San Francisco, CA, July 13, 2009 - Red Giant Software, publisher of the popular Magic Bullet and Trapcode plug-ins, today announced that it has shipped Trapcode Particular 2. Trapcode Particular-award-winning software commonly used by visual effects and motion graphics artists on feature films and TV commercials - generates quick-rendering 3D particles with full camera integration and natural behavior. Many editing programs offer basic particle-generation features. Trapcode Particular, a patent-pending After Effects plug-in, goes way, way beyond the basics of particle generation.
In Angels & Demons, one of the highest-grossing movies of 2009 with more than $470 million in worldwide box office to date, CIS Vancouver used Trapcode Particular to create natural media effects such as sparks and burning embers.
"We used Trapcode Particular on Angels & Demons to help create realistic 3D embers and falling ash. We were amazed at how quickly Particular could set up and render a shot, and then allow us to make changes almost in real time. The embers have to have a specific look, and also animate as they fall. The combination of custom sprites and 3D turbulence fields allowed us to create realistic acting particles that cut seamlessly with practically shot elements. Particular was able to handle the large number of embers easily and quickly, even showing live depth of field as we worked," said Mark Breakspear, Visual Effects Supervisor at CIS Vancouver.
About Angels & Demons
The team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code returned for the making of Angels & Demons, based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Ron Howard directs the film, which is produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and John Calley. The screenplay is by David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman.
About Trapcode Particular
Users looking for fast renders, bouncing particles, 3D camera integration, particles that emit particles, custom shapes, air resistance, gravity and turbulence controls, and depth of field need to look no further! Trapcode Particular can also produce star fields, asteroid belts, or meteor showers. With Particular 2, users no longer need their favorite 3D modeling/animation program to create virtual 3D textures or adjust lighting as text or objects tumble in 3D space. Particular 2 lets you do it all right inside After Effects.
Trapcode Particular v2 goes way, way beyond the basics of particle generation. Get real-time interactive previews, bouncing particles, 3D camera integration, particles that emit particles, custom shapes, air resistance, gravity and turbulence controls, depth of field, and more! It's the best way to generate your own star fields, asteroid belts, or meteor showers.
With Particular 2, you no longer need your favorite 3D modeling/animation program to create virtual 3D textures or adjust lighting as text or objects flip in 3D space. Particular 2 lets you do it all right inside After Effects.
A FREE DEMO of Trapcode Particular v2 is now available. Try It Now for free!
The price of Trapcode Particular 2.0 is going up! Order Particular 1.5 now and get a free upgrade to Particular v2, and save $100. This is on NEW licenses only, not upgrades.Buy Now.
Trapcode Particular goes way, way beyond the basics of particle generation. Get fast interactive previews, bouncing particles, 3D camera integration, particles that emit particles, custom shapes, air resistance, gravity and turbulence controls, depth of field, and more! It's the best way to generate your own star fields, asteroid belts, or meteor showers. With Particular 2, you no longer need your favorite 3D modeling/animation program to create virtual 3D textures or adjust lighting as text or objects tumble in 3D space. Particular 2 lets you do it all right inside After Effects.
There are over 30 new features and updates in version 2. Here are just a few:
Shaded Particles, Beautifully Lit All particle types can be shaded from multiple lights in After Effects. Spot, Point and Ambient lights are all supported with natural light falloff available for spot and point lights. This feature is exclusive to Particular and found in no other After Effects particle plug-in.
Shadowlets, Enhanced Depth Along with shaded particles, you also get particle volume self-shadowing. This feature creates a shadow from light sources to create a much greater sense of depth in a scene. This exclusive feature is found in no other After Effects particle plug-in.
New Particle: Streaklet This new particle type is perfect for long exposure-style light effects as seen in the Apple iPod and Sprint commercials. This a Particular-exclusive feature found in no other After Effects particle plug-in.
Highest Quality 32-bpc Rendering Floating point rendering (32 bits per channel) allows super-bright (luminant) particles. When motion blur is enabled, it will render with optically correct, extra bright results.
Backward Compatibility Particular 2 can load projects made with Particular version 1.5. The new version will create nearly identical results, while giving you access to enhanced features. You can buy now with full confidence that your settings will work in the new version.
Be sure to check out Episode 19 of Red Giant TV on how to create your own Star Trek transporter effect with Trapcode Particular. Visit: Red Giant TV.
Sean Safreed, product director at Red Giant Software, has let a little bit of information on Trapcode Particular 2 out! Sean says, "Here is a taste of one of the features in v2. The feature is natural particle shading and it responds to After Effects lights in 3D space: Particular v2 offers much more realistic shading of particles"
Also, if you bought Particular 1.5.1 after April 7, 2009 you will receive a free upgrade to v2 when it ships. After that, Particular upgrades will be priced at $99. You can still get in on the free upgrade, so if you don't yet own Particular, what are you waiting for?
Peder Norrby will be showing Particular 2 at NAB at the Red Giant booth (#SL2529) on Monday and Tuesday at 2pm, and Wednesday at noon.
When will Particular 2 be released? It's looking like it will be out sometime in the summer, as Peder Norrby is still adding features and debugging Particular. Sean adds " I can say that Peder has listened carefully to a group of beta testers and users to push the boundaries of what is possible in After Effects (as he always does :-)."
Are you dying to get your hands on Particular 2? You know you are!
San Francisco, CA, April 7, 2009 - Red Giant Software (http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/), publisher of the popular Magic Bullet and Trapcode plug-ins, will show four new and updated products at the upcoming NAB Show in Las Vegas, NV (April 20-23, 2009).
All purchases of Toonit and Particular from today will receive a free upgrade to v2 when it ships.
Red Giant Software offers a vast range of visual effects plug-ins, with over 30 packages designed for Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Avid
The product line features industry leading effects for designing realistic fire, rain, and water; adding popular looks; and creating perfect keys
Red Giant effects have enhanced feature films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Mummy 3, and Grindhouse, and add sparkle to cable and broadcast content from NBC Universal, Food Network, ESPN, Disney, CNN, Comedy Central, MTV, and TNT.
New Products at NAB 2009
Visit the Red Giant Software booth SL2529H at NAB in Las Vegas, Nevada (April 20-23, 2008) to see demonstrations of four new products
This set of 15 plug-ins can be in used in combination with any keyer to soften alpha channels, match foreground and background colors, fix outlines, and clean up noise
Generate perfects keys to ensure seamless compositing within Final Cut Pro, eliminating the need for extra compositing tools.
For just $99, Quick Looks is a light version of our full Looks tool (Magic Bullet Looks) with the same speed and quality, but without the editing tools
In just two clicks, users can choose from more than 100 presets from classic films, television shows, or music videos.
Red Giant TV Tuesdays
Be sure to tune in on Tuesdays to catch the next free tutorial on Red Giant's range of motion graphics, compositing and effects plug-ins
The shows feature one or more Red Giant products used in combination with the tools built into After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, and more
Host Aharon Rabinowitz shares his tried-and-true techniques for producing higher quality work in less time
Each episode also offers a corresponding product discount available for a short time after the episode airs
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
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners
Peder Norrby will be showing Trapcode Particular v2.0 at NAB, Las Vegas. I thought this was a secret but then I saw it on Ninja Crayon today, so the cat is out of the bag!
Visit the Red Giant Software booth #SL 2529 in the Plug-in Pavilion. He'll be showing Particular 2 at the following times: Monday April 20 at 2 pm, Tuesday April 21 at 2 pm and Wednesday April 22 at 12 noon.
I'll also be demoing some goods at the Red Giant Booth. Come see me show Primatte Keyer Pro and Key Correct Pro. I'll put the schedule up in the near future.
Don't miss out! Well... if you do... all is not lost. At 12am PST, the Trapcode Reality Bundle will go on sale at half price. That bundle includes Lux, Form, Horizon and Particular. All One Day Sales information is here.
Harry Frank has a video up at Studio Daily about Using expressions to speed up lower third creation in After Effects. He explains how to create a document that links to the text document with corresponding scene numbers... a very cool way to speed up simple but tedious work. It's not difficult, but this is definitely not something you'd figure out yourself, unless you're a javascript programmer, or a whiz with expressions.
Also, Harry's Complete training for Trapcode Particular from Class on Demand is half price this week. (DVD | Download), during our One Day Sale. Also, if you haven't heard, Trapcode Suite is 50% off today only!
When you order Trapcode Suite 2008, you will receive a serial number that will work with multiple hosts, including Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Premiere Pro and Avid**.
In addition to the Red Giant and Trapcode Bundles, we're offering Complete training for Trapcode Particular from Class on Demand. (DVD | Download).
Although not included in the sale, here are some great items to extend the Trapcode Suite. Trapcode Form Training with Harry J. Frank is a MUST HAVE, as well as TONS of Trapcode Presets from LME that are highly affordable and completely reverse engineerable (I coined a new word!)
As you've probably heard, our One Day Sale is actually a week of One Day Sales. It starts Monday, November 17 and runs through Friday, November 21. First up....
Monday, November 17, 2008 Only - 12am PST - 11:59pm PST
Primatte Keyer serial number will work in Adobe After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion 3, and Avid Xpress Pro. Key Correct Pro is After Effects only.
Red Giant Primatte Keyer
Red Giant Software Key Correct Pro
In addition to the Red Giant and Trapcode Bundles, we're offering Complete training for Trapcode Particular from Class on Demand. (DVD | Download) Learn more about the sale here.
Next week during the week of Toolfarm One Day Sale, we're throwing in a bonus item that will be available all week, from November 17-21. Harry Frank will get you up to speed with Trapcode Particular through this series of informative and project-focused lessons. Explore emitter types and functions in-depth with motion graphics expert, Harry J. Frank. Go beyond generating your typical particle effect and learn to use Particular in new and interesting ways.
Choose from the download version and the DVD version. The download version is available immediately at checkout and is a great pick for those of you who live outside of North America because you will not incur any shipping.
Get the fantastic Making It Look Great training series as downloads! The popular and proven Making It Look Great video workshop series has been designed to answer that question. Throughout these in-depth DVD workshops, professional motion graphics designers demonstrate techniques essential to their daily work and give the design decisions and rationale that support them.
The featured projects are demonstrated step-by-step from start to finish, giving priceless insight into what it takes to design and produce professional broadcast motion graphics.
Making It Look Great 1 with John Dickinson has been available as a download at Toolfarm for a while. Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects and Zaxwerks ProAnimator.
Making it Look Great 2 with Alan Shisko - Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects and Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Pro.
Making It Look Great 3 with Harry J. Frank - Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects, Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Pro, Trapcode Particular and Trapcode Form.
Making It Look Great 4 with John Dickinson - Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects, Zaxwerks ProAnimator and Zaxwerks 3D Flag
So why would you want a download, instead of a DVD? Here are a few reasons:
No wait for shipping
No shipping costs, which is especially great to our international customers who can get hit with large shipping costs
Harry Frank will get you up to speed with Trapcode Particular through this series of informative and project-focused lessons. Explore emitter types and functions in-depth with motion graphics expert, Harry J. Frank. Go beyond generating your typical particle effect and learn to use Particular in new and interesting ways.
Choose from the download version and the DVD version. The download version is available immediately at checkout and is a great pick for those of you who live outside of North America because you will not incur any shipping. The DVD version will be shipping in a week or two but is available for pre-order.
Here I am at Denver International waiting for my connection and there's free wifi! I thought this might be a good opportunity to tell you about my experience at NAB 2008. I have about 10 minutes until I board, and I'll have to put up the photos later. Enjoy.
Sunday, April 13 - Arriving in Las Vegas
Alicia VanHeulen (fellow Toolfarmer) and I got into Vegas around 6pm and caught a taxi in the organized chaos outside the airport. I hate cabs. Hate em. I always get a weird cab driver who wants to come to my house or has some strange hobby he wants to tell me all about. This time, we got to spend 25 minutes hearing about how to prepare Lake Superior Whitefish.
We checked in at the Sahara, which was chosen souly on the fact that you don't have to walk through a casino to get to the monorail. We had plans to go to the FMC party on Sunday evening with John Kerr from Red Giant. It was $85 to get into the rooftop party at Pure at Caesar's Palace, however, RG was a sponsor, so we told them we were guests of John Kerr and they let us in with no problem. We had to walk through about a mile of corridors and stairways to get up to the roof where they had a small buffet of carved beef, shrimp on skewers and spring rolls, which were completely gone. We did have some refreshingly tasty drinks of vodka, cranberry, sprite, and grapefruit juice. There was a woman whose body was being painted on the patio, some people carrying around gobs of hula hoops, as well a big giveaway, that we didn't enter, unfortunately. We met some really cool people from Hawaii (Hi Shanti). We did finally meet up with John Kerr, Sean Safreed and Jeremy Hill from Red Giant, as well as our good friend Seth Hancock from ICVA and his lovely wife Lisa.
After the party, we headed to Mesa, Bobby Flay's restaurant, with the Red Giant guys and had a nice dinner. By the time we left, it was 3:00am our time, so we were tired, to say the least.
Monday, April 14 - Day one of the convention
7:45am - We took the monorail to the convention center. This was our first day on the convention center floor, and Alicia's first NAB ever. I took her to the doorway and pointed her to the Digieffects booth where she was starting her day, but I couldn't get in to the show floor due to the fact that I never received my badge! I had a printout receipt that I had registered in December. It took a while at registration but somehow they lost my registration. After 45 minutes, I was badged.
I headed over to Red Giant, where I had a presentation on Magic Bullet Looks at 10am. Looks is very easy to demo and lots of fun to use, and I have to say, the presentation went pretty well. I've just learned to get through the spiel within 10 minutes because people were standing and I wasn't giving a tutorial, but an overview. The Looks Theatre sold it for a lot of people. It was really great seeing everyone at the RG booth and meeting the new RG employees. Thanks for the nuts and popcorn, Beth! Delicious.
At 1:00pm each day I demoed Boris Continuum Complete and Boris Final Effects Complete at the Boris FX booth. This booth was on the middle aisle of the show floor in a highly trafficked area. Boris FX had a theatre set up with about 25 seats. It was the Motion Key plug-in for BCC that really seemed to get a lot of attention. I'll be putting together a tutorial for Motion Key in the next few weeks, because it really is an amazingly cool plug-in. It garnered lots of ooh's and aah's as a silver car driving across a busy street scene is removed from the shot with ease. I showed off the BCC UpRez plug-in, which converts SD to HD and uses a nifty feature called Magic Sharpen. I demoed the BCC Pan & Zoom which makes the Ken Burns style effects. I showed a few other BCC plug-ins and Final Effects Complete (FEC). Did you know all FEC plug-ins contain motion trackers and a feature called Pixel Chooser, which is a built-in masking tool? If you would've known that during the presentation, you could have won a Boris hat or training Class on Demand Boris Continuum Complete Training DVD.
Digieffects and Red Giant's booths were directly behind each other in the Plug-in Pavillion, which made things very nice for us. Digieffects was demoing the new Damage, as well as the Simulate and Natural Forces plug-ins for After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Combusion and Boris Red, which will be out in 4-6 weeks. We hadn't seen the new plug-ins at all yet, so it was a big difficult to answer questions. We ended up setting up little comps with examples, but then found the best way to demo was by using the little blue button. What is this little blue button? It's the randomizer. Shin Kurokawa, the engineer at Digieffects explained that he put the button in for testing purposes so he could see the range of values for each parameter without having to change all of the sliders each time, and soon realized that it's brilliant for getting ideas and seeing what variety of looks that the plug-in can produce. Tim Kolb, David Vieria and Robert Sharp were also at the booth with us all week. Robert... smart move on the couch rental. You can't go wrong with a big comfy couch, especially after you've been on the show floor all day.
Monday night was the IMUG Media Motion Ball 2008 at the Sahara Hotel, which I've attended the last 4 years. The crowd is generally IMUG and AE-List people. Brian Maffitt of Total Training was the speaker and once again and he was hilarious! Brian is a collector of crazy movie memorabilia and marketing gimmicks from William Castle fims. The presentation was about brilliant marketing campaigns for these movies. Macabre with the tagline 'So Terrifying We Insure You For $1000 against Death By Fright! (Not valid for persons with heart or nervous conditions)'. He showed us an original Tingler (filmed in "Percepto"). The best film of all, The House on Haunted Hill, filmed in "Emergo", in which an inflatable skeleton would pop out over the scene. Well, Brian had one of these inflatable skeletons with him at the dinner! We laughed, we cried, it was better than The Tingler.
Dinner at the Media Motion Ball was delicious as always. It was antipasto, salad and several Italian dishes. The highlight was definitely the dessert. Steve Kahn had arranged a surprise for everyone and that was Bananas (and strawberries) Foster over ice cream. Fabulous. I think overall I gained 5 pounds in Las Vegas, but I probably walked it off.
Alicia and I dined with Mark Spencer, author of Apple Pro Training Series: Motion 3, which I highly recommend. Also at the table was Niclas Bahn of Noise Industries on crutches, Niclas' girlfriend, Peter Wiggins and a few others from Noise Industries. Straight across from me was the guy who looks like Andy Samberg from SNL (who incedently ended up winning a Boris Training DVD during my presentation).
It was great to see everyone again at the MMB - it's kind of like a reunion every year. I get to meet up with Keith and Alan, the Plugged-in Podcast guys, Jim Kanter, who is one of our forum experts, a lot of the plug-in developers and those wild and crazy guys from Anchorage. They had gobs of giveaways, including several donated by Toolfarm. I didn't win anything, but I got to go on stage and draw a few names. The first name I drew was Lisa Hancock, who took home Maxon Cinema 4D. Toolfarm did give away lots of prizes, including several bundles of Professional Video Templates, Harry Frank's Expressions Training and his Trapcode Form Training, and two copies of Digieffects Damage.
We cabbed over to the party with Harry Frank and left the MMB early to go to Peder Norrby's party (Peder Norrby is the man behind Trapcode). Sadly, Ko Maruyama told us that not long after we left the MMB, Harry Frank's name was drawn for the big prize of the night, but since he left, he couldn't claim it. Bummer.
Peder threw yet another swanky party! The suite was very modern and silver and on one of the top floors of the hotel. From the main room you could see in the bathroom through a window and there was even a stripper pole in the shower! Crazy stuff. I have a feeling Paris Hilton had stayed in that very room last weekend. There were lots of people from the plug-in industry in attendance and a DJ spinning some great house music. Peder has a new product coming out called Trapcode Horizon, which helps AE users work in 3D space. He presented it at the Red Giant booth, but unfortunately, I missed his presentations. He wasn't showing anything at the party, just socializing. Horizon will be out near the end of summer, so stay tuned.
Tuesday, April 15
The second day on the show floor was busier than the first. I did another presentation for both Red Giant and Boris FX and each went smoother the second time around. Alicia and I also worked at the Digieffects booth showing the new plug-ins. I caught a couple of great presentations at the Adobe Booth - one about After Effects, presented by Steve Holmes, and one about working with video in Photoshop, presented by Richard Harrington. I use these programs day in and day out and they both managed to show me new things about the software. I took notes during both presentations and both really got the wheels in my head spinning.
I walked around and got a nice demo of GridIron Flow from Jim Geduldick. The GridIron booth was freakin' huge. Andrew Kramer, Aharon Rabinowitz and Mark Coleran were also hanging around the booth, demoing the GridIron goods. They were also giving away cool GridIron yo-yo's. You know the first yo-yo's were used as weapons? I learned that one from a tv commercial.
Pete from RE:Vision Effects gave us a nice demo on DE:Noise and Shade/Shape, and we also spent a some time with Jim Tierney of Digital Anarchy, as he walked us through ToonIt and some of their other offerings.
I also sat in on an awesome presentation by Harry Frank at the Red Giant booth. He showed off some cool projects that he did using Trapcode Form and Trapcode Particular. He broke down his technique into little bit-sized pieces. It was really amazing work. Harry is just so darn talented.
Colin and Jason Sharp from Toolfarm flew in Tuesday and the Toolfarm crew went to a fabulous dinner at B&B, Mario Batali's place. I tried the most amazing octopus appetizer, and had sweet potato ravioli with sage butter, as well as squab with beet risotto. Did I mentioned I think I gained weight? :-) Afterward we met up with some friends from Boris FX/Channel Wolves and walked a bit around the Venetian.
Wednesday, April 16
Another day on the show floor and boy, are my dogs tired! More presentations for Red Giant, Digieffects and Boris FX. By this time, I'm pretty good with the presentations. Also, this is Alicia's birthday. Happy Birthday! What did Alicia do on her birthday? Presented Magic Bullet Frames at Red Giant's booth. Now how many people get to do that on their birthday!? Haha. I also met Bert Kish at the RG booth. Bert was the winner of the MyToolfarm Red Giant NAB contest. He presented his winning video and also showed what went into the project.
On Wednesday night I ended up going out with Boris and his crew. We ate at an Italian place in the Venetian. I ate some really interesting pear ravioli with a bechemel sauce and some asparagus. Yummo. I just love the guys from Boris. They are all such nice guys. The food was fantastic as well.
Thursday, April 17
It's the last day of the show, so we got up nice and early and met Kevin Bourke who handles PR for the likes of Automatic Duck and Imagineer Systems for breakfast at the EGO Cafe, right outside the convention center. He told me about Imagineer mogul so as soon as I got into the show I went in to check it out. It was a private screening room and the presentation was given by CE and Alan Jaenicke of Imagineer. I am not entirely sure what information they'd like to be shared about this product, but I can tell you it's a subscription based product that includes software and hardware and is something that is in dire need. This product is going to be massive. Huge.
I also stopped by to see the GenArts booth and talked with Anish and Laurie. Lastly, we sat in on a private demo of Nuke at The Foundry's booth. It's awesome. I want it. We did get some free training DVDs on Nuke and we can download the demo. Too bad I am not doing any work that requires such a splendid piece of software. I didn't have much time to see anything else because we had to get to the airport.
What I learned at NAB 2008
I've learned a few tricks over the past few years at NAB that I think are worth sharing.
Avoid cabs if at all possible, unless you're looking for Lake Superior whitefish recipes and restaurant recommendations for Beverly Hills. Trust me. So, you ask, if you're avoiding cabs, how do you get around? There is a shuttle that goes between the convention center and the aiport that is free. That will save you $25 right there.
There is also a monorail. We bought monorail passes before the show and had them mailed to us. It was cheaper to buy 3 single day passes than it was to buy a three day pass. Weird. Now here's a great from Alicia. If you have single day passes, they are good for 24 hours. To maximize your usage, get to the station a few minutes earlier each day. If you use your card for the first time at 8:26am on Monday, you can use it at 8:23am the next day. You can start your next single day pass on the way back.
When registering for your NAB pass, it doesn't hurt to register twice! NAB will hate me for saying so, but I would have saved myself 45 minutes at registration on Monday morning if I would have registered again when I didn't receive my badge by mail.
Wear comfortable shoes and bring bandaids. Sunglasses are also mandatory, as well as a little bottle of vitamin E to rub on chapped hands and lips. The desert is incredibly dry and flying doesn't help matters.
Keep a pen with you to make notes on the back of people's business cards. This will help you keep them straight when you get back.
Free wifi is a bit hard to come by in Las Vegas. If they can make money off of something in Vegas, they will. One place you can get free wifi, or even check your email at one of their computers, is the Sprint Center at the monorail station at the convention center. Las Vegas' McCarran Airport (and Denver Airport which we flew through) also has free wifi. I love free wifi, but I'm Dutch, so I like anything free. :-)
Time to recover. A massage sounds really good right now.
LME has come out with another amazing package, LME Particular Vol. 2 Light Show. This collection of 107 projects and 44 original particle graphics (not presets) is an array of flamboyant light displays.
Create Organic 3D Shapes Synchronized with Audio in Adobe After Effects
San Francisco, CA, November 15, 2007 - Red Giant Software is pleased to announce the availability of Trapcode Form, an organic 3D shape generator that allows users to create a wide variety of wild animations, from text logos that blow away like sand to surfaces that move like rolling fire or billowing smoke. All the unique 3D designs in Form can also be driven by audio to create visions that move with the beat. Trapcode Form comes with 61 customizable presets, as well as the ability to tweak them to get just the right look. Full integration with After Effects' 3D environment allows users to fly cameras through and around the animated forms.
Create mesmerizing animations like the ones in Apple's iTunes visualizer, all within After Effects
With direct integration of After Effects 3D camera, Form offers true 3D surfaces and volumes
More than 60 presets to quickly create audio reactors, terrain flyovers, and more.
Audio Reactors Form offers built-in audio reactors where the bass beat, a tambourine hit, or a lilting voice track can drive the motion, color, opacity, displacement, and other variables to generate mind-blowing visuals.
Powerful Presets Presets offer an easy starting point for novices and motion graphics professionals alike. The 61 presets are divided into five categories, including animation set to audio, flight presets that generate 3D terrain flyovers, and unique animations perfect for lower third titles.
Customize It Form also offers fantastic flexibility with ability to drive color, displacement, size, and more with images sourced from any layer in After Effects. This lets you generate everything from a logo that blows away like sand to a full 3D model of the Earth.
Pricing and Availability
Trapcode Form is $199 USD and works with After Effects 7.0 / CS3 only on Mac OS X and Windows.
Trapcode Form is one of the plug-ins in the Trapcode Suite 2007 collection, which sells for $711 USD. (Note: Price has been updated.)
Current Trapcode Particular customers qualify for a $50 USD discount on Trapcode Form from now through December 15, 2007. To participate, users need to complete the following online form. After completing the form, users will receive the Coupon Code.
Online Form to Apply for $50 Discount: http://redgiantemail.com/download_form.cfm?ID=72
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 privately held Aktiebolag (AB) based in Sweden. All sales and support are managed by Red Giant Software (http://redgiantsoftware.com).
About Red Giant Software
Red Giant Software LLC (http://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.
Shine, Starglow, and 3D Stroke Now Support Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro, and Avid AVX
San Francisco, CA, July 23, 2007 – Red Giant Software, publisher of a line of professional digital video tools, including Magic Bullet and Knoll Light Factory, today released new versions of the popular Trapcode motion graphics products, Shine, Starglow, and 3D Stroke. In 2006, Red Giant Software and Trapcode formed a partnership, where Red Giant Software assumed exclusive publishing rights to all seven Trapcode products worldwide.
Trapcode Shine version 1.5 is a handy plug-in for simulating a bright spotlight behind text or logos. Shine is used frequently for movie titling effects. Users can also create sun rays from clouds or other objects, which are great for animating backgrounds for DVD projects.
Trapcode Starglow version 1.5 brings text and titles to life with glows and glints. The filters are based on a star shape that consists of eight directions, and each direction can be assigned an individual color map and streak length. Many users like to use Shine and Starglow together.
Trapcode 3D Stroke version 2.5 lets users dynamically write on a logo in 3D space; plus create organic and fluid lines. This effect is used commonly on TV, for example with the Food Network and ABC IDs.
What’s New?
Shine, Starglow, and 3D Stroke now work for the first time in Final Cut Pro, Motion, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Avid AVX.
Support has been added for full 32-bit floating-point rendering for generating light rays, glows, and animated lines with the highest quality output.
3D Stroke now features a series of 40 preset shapes for generating outlines or swirling strokes to captivate your audience.
Pricing and Availability
Trapcode Shine, Starglow, and 3D Stroke are now available for $99 USD each. Each product order includes support for Final Cut Pro, Motion, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Avid AVX.
Current Trapcode After Effects users can upgrade for $49 USD per product or $99 for all three. All upgrades include support for all platforms – Final Cut Pro, Motion, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Avid AVX.
About Trapcode Trapcode makes software for visual effects and motion graphics. The focus is on creating robust, user friendly, affordable, and versatile products. Trapcode has seven products: Shine, 3D Stroke, Sound Keys, Starglow, Lux, Particular, 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 (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.
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).
LME Fantiastic AE Light Configuratons and Fantastic Lux Light Configurations have been lowered from $139 to $99 (Toolfarm sells them for $94!). These are really cool and useful collections of compositions for After Effects (one uses Trapcode Lux and the other does not). I've been working on a review of the products and it's partway finished. I'm such a slacker ;-). If you're new to After Effects, these products are wonderful to help you learn because you can reverse-engineer them. If you're a seasoned veteran of After Effects, but in a time crunch, LME's products will help you work faster with preconfigured comps and effects. These are not at all simple and would take a person quite a while to build. They do the hard work for you and you get the glory.
Well, that is the jist of my review! Expect a longer more detailed review soon, but in the meantime, check out some LME freebies that we've posted recently.
LME has graciously provided a freebie that is an extra bonus file from each of their sets of gorgeous comp files. These are Toolfarm exclusives and we'll be posting one per week until they're gone. Here is the second in the series. This sample is not included in the Trapcode Particular Presets and Comps.
Buy Trapcode Particular Presets and Comps - Only $132 (Save 5%!). 100 presets and matching comps. The possibilities are only limited to your imagination. Works with After Effects 6.5 or higher for Mac and Win.
If you didn't catch last weeks freebie, it's here.
As an added bonus, Trapcode Suite is 20% off this week! Sale runs March 12-16. Trapcode Suite includes Particular, 3D Stroke, Shine, Lux, Starglow, Echospace and Soundkeys.
, which I highly recommend. Also at the table was Niclas Bahn of Noise Industries on crutches, Niclas' girlfriend, Peter Wiggins and a few others from 
