You may be encountering slowness and/or problems connecting to portions of our website. Our store appears to be up and running as normal. We are aware of the issues and are working diligently to fix them. We apologize for any problems you may be experiencing; and thank you for your patience.

Labels: Toolfarm

San Francisco, CA, September 2, 2008 - Red Giant Software will sponsor the IBC Final Cut Pro Users Group meeting, which takes place on September 14, 2008 from 7 pm at the "Gashouder" building in the grounds of the Culture Park Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. To celebrate the show and the first annual Final Cut Pro user group meeting in Europe, Red Giant Software is offering a 30% discount on all products purchased from the company's online store from September 10-17, 2008.

Making a guest appearance at the user meeting will be Miguel de Olaso, whose successful production company, Red Lab (www.redlab.es), is based in Spain. Miguel is DOP and a RED ONE Digital Cinema Camera wizard. He will show footage shot on a RED ONE camera and give a talk on workflow featuring Red Giant Software.

Also at the meeting will be Philip Bloom (www.philipbloom.co.uk), leading UK filmmaker with over 20 years of experience. Philip has called Magic Bullet Suite Looks "revolutionary" and has high praise for the integration with Final Cut Pro. Additionally, Michele Yamazaki from Toolfarm will demonstrate before and after clips to highlight the effective application of Magic Bullet Looks for setting the mood of the footage.

Exclusive IBC 2008 Show Special

Red Giant Software is offering a 30% discount off any purchases made in the company's online store from September 10-17, 2008. Customers are required to enter Coupon Code IBC30 to receive the discount during checkout.

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.

Labels: Final Cut Pro, IBC, Red Giant, Toolfarm

Toolfarm just passed the 10 year anniversary of the website being online. Yep, a full decade. I was taking a look through archive.org and took a few snapshots. Look how we've grown!

Click on an image to see a full-size shot with comments (pops).

July 1998	November 2001
September 2003	October 2004
December 2005

Labels: Toolfarm

Toolfarm has begun a total site redesign/overhaul and we would love to have your opinions and feedback. The survey should only take about 10 minutes to fill out and if you give us your email address, you'll be entered to win Red Giant Radium Glow!

Note: The survey will close July 22, 2008.

Labels: Poll, Radium Glow, Red Giant, Toolfarm

Are you a non-English speaker or only speak a bit of English? Toolfarm has just installed a translation gadget from Google. It's on the right column of the newsblog and the store at this time and if it's seems useful to you, we'll add it throughout the site. I'm sure the translations will not be perfect but hopefully they'll help you get the information that you need. We'd love your feedback. Please leave a comment.

Labels: Toolfarm

That's right, free pizza, sponsored by your good friends at Toolfarm!

This Wednesday, June 18th 6:30pm at Adobe in San Francisco. Pre-register here. It's free but you need a badge to get into Adobe.

Adobe
601 Townsend Street
San Francisco, CA 94103 (map)
415.832.2000
Entrance on Townsend Street. Reception is on the 1st floor.

FEATURED GUESTS

Brian Diecks
A 16 year veteran of branding, strategic marketing + creative for the entertainment, lifestyle and the sports industries, Brian Diecks is an award-winning broadcast designer and creative director of television branding, motion graphics, promotion campaigns, main title design, show packaging, print collateral, packaging and interactive projects.
www.diecksgroup.com

Patrick Siemer
Former Directing Animator at the esteemed H-Gun Labs, and long time Pixar AE Animator Patrick Siemer walks us through his After Effects process in the creation of the Pixar short "Your Friend the Rat"
www.tapeandglue.com

RE:Vision Effects
Plug-ins of the month

Some photos from the last meeting

Matt Silverman leads the meeting.


Colin Sharp of Toolfarm holds the box for the first version of After Effects.


The space at Adobe.

Labels: Event, Re:Vision Effects, SFMograph, Toolfarm, User Group

Yep, that's right. I'll be at the Motion Picture Collective meeting demoing Boris Continuum Complete and maybe Boris Final Effects Complete if there is time.

From the MPC newsletter:

Toolfarm has been taking a proactive community approach to EFX for a while now with the Plugged-In podcasts, the Experts Forums and their great compendium of plug-ins & software. Michele is the VP of Marketing for Toolfarm and is hence responsible for the awesome, 50% off One Day Sales (I keep missing). If not for the pizza or the auction, you must make it a point to meet the Software Diva, the Effects Dignitary, Michele Y and her Boris FX demo.

Oh, they flatter me. I'm certainly can't take credit for the One Day Sales. Effects Dignitary.... I like that. Has a nice ring to it. :-)

The Moving Pictures Collective NYC's June '08 is scheduled for Thursday, 12 June 2008, 6pm-8:30pm at Pratt Manhattan, 2nd floor.

They have a full card this evening with a bunch of great plug-in developers and Sony's EX-3. The meeting will start promptly at 6:00pm with pizza. Seating is limited to first come, first serve, but the meeting is open to members, subscribers and their friends, so please join us.

Pratt's Manhattan campus is located at 144 West 14th St between 6th and 7th Avenues on the south side of the street. Best train stations are Union Square (4/5/6, Q/W + N/R), 1/2/3 at 14th St (7th Ave), the F/V or L at 14th Street (6th Ave) or the A/C/E at 14th Street (8th Ave). Google Map.

Labels: Boris, Continuum Complete, Event, Toolfarm

Microfilmmaker gives Harry's After Effects Expressions Training a 9.2/10 in overall score.

Craig Herron, the reviewer says:

If you are interested in learning expressions more fully, both bundles are a must have. This is the clearest, most useful tutorial on expressions that I have ever used. If you are curious about expressions and want to see if they are for you, then I would recommend starting with Bundle 1. Even if you decide that expressions aren't your preferred way to work, you can still follow the tutorials and use the results in your own projects to good effect.

• After Effects Expressions Series 1 bundle
• After Effects Expressions Series 2 Bundle

Labels: After Effects, Harry Frank, Toolfarm, Training

More Expressions Demystified... Written for the Designer

The latest volume of After Effects Expressions Series Bundle 2 came out last week and people are scooping it up. Harry has a way of explaining expressions so they are simple to understand.

Labels: After Effects, Harry Frank, Toolfarm, Training

Toolfarm, Inc., the leading third-party distributor of After Effects plug-ins and visual effects tools announced today an exclusive distribution agreement with Red Giant Software. Effective immediately, all North American Resellers will be directed to Toolfarm, Inc. to purchase Red Giant Software products, including Trapcode plug-ins. Dealers should contact Colin Sharp at Toolfarm for a log-in to the Toolfarm dealer site.

"With sustained strong growth and continued expansion as a community destination, we believe that Toolfarm has shown that they are a great resource for customers of all kinds. Red Giant Software has chosen Toolfarm as our North American distributor to help us provide timely information and service to resellers of all kinds and continue our success into 2008 and beyond," said Sean Safreed, Product Director and cofounder of Red Giant Software LLC.

"Toolfarm is pleased to assume the responsibilities of managing Red Giant Software's reseller channel. This is a great fit for the company and falls in line with our expertise in matching customers with the right tools for color correction, motion graphics, keying, and video enhancement," said Colin Sharp.

Labels: Red Giant, Toolfarm

More Expressions Demystified... Written for the Designer

Harry J. Frank, freelance motion graphics artist, instructor and Adobe Certified Expert, delivers another round of training for the Toolfarm Expert Training Series. The first After Effects Expressions Series Bundle 1 was so successful and had such positive feedback that Harry has continued with the next three lessons, aptly titled After Effects Expressions Series Bundle 2.

Lesson 4: Random Numbers and Strings

Harry explains how to generate and control random values, as well as working with and manipulating string (alphanumeric) values. This lesson takes your expression skill-set to the next level, teaching you to get beyond the basics and start programming expressions with depth. Using an interface screen design as the environment.

It is recommended that you complete Lessons 1 through 3 before exploring Lesson 4, or have a firm grasp on all of the basics of expressions (scalar and array values). Lessons 1-3 are available here.

Duration: 52 Minutes

Lesson 5: Expression Control and Probability

Harry takes expressions to the big screen, and focuses on a sample title design sequence that relies heavily on expressions. The concepts center around expression control: defining the expressions to be controlled by markers, keyframes, layer in and out point, layer length, as well as expression randomness and probability. The result is a series of very flexible and powerful expressions that create automated movement, jitter and intro/outro animation.. all without keyframes.

It is recommended that you complete Lessons 1 through 4 before exploring Lesson 5. Lessons 1-3 are available here.

Duration: 30 Minutes

Lesson 6: Audio to Keyframes

Harry creates an automated lip sync animation in After Effects using the Audio to Keyframes function, along with expressions. This is a very valuable and time saving technique that the author has used in several productions.

It is recommended that you complete Lessons 1 through 5 before exploring Lesson 6. Lessons 1-3 are available here.

Duration: 10 Minutes

All project files are included for all lessons, along with a Quick Reference Guide that summarizes the concepts and terminology explained in the training. You're not going to get this kind of quality training anywhere else and this series is ONLY available at Toolfarm.

Harry has been a Toolfarm Forum Expert from about the time the Forums went up and runs Gray Machine, a very popular motion graphics site with tutorials and samples of work. Harry is also half of the relaunched AE Freemart.

Labels: After Effects, Toolfarm, Training

Alicia VanHeulen, the newest Toolfarmer, has designed some beauteous new icons for the main sections of our store. What do you think? I designed the last bunch and never like them. New icons have been on the to-do list for quite a while!

Labels: Toolfarm

And we're not just talking about our logo! Toolfarm is a small company with an eco-friendly strategy. You should feel good about buying your software and plug-ins from us.

• Toolfarm's headquarters in San Francisco is solar powered. The energy use needle on the meter spins backward during the day!
• We like to provide software as downloadable. No packaging, no printed manual, no shipping. You get your software fast and the air is a little bit cleaner.
• We only send email newsletters. It cuts down on costs and saves trees, plus gives us a lot more time to get you the freshest news and information.
• We're all fervent recyclers. We recycle all of the cardboard, plastic, metal, batteries and computer components that we can.
• Most of the employees at Toolfarm belong to a CSA or Co-op. We feed our bodies and our minds with healthy, organic foods. It keeps us sharp so we can answer all of your tough questions and give great customer service.

Labels: Toolfarm

I'm trying out the Google Custom Search Tool on our site. It's installed on the News Blog and on the Store.

It searches the store, Plug-in Finder, news, tutorials, AE Freemart and anything on our site. It will help unify results and make things easier to locate. What do you think? Please comment.

Labels: Toolfarm

There is an audio interview with Craig of Craigslist on Wired's Blog. This might seem like an odd thing for me to post, but there was something about it that got my attention.

Craigslist is unstructured in it's approach to growth and features and the entire site has been built on customer feedback, with "no vision whatsoever". In the past couple of years, Toolfarm has branched out quite a bit, with our forum, training, Plug-in Finder (currently going through a complete overhaul), demos, a tutorial database (currently linking to 500 tutorials) and soon, we'll have a User Group HQ to join users and groups in a way like you've never seen. We also have a mega project in the works that we hope to have in beta by September. We are focused on giving the best customer service possible.

We're making strides to help our customers find solutions to their video and motion problems and give you all of the resources that you need. So, taking a queue from Craig, I want to reach out to our customers and visitors and find out how Toolfarm can respond to your needs.

If you have any suggestions on how we can improve or change or any comments, suggestions for training or even products you would like to see us sell please email me. Thanks!

Labels: Toolfarm

Keith Larsen and Alan Spaulding have episode 5 waiting for your ears.

Here is the run down:

Philip Hodgetts
Chief BuZZmeister, Digital Production BuZZ

Hot industry BuZZ with Philip. Visionary and Technologist Philip Hodgetts is the Managing Editor and primary host of Creative Planet's Digital Production BuZZ. He is co-developer of Intelligent Assistance and the Pro Apps Hub and the technologies that support them. Phillip talks about what is due to evolve from what was announced at NAB in Las Vegas.

Michele Yamazaki
VP of Marketing/Content Creator and Web Mistress for Toolfarm.com

Michele talks about what's new at Toolfarm, including Harry Frank's new training, After Effects Expressions.

Jerry Hoffman
President, JLH Productions, Denver, Colorado

During his 32 year professional show business career, Jerry has become an award winning theatrical actor, TV and film editor, writer, director and producer. He started his pro career as a theatrical producer, director and actor. He founded his first television and film production company in Los Angeles in 1978. During those years, he produced hundreds of TV Commercials, industrial films, as well as broadcast television shows. Currently, he is a partner in Bat-Mann Productions. Their clients range from product manufacturers to development of feature films, as well as industrial clients which include Merck Pharmaceuticals and the National Jewish Medical Research Center. Jerry has produced in excess of 600 projects. He was a beta tester for Avid, helping them develop the world's premier non-linear editing solutions. For the past couple of years he has been teaching part-time at The Colorado Film and Video Instructional Studios, a joint facility shared by the Aurora Community College and the University of Colorado at Denver in the art and craft of production and post production in a laboratory with 20 Final Cut Pro bays.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
"Spot" is a giant in the video and audio industries, having received Grammy, Emmy, DuPont, Peabody, and many other awards. His music is heard in a wide range of films from "Last Samurai" to "Star Wars-Ewok" cartoons.

Spot may also be found in the DMN, Sony, and DVInfo.net forums as a host on subjects from compositing to audio engineering. He also has won many awards for his documentaries, including "Toubat: A Journey of the Native American Flute" and "The Way of the Powwow." His Azee' Choo'nii'gii' is the first film produced in the Dine' language.
Douglas has authored several books, the first of which was published world-wide when he was 18 years of age. His technical books include subjects such as Apple's Soundtrack, Sony's Vegas, Adobe's Encore, and DV Basics, and co-author of "HDV: What You NEED to Know," and "Instant Vegas."

As a VASST trainer, Douglas has been around the world several times. Training in areas as diverse as Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Guatemala, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Sweden, Russia, England, Germany, France, Canada, Japan, he has gained a powerful understanding of what people want to know, and how they'd like to best learn it. A powerful speaker, an inspiration to the industry, and a doer rather than a talker, Douglas simply is wonderful to experience. Catch this guy where you can, because he never stays in one place very long.

Spot trains in the Sound Forge, ACID, Vegas, HDV, Power Production Techniques, and Streaming VASST classes.

Labels: Podcast, Toolfarm

Ko Maruyama has posted a blog entry at Ninja Crayon about the training that is available for After Effects and happens to mention three of our Forum Experts, Harry J. Frank, John Dickinson and Dean Velez.

Harry's training is available just this week and to say it's selling well would be an understatement! After Effects Expressions hits a niche where there is really not a lot of training and Harry's training is fun to watch and easy to absorb. It's downloadable immediately and is affordable at just $29 for 60 minutes of Expressions training. It is designed for the designer, not the programmer, and it will take your Expressiophobia away.

• After Effects Expressions 01: Introduction to Expressions Duration: 20 Minutes
• After Effects Expressions 02: Introduction to Arrays and Variables Duration: 20 Minutes
• After Effects Expressions 03: 3D Text Duration: 20 Minutes
• After Effects Expression Series 1 Bundle Duration: 60 Minutes

John Dickinson's Creative Background Design Series has also been very popular. John currently has six modules in his series and he uses some innovative techniques and explains several shortcuts that will help your workflow. John's training is just $5 a pop and great for the beginner or seasoned veteran.

• Creative Background Design for After Effects 01: Basic Fractal Loop - Free Sample
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 02: Award Night
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 03: Venetian Blocks
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 04: Fractal Flower
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 05: Molten Cells
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 06: Rose Window

Dean Velez puts out training through his company, The Anvel. His training, The Anvel Industry Training for AE is incredible. I showed my class some of the training last semester and they were completely into it. People actually stuck around until the end of class instead of bagging class after an hour ;-)

Just yesterday, Dean posted the following to our Expert Forum:

Hello Video, Film and Web guys and gals,

The Anvel has just posted 29 new royalty free and fully customizable After Effects 7.0 Professional projects ready for download.

The Projects all deal with Text and adding effects to text. They cover the letters A-Z ( Aura, Balls, Cosmic, Destroy, Electric, Extrude, Fire, Glimmer, Hose, Ice, Join, Killer, Laser, Magnify, Nature, Odor, Paint, Quartz, Road, Strange, Tear, Universe, Vile, Web, Wind, X-Ray, Yank, Zoom )

Some are render intensive...so prerender when you can.

Hope you enjoy them! and drop me a line to let me know which one is your favorite...mine is Killer.

Dean is always posting awesome free stuff every month or two, so you'd be doing yourself a big service to go to our forum and hang out. Ask some questions while you're there and guys like Harry and John will answer your questions.

Ko also mentions Aharon Rabinowitz's quality training. Aharon runs After Effects NY user group, which met last night and Toolfarm gave away Harry's new training at the meeting. I hear the meeting was great, with Curious Pictures showing their Disney Channel program, Little Einsteins ("Come on! Wave your arms to make our ship fly faster!" and so you can hear some Vivaldi... oh, I'm sure you've seen it!)

Labels: After Effects, Dean Velez, Free, Harry Frank, John Dickinson, Ko Maruyama, Toolfarm, Training

We've been busily working on getting the Events Calendar up to date with user group meetings, film festivals, Adobe Events, Apple Events and training seminars.

If you have an event that you'd like us to list (related to media, of course), please email the details to michele @ toolfarm.com.

Labels: Event, Toolfarm

We've upgraded our server space and bandwidth in a big way. We have big plans for the future and with this extra space we can get things into motion.

If you notice anything that is not quite right on the site after our move, please contact michele@toolfarm.com. Thank you for your help.

Labels: Toolfarm

Toolfarm is moving servers and getting our own dedicated server. If you notice any wackiness such as missing images, we're aware of the issues and hope to have things ironed out as soon as we can. Thanks!

Labels: Toolfarm

This is the sixth in the Toolfarm Expert Training Series: Creative Background Design with After Effects: Rose Window and it is gorgeous! John Dickinson walks you through a variety of Persian-style designs using Fractal Noise, Colorama, CC Kaleida and several other plug-ins. Simply beautiful.

Whether you're new with After Effects or have been using it since AE 3, you will learn some cool tricks and expand you're repertoire of quick effects.

Get some killer training for only five bucks! Get Lesson 6: Rose Window Now!.

Labels: After Effects, Creative Background Design, Cycore FX, John Dickinson, Toolfarm, Training, Tutorial

New Toolfarm Web Site Launched

Toolfarm, Inc., the leading third-party distributor of After Effects plug-ins and visual effects tools today announced that it is now managing the forums for Red Giant Software, including Trapcode plug-ins, and just launched a new web site.

Quick Links to Red Giant Software Forums

• Magic Bullet Suite, Magic Bullet Editors, and Magic Bullet Colorista
• Trapcode Plug-ins (Published by Red Giant Software)
• All Other Red Giant Software Plug-Ins

Users can log onto these forums to get help from the Red Giant Support Team, Toolfarm, and some of the top motion graphics artists, including: Dean Velez—awarded two Emmy's for animation and has been nominated seven times for various graphics projects and Matt Silverman—Creative Director at Phoenix Edit, Effects, and Design in San Francisco.

Check out the Toolfarm site for other forums, including Adobe applications such as After Effects, Premiere Pro and Photoshop, and Apple Final Cut Studio, including Final Cut Pro and Motion.

The new Toolfarm web site provides a streamlined look and feel, plus offers a cleaner navigation. There is also a brand new database of tutorials at Toolfarm, which allows visitors to search by categories and see what is new or popular. The tutorial pages have been redesigned for better retention and new tutorials have been added. The free demos area has been re-programmed with stronger security features and updated with new demos. Plus, The Inspirations section is now broken into categories for easier reading. Harry Frank, of Gray Machine, has joined the Inspirations team to post the most interesting, creative and technical videos on the web.

About Toolfarm Inc.

Toolfarm.com, based in San Francisco since 1999, is the leading third-party reseller of After Effects Plug-ins and visual effects tools. Known also for distribution, publishing, service and training, it has become the de facto standard as the one-stop shop for Adobe After Effects Plug-ins as well as motion graphics tools. It also hosts a Plug-in Finder, an online database and search engine of all plug-ins for Adobe After Effects, Premiere, and Apple Final Cut Pro.

Labels: Plug-in Finder, Red Giant, Toolfarm