A Conversation with Noise Industries' Niclas Bahn
Noise Industries FxFactory is a revolutionary visual effects package for Final Cut Studio, offering over 100 GPU-accelerated plug-ins based on the FxPlug architecture for the highest performance inside Final Cut Pro and Motion. FxFactory is an infinitely expandable plug-in package that users can program their own plug-ins and add them to the FxMarket to sell or share with others.
Toolfarm talks to Niclas to find out more about this unique plug-in package.
iChat transcripts
Niclas: Hi Michele.
Michele: Hi Niclas. Can you tell us a bit about FxFactory and why it is so unique?
Niclas: Ahh... where to start?
Niclas: Well, there are a couple things that we think are especially cool about FxFactory.
Niclas: The first thing is speed, because of the fact that FxFactory is fully GPU accelerated all FxFactory filters render faster than what anybody has seen before in Final Cut Studio.
Michele:The first time I remember seeing the term FxPlug was in reference to Noise Industries.
Niclas: We are one of the first plug-in developers to work with FxPlug, Apple's new plug-in architecture which was designed with GPU acceleration in mind.
Niclas: Other plug-ins at this point are still based on the After Effects interface implementation in FCP. Although most plug-ins still work, it is not supported by Apple anymore on Intel-based Machines. For Apple, FxPlug is the future, and we are already on that train.
Michele: You're leading the train!
Niclas: Another important aspect is that FxPlug allows for effects to run in both FCP and Motion seamlessly, thereby FxFactory works with multiple components of Final Cut Studio.
Michele That is revolutionary.
Niclas: We like to think that FxFactory is really revolutionary because it opens up brand new possibilities for users and developers of plug-ins.
Niclas: We basically cater to two groups of users.
Niclas: The first group is looking for easy to use filters/generators and transitions that will allow them to enhance their videos inside FCP and Motion.
Niclas: For these users, FxFactory works in a familiar fashion. After installing FxFactory, their filters show up inside their hosts (FCP/Motion) with the hosts native interface, thereby seamlessly integrating into the tool they already know.
Michele: How do you decide which effects to create? There are so many great ideas out there.
Niclas: When we started in this industry and we were thinking about what effects would be valuable to create we realized that we didn't want to go the normal route... creating a set of filters, and then adding a couple more every year and bumping up the version number.
Niclas: We felt that the only way to really let the creative potential appear, we would have to try to democratize plug-in development and allow all our users to create their own plug-ins. We knew that we could come up with some cool ideas, but it was clear that the best ideas were out there, with a user sitting in front of his machine with a great idea, but the lack of computer programming skills to make it a reality.
Michele: User generated content is really the way things are headed on the internet.
Niclas: This is the second group of users comes in, and this is where the advanced features of FxFactory come in.
Niclas: FxFactory Pro allows users to take their ideas, and make their own plug-ins that then run inside Final Cut Studio.
Niclas: Some of our users have created amazing filters, and we work with them to then package them and bring them to all of our other users, allowing them in effect to become plug-in developers themselves, without having to learn how to write a single line of code.
Michele: The FX Market is such a unique community idea for user generated FxPacks. Approximately how many effects packs are there available for users at this time?
Niclas: Let me count.
Niclas: There are 18 different FxPacks available on the FxMarket at this point in time. And they were created by us and 4 different effects artists.
Niclas: More FxPacks are coming to the FxMarket soon, as we have new users contacting us regularly that want to share their ideas with the Final Cut community.
Niclas: One also has to mention that some of the FxPacks are free of charge, because the creator simply wants to share something cool with the community, and others are available commercially.
Michele: So, to program plug-ins, the user needs to have Quartz Composer installed. Can you explain a bit about what Quartz Composer is?
Michele: I know it comes in the Developer's Kit for Mac OS X, but I don't really know too much about it.
Niclas: Correct, Quartz Composer is a free node based compositor by Apple. It comes with the Developer's Kit on the standard Mac OS DVD that everyone gets when they purchase a Mac.
Niclas: We chose Quartz Composer as a basis of our product because of its power and ease of use. There is a large community of people who have learned to use Quartz Composer for different reasons. All these people are also potential plug-in developers with the use of FxFactory Pro.
Niclas: Quartz Composer also gives power to people who do have programming skills, however, being a node based compositor it has an interface that many people in the video industry are very familiar with.
Niclas: Everyone who has worked with Shake for example, will find his way around Quartz Composer very easily.
Niclas: There are also online communities with hundreds of samples and extensive documentation available for Quartz Composer. Such has http://www.quartzcompositions.com/ which has hundreds of samples to learn from, as well as a forum and a wiki for documentation.
Niclas: FxFactory Pro is the tool that then allows you to convert what you have created in Quartz Composer into a fully functional plug-in.
Michele: I was amazed by some of the abilities of Quartz Composer... you can build plug-ins like After Effects has never seen.
Michele: In one of your videos on your site, there was an example of a globe that you could get real-time weather information linked from the web to display on the globe.
Michele: Very cool.
Niclas: Yes... that is a fun example that shows the potential and flexibility of Quartz Composer, it is part of a tutorial video that explains how to go from a composition that you can download online, to fully functional plug-in inside FCP/Motion in only 5 minutes.
Niclas: Another interesting example of a capability that hasn't been seen before can be found in the latest freebie FxPack by Peter Wiggins (idustrial revolution). It has a plug-in called iSightLive which allows you to get a live iSight feed directly into Final Cut Studio... very practical for color picking for example.
Michele: I was wondering how accurate the color on iSightLIve would be... depending on the lighting, I would suspect.
Niclas: Absolutely, that is an issue but we still feel like it is a useful tool and it is free of charge also.
Niclas: Also things like RSS feeds can be utilized in Quartz Composer... really limitless possibilities.
Michele: How long has Noise Industries been around and how did you get into the plug-ins business?
Niclas: We started in 2004, after seeing Quartz Composer, and having had previous experience in the industry, Gabriele de Simone (founder/developer of FxFactory) decided to bring these two worlds together.
Niclas: Gabriele always felt that the plug-in industry was behind on some very important technologies. All modern computers have massive GPU computing power nowadays, yet GPU acceleration is hardly used in our industry.
Niclas: If you think of modern computer games, think of how fast high resolution real time 3D graphics can be created if you do it right... and then think about why people are still used to rendering for hours for a simple filter/effect. It is because this power has gone mostly unutilized until now.
Michele: I have some ideas for plug-ins which may be advanced and require someone who really knows what they are doing. Do you have any sort of "Suggestion Box" for plug-ins?
Niclas: Absolutely, people share their ideas in our forum, or they simply email us their ideas at times. It has happened more than once that a customer has approached us with an idea, we made the plug-in for him with a very short turn around time. Then later, after careful consideration we often decide to share it with the rest of our users.
Michele: Do you have anything in the pipeline that you can tell us about?
Niclas: At this point we have two hosts covered: Final Cut Studio, and Avid AVX (Xpress Pro, Media Composer etc.) clearly we have to stay on top of the new developments on those hosts.
Niclas: Avid will soon be releasing their MacIntel compatible versions of their NLE's, and we are ready now with a new release of Factory Tools for Avid AVX.
Niclas: Also, Apple's new OS Leopard will be released in the not so distant future, so we are working hard to take advantage of new capabilities there.
Niclas: We have some new partners using FxFactory to create some very exciting new FxPacks which will be ready in the next months also, but that's all still secret. As for plans to support other hosts, clearly there are plans here, but it is too early to talk about them at this point.
Michele: Sure, I understand.
Michele: And... you're going to be at NAB next month showing off your wares!
Niclas: Yes, this will be our second year exhibiting at NAB, we will be located inside the Plug-In Pavilion in booth SL3827J, right in between Adobe and Apple. We are planning on revealing some exciting announcements.
Michele: I can't wait to check it out.
Niclas: Looking forward to seeing you there, Michele.
Michele: Lastly, I wanted to mention that you have some of the nicest looking icons on your web site and for FxFactory.
Niclas: Thank you very much, we are actually currently in the middle of a complete redesign that will launch very very soon. The new site will make it easier to add new information quicker, as we do move quite fast in our release cycle, and new FxPacks are coming in short time intervals, we had to invest in making the site more flexible.
Michele: It's a very nice site as is, but I know what you mean about redesigning.
Niclas: Congratulations on the Toolfarm redesign, by the way...
Michele: Thank you very much.
Niclas: You did a great job there.
Michele: Thank you for chatting with me, Niclas.
Niclas: Thank you Michele, great pleasure talking to you always. Thank you for the opportunity.
Niclas: Looking forward to meeting in Vegas.
Michele: Yes, so am I.