Red Giant

So this week I came across Red Giant, an awesome resource in terms of software, plugins, and tutorials. They have tools for motion graphics artists, editors, VFX artists, filmmakers, colorists, and compositors. Some of their more notable tools are Pluraleyes and Colorista. Pluraleyes is a powerful tool that will automatically sync audio and video as well as multiple cameras for multclipping.

 Red Giant splits it's software into bundles they call suites. They have 5 different suites: the Trapcode Suite which includes plugins for After Effects, the Magic Bullet Suite with color correcting and finishing tools, the Shooter Suite for the early stages of post production, the Effects Suite, and the Keying Suite for compositing. Unfortunately, these are all pretty pricey however they do offer discounts for students and teachers. They also offer free trials of their software. I highly recommend checking them out. http://www.redgiant.com/

Element 3D

Want to make realistic objects in After Effects that are truly 3D? Now you can, and it's never been easier with the Element 3D plugin! Created by the guys over at VideoCopilot.net, Element 3D pushes the boundaries with all the things you can do in After Effects. 3D objects, 3D text, 3D environments; Element 3D does it all, and it does it incredibly easy!

So how does it work, you might ask. Well, it's a lot simpler than it might first appear. First, let's talk about Primitive Objects.

Primitive Objects are just what they sound like, objects that are, well, primitive! Inside the primitive objects folder, you'll find an array of cubes, spheres, cones, pyramids, etc. all available with the click of a button. Once you create a primitive, you can use other primitives to help shape the object you wish to create. But what if I want to create something more fancy than just a cube? Well......

For all of those who are artistically gifted, with the click of a button, you can import 3D objects from many different 3D softwares. I don't remember which ones Element supports, but I do know it supports Cinema 4D files and 3DS Max files. Along with that, you can also import .obj files, which are universally used in many different programs. Great! We've got our objects, but it's all gray... Now what?

Welcome to the Material Editor! Element 3D comes packed with many preinstalled materials for you to apply to your objects. You can also create and edit materials very easily. So let's say we made a rock in Cinema 4D, imported into Element, and have a rocky material you want for the rock, what now? Simple, just drag the material onto the rock and you're set! You'll then be able to edit things about the material in the bottom window, to make things unique about that object.

I wanted to write this week's blog post about Element 3D because it is by far my favorite plugin I've used in After Effects! If I want to make something looks nice and pretty, and make it 3D, I quickly rush to Element, because I know I can make some awsome things.

Free plug-ins

Found some free, nifty plug-ins that might save people some time. The one that caught my eye was towards the bottom of the list, called Gridiron Software X-Factor, which can speed up your rendering time. If you have enough RAM for it. They also have a few good noise generators and simple effects if you're too lazy to make it yourself. They're worth a read and maybe a download to check them out.

The link can be found here

Green Screen Spill Suppression

Right after going over how to key in class, I stumbled across this in depth tutorial about how to finesse the color cast that can sometimes be a problem when shooting on green screen.  This is a very in-depth tutorial, covered in two parts, that goes over different methods of removing green screen spill in After Effects.  Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time embedding the videos, because they are unlisted, but you can watch both of them here.

I particularly like how this tutorial covers so many different techniques to achieve the same result, as well as advice about when to use them.  Furthermore, the most advanced technique (limiting the green channel based on the average of the red and blue values) is explained clearly and with a lot of attention to the mechanics behind it.

The red-blue average method also has a plugin that you can download to achieve the same result on a single layer, which is very convenient.  This plugin also looks useful for further green screen effects, because it allows you to create an alpha channel based on just the spill light.  There are a lot of possibilites that this opens up, including using it to create a light wrap effect to further integrate green screen footage into a composition.

After Effects - Music and Visualization

So after Thursday's class I kept playing around with some of the expressions that we had worked with, and was interested in expanding the music pairing's that we had made. After getting absolutely nowhere for a while, I went onto Youtube and started looking for tutorials of different cool things to do with music in After Effects. I came across these two videos:

I chose to post these two because the music in each varies, so I thought it would be cool to compare them both. I haven't found a tutorial yet, mostly because after I found these I spent a bunch of time watching other music visualizations created in After Effects.

An In-Depth Look at the Fractal Noise Plugin

Ever wonder how some of the plugins in AE actually work? I do (sometimes, when I'm feeling really ambitious). Today I came across this great explanation of how the Fractal Noise Plugin generates its mind-blowing results. It's a lengthy read, but hopefully you'll be inspired to use this plugin in your future compositions.

Here's a bit of what you'll learn:

And no, there's no video included. Sorry, guys (and gals)!