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 Toolfarm finally developed a full database of filters, so this page has been retired but remains here for awhile out of historical interest.
There's quite an array of effect add-ons now available -- about 1200 plug-ins for AE OS-X (951 AE filters were available for sale in May 2002). Even so, don't fall for magazine hype like this: "Your After Effects compositions will dramatically improve in no time with any of these excellent packages [emphasis added]." Demo versions are available for most After Effects filters, so you can try them yourself. Toolfarm, a San Francisco reseller, offered a handy CD with a boatload of demos (there was also a PDF brochure). Pluginz.com is another reseller with nice extras. 3D Links also attempts to keep a master list of all kinds of FX filters. Plug-in Central, Creative Cow, and the WWUG all have tutorials and news on various filters, as do better magazines. AE offers free filters for registration (see the Adobe site). You may need new versions of filters because of changes in the plug-in spec (see the SDK for specifics). Dik Baskerville provides sundry compatibility info for AE and compatible 16-bit plug-ins on the filter summary page. Update to AE 6.5 to avoid this...from Michael Natkin at Adobe Mon, 06 Oct 2003... "if you have been experiencing Abnormal Condition errors. As far as we know, almost all of them are resolvable with the following steps: (1) Update your OpenGl/display drivers - see http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/3164a.htm for detailed troubleshooting instructions. (2) If your crash is related to a third party plugin, check with the developer to see if an update is available. (3) If no update is available from the developer, try the steps at http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/3164e.htm to put that plugin into compatibility mode. (In order to track memory usage accurately, AE6 is less tolerant of plugins with certain types of bugs. This URL will show you how to make it more tolerant of either certain effects with problems, or all effects if you like. It can slow things down a bit though)." Duplicate plug-in warnings? "Many Mac 3rd party plug-in installers incorrectly identify After Effects 6.0. Some may install their plug-ins into the Mac OS X Package for the After Effects application. To reveal these plug-ins, control-click on the After Effects application icon in the Finder and select Show Package Contents. You can then move the plug-ins into the plug-ins folder--or delete them!” courtesy of Peter Menich and Peder Norrby. When installing a new version of AE, you can leave filters in place and delete everything else, the installer should play nice and not overwrite them (you may use a symbolic link but it would work either way). You might hope that AE could use Premiere Pro filters (Win only) for color correction and filmlook, but the Premiere spec now uses YUV and other features, so the new filters do not work in AE as is.
Extra documentation not included in the AE manual can be found on the Adobe site or on the install CD. Free plug-ins: There are a variety of free filters available. Do a browser find for "free" on this page to search for them. Keep in mind that promotions come and go. Sometimes filters are included in books on AE; for example, you got 12 in the initial version of Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, by Trish and Chris Meyer. Some filters are available individually, not just in expensive packages: see, for example, Walker Effects, Panopticum, RE:Vision Effects, Trapcode, or Digital Anarchy. Here's the OS X filter list of AE 5.5 filters, courtesy of Dik Baskerville. In OS X, revised plug-ins and codecs will needed -- as with any OS X application. OS X compatible filters will work with OS 9 Classic too. According to the good authority of Brian Maffitt, you can use old filters and not restart by checking a switch in the get info box to force AE to start up in Classic mode (but note that Adobe doesn't officially support Mac OS X Classic mode). Here's a list of 16-bit AE 5.5 filters, courtesy of Dik Baskerville. If an effect supports only 8-bit processing, and your project is set to16-bit, After Effects displays a yellow warning icon next to the effect name in the Effects window. To show which filters support 16-bit processing, use the wing menu on the effects palette in AE 5.5. (In AE 5.0, edit your AE prefs file: open it and search for "Show 8/16bpc Effect Menu Indicators". Change the value from 0 to1 and save the file. Start AE and the Effects menu will then show either "8" or "8+16" to indicate pixel depth support.) With the expanded access to 16-bit file formats, including Brendon Bolles' lossless SuperPNG and the lossless Microcosm codec (32- and 64-bit capable, lossless with compression), this feature will become more important to track. Filters can now support AE's 3D Comp cameras, and guess who has made a handy list?! You too can make your own list of your AE filters. Click on the Project Window, and press Command+Shift+Option+Help. After Effects will create a text file, named AE Version Info, and saves this file in the same folder as the After Effects application. Plug-in management can be a problem if you own too many. Many problems are solved by the Filter Manager in AE 5.5. Remember, you can save Favorites to the same folder within the Plug-ins folder on your hard disk and they show up in the Filter Manager if you sort for them. (For earlier versions, Anthony T. Pittari developed an Apple script for the Mac called "plugin manager script-Mac" to automatically move filters in and out of the AE plugins folder.) Toolfarm posted a nice discussion about effect categories: Rearranging After Effects Plugs. In Mac OS9 you can edit the filter PiPL resource's "catg??????????Render" property. It seems to work best if you copy the exact data from another filter in the target menu section. Similiar work can be done in OSX with ResConverter (to change file attributes) or HexEditor (to view & edit raw binary files). You can use GetFileInfo and SetFile if you have the OSX Developer Tools installed; Windows development packages have their resource editors. To be sure filters don't load, use (name) (on both platforms) or ~name (on Win) or <option-L>name (on Mac) to disable individual plug-ins and/or folders within the AE application folder. In Windows, use the symbol “~” or use parens () on both platforms. Use Command+period or ESC to stop filters loading during a launch of AE. You can use the Photoshop Layer Effects in AE (like Glow) by saving them as Favorites after importing the file as a composition. The Photoshop filters included in AE 5.5 are cross-platform. The earlier versions of these filters used PS+ at the beginning of their names and were not cross-platform. Other Photoshop filters might be used in AE, but cannot be animated. Many PS filters no longer work in AE5; see the Adobe support page on the issue for the offical word (Photoshop 6.x filter and file format plug-ins aren't compatible with After Effects 5.x and earlier, and therefore, aren't supported. Photoshop 5.x filter and file format plug-ins are compatible with After Effects 5.x and 4.x, when running Mac OS 9.x and earlier.) At one point the Gallery Effects filters found in the Effects folder within the PS plug-in folder worked fine. Photoshop 3 era filters work best. The whole idea is a bit of trouble. To use PS Lighting Effects for example, the Preset file from the Photoshop folder needs to be copied into the AE Folder. It might be easier to avoid the trial and error and run a sequence through PS Actions -- or concentrate on other methods. Many filters (especially those without custom interface controls) work in other applications, including Apple Final Cut Pro, Discreet Combustion, Adobe Premiere,Videonics Effetto Pronto, Eyeon Digital Fusion (with the AE Plug-in Adapter), Pinnacle Commotion, BorisRED (and so NLEs like Avid and Media 100), and Avid with Elastic Gasket. Please note that Final Cut Pro 3.0 does not have full support for OS X native After Effects plug-ins as of April 2002, and support is still iffy at the end of 2004. The Plug-in Pavilion, a loose association of plug-in manufacturers have teamed up to create pluginpavilion.com, a single web resource for plug-in manufacturers to share product info and news--as well as tradeshow floorspace.
Development Notes: If anyone is interested in developing After Effects plug-ins ("it's really not that tough to write a plug-in if you know C" or can partner), they can get the open source AE SDK from Adobe. The SDKs contain contact information, and basic development questions can be answered before the Adobe Developers Association membership charge is invoked. A peek into plug-in dev can be found at the blog of Adobe engineer Bruce Bullis, After Effects API Zone. Sometimes the SDK contains plug-ins or code to compile ones not usually available. One open source project (dating from 2001 but still available in January 2003) is the Python Plug-in for Adobe After Effects. It is Windows only, but there's also ones for PS and AI. This project builds a plug-in using the SDK that will allow the user to add new After Effects functionality using the Python language. Creating After Effects plug-ins for Adobe's bestselling video-compositing program is "surprisingly easy." If you believe the aging MacTech article (from Volume15, Number 9): “How to Write Plug-Ins for Adobe After Effects” by Kas Thomas (web archive). There's even mailing lists hosted by Automatic Duck for the FCP Developer and AE Plugin Developer communities that anyone can access. You might also try Pluginz.com's Developer Central (it seems oriented to 3D but that is the direction of the industry). Here's a few AE-list comments on porting PS filters. Brendan Bolles: "I think the After Effects SDK is way easier. For example, your standard UI can be built with just a few lines of code and will be totally cross-platform. And don't worry about putting a preview in your interface - it already happens in the comp window. AE works a bit differently from Photoshop so there's a learning curve, but porting should be pretty easy once you figure it out." Darrin Cardani added: "The thing I found most confusing is the calling sequence. When Photoshop calls your filter plugin, it follows a pretty standard sequence telling you what to do next. AE is a little more fluid in that sometimes you might not get called to do certain things, while other times you will. But once you look through the example code and write one, it starts to make sense. Be sure to join Adobe's mailing list so you can ask questions about the process when you get stuck." FreeFrame is an open video plug-in system. "In the first instance it is intended mainly for VJ ('Visual Jockey') applications to share realtime video effects plugins. Later we hope to widen the system to include other media and plugin types." Freeframe is a bare bones framework and the only host plug-in for AE is Windows-only (below from Pete Warden), but this Open Source specification is not dominated by any one developer and opens up many possibilities. Unfortunately it is said to be based on an antiquated programming style instead of object-oriented design.
boujou (a 3D tracking app for Win) creates a boujou animation file (*.ban) file that can be imported into AE 5.5/Win using a free plug-ins, for example boujou.aex. SteadyMove Pro (Win) is shot stabilization software. "SteadyMove Pro uses innovative vision science technologies to estimate and compensate for camera movement frame to frame in a shaky sequence, producing a smooth clip. Built-in, key-frameable controls for smoothing and cropping allow the user to tweak the level of automated stabilization as needed for the desired effect. Advanced settings and options provide zoom smoothing, automatic cut detection, intelligent cropping and super stabilization for static shots."
4th Party for UT +UA (BETA) are "plug-ins" for Profound Effects' Useful Things and Useful Assistants.
Accom (now available from Diaquest) Accom DDR/AE Plug-in: (Mac/Win) The DDR/AE Plug-in integrates Accom digital disk recorders (DDRs) directly into the After Effects production environment. Video images and sequences on the Accom DDR can be viewed or captured directly from within After Effects. Similarly, After Effects compositions can be rendered directly to the Accom DDR. The new Accom DDR/AE plug-in for AE 5.0 is available from Diaquest. Go to Diaquest's web site for complete details.
AE 6.5 Register AE to get extra filters (sometimes these are essential ones like Foam, Wave World, Caustics, Card Wipe, and Card Dance). The Adobe After Effects 6.0 Plug-in update, released December 2003, includes updates for OpenGL3D and Radial Wipe. The keying filter Keylight now comes with the Pro version. Keylight is especially powerful in dealing with reflections, semi transparent areas and hair. Keylight 2.0 has been improved with simpler controls for the main matte, better quality key, better matte processing, color correction and a new 'outside matte' tool. Keylight 2.0 gives you the ability to have completely independent 'inside and outside' keyers each with independent shrink and softness as well as separately fed garbage mattes if required. The After Effects Plug-in Power Pack includes the following: Window Media Output Module plug-in, Calculations, 3D Glasses, Paint Bucket (formerly CE Basic Fill), Change to Color (formerly CE Change Color HLS), Channel Combiner (formerly CE Channeling), Checkerboard (formerly CE Checker), Circle, Solid Composite (formerly CE Color Composite), Color Link, Eyedropper Fill (formerly CE Color Picker), Magnify, Noise Alpha, Noise HLS, Noise HLS Auto, Radial Shadow, Turbulent Displacement. NOTE: CE Color Solid & CE Fire Up, are redundant to AE's Colorama & Fill effects and will no longer be made available. Other than these 2 all of the Cult Effects plug-ins acquired by Adobe are now either incorporated into the application or available in the Power Pack. Two of the plug-ins in the After Effects Plug-in Power Pack (Calculations & Windows Media Output Module) are brand new to After Effects. The remaining effects were formerly available as part of Cult Effects package & are now carbonized to work on OS X & tested on Win 2K/XP (in addition to a few cosmetic improvements). Adobe Motion Exchange (.amx) Plug-in "lets you integrate After Effects 5.5 projects easily with Adobe LiveMotion 2.0. Create your complex animations in After Effects, and then export your project as an Adobe Motion Exchange (AMX) file. Import this file into LiveMotion 2.0, and then continue to work." The After Effects Production Bundle (with plug-in and assistant enhancements) is available through resellers; feature comparisons of the standard and production bundles are available at Adobe's site. Extra documentation not included in the AE manual can be found on the Adobe site. I had Java problems, but found the PDFs by replacing the 1 in the link above with 2-6 get all 6 PDFs. AE 4/MP acceleration plug-ins are available from Adobe. Patches for AE problems are sometimes available. Free version 3.1 filters are still available (several do not work in later versions). The Adobe After Effects Classroom in a Book shipped with production bundle filters (Corner Pin, Glow, Scatter, Wave Warp). These also may have problems if built for earlier versions of AE. More free plug-ins: Various limited-time Adobe promos involving free filters come and go. Past offers have included useful filters from Zaxwerks, Atomic Power, Final Effects Complete and Cult Effects, so keep in touch with Adobe's AE page. Adobe provides an SDK for writing your own plug-ins. The SDK is freely available and with it you can write new plug-ins in C/C++. Sometimes the SDK contains plug-ins or code to compile ones not usually available. The Python Plug-in for Adobe After Effects is an Open Source project from 2001 that "builds a plug-in using the SDK that will allow the [Windows] user to add new After Effects functionality using the Python language." You'll need development tools to compile the code.
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Andrew's (Video) Effects Vol 1 is a collection of 12 filters including blur effects, line/dot/circular/rings/interference pattern effects, negative, average/grayscale, posterization and solar effects and more for After Effects.Five plug-ins replicate image processing functions, like Threshold, but provide greater control. Four filters generate patterns of dots, lines, and other shapes especially useful for creating background animations. A free variant of the oprings/opburst can be downloaded, this is for AE 5.5 and 6, 'Blend 1' <PC> <macOSX>
ADI (apparently discontinued) Filmpak: (Mac only) color and tone scale manipulation, film grain management, wire and rig removal. X-Matte: (Mac only), a compositing tool for generating mattes from blue screen or green screen backgrounds.
Algolith (weekly licenses available!) Adaptive De-Interlacing (Mac/Win) for mixing video interlaced images with progressive scan CG or film. ADI uses advanced edge-direction-based motion estimation and adaptive interpolation techniques. Dynamic Noise Reducer (Mac/Win) for Gaussian noise reduction MPEG Noise Reducer (Mac/Win) for cleaning up any compressed image. The last 2 filters noise reducers are 3D (spatial and temporal) noise-reducing nodes used to remove low light and MPEG noises, as well as to block artifacts that tend to be apparent with DCT-based compression schemes such as MPEG2 and DV images. Frame Rate Converter (Mac/Win) is designed to perform high-quality format conversion between PAL, NTSC, SDTV, HDTV and film images. FRC uses motion estimation in both the temporal and spatial domains to a convert any frame rate to any frame rate. The FRC plug-ins includes: Adaptive De-Interlacing (ADI) for mixing video interlaced images with progressive scan CG or film, Algolith Anti-Aliaser (AAA) for removing jaggies especially apparent on poor images, Content Adaptive Scaling with Aspect-Ratio Conversion (CAS) for exceptional up/down Scaling of CG, SDTV, HDTV or Film Formats.
MaP | Time
Alias|Wavefront (discontinued) Paint Effects: (Mac/Win) was a particle-based paint system with customizable brush types. Paint Effects renders sets of procedurally drawn plants, water effects, fire, fireworks, star fields, metal, and other paint styles. Scripts can be imported from other projects, including the 3D app from other platforms. Information on MEL scripting can be found at: A|W, the FAQ section Highend3d.com, and in the MEL manual on the "Taste of Maya" demo CD from A|W. There's even a Paint Effects community trading post. Note: The installer does not recognize new versions of AE 5 or 6, but Eduardo Barbieri found success by installing AE 4, then these filters, then moving the plugins to AE 6--and all worked fine in Win XP.
Eye Candy for After Effects: (Mac/Win) includes texture, distortion, and production filters, as well as specialized effects like Fire, Smoke, and Chrome.
Atomic Power Corporation (bought by Adobe: no more nukes) Evolution (now part of AE; video training series had been available from Total Training): (Mac/Win) contained several plug-ins that were actually 3D animation systems. These include layer-explosion effects, and a fractal-based displacement system is useful for generating clouds, fire, smoke and water. Foam is an all-purpose flocking particle system, complete with collision detection. There are also shape-based particle systems, physics-based wave systems, a powerful tinting/color-cycling tool, and other filters that can generate casino-style running lights and other entertainment effects.
Pro Import AE (Mac/Win) reduces time-consuming OMF imports. "The import takes seconds, importing all your media and clips in one step. Your effects are translated and recreated for you, your timeline is recreated as a composition in After Effects..." Watch QuickTime demos of Import in action...
AutoMedia (distributor and announcement, but apparently discontinued) AutoMasker AE: (Mac/Win; was in beta) enables automated isolation, painting, extracting and insertion of selected objects into video streams via keyframing.
Mimikri (MacOS X) is a tool to conform color corrections made in standard video definition in high definition. Mimikri does not have to know how the color correction was actually made. It analyzes the colors from the PAL/NTSC video frame by frame and applies the result to the HD video.
FilmFX: (Mac/Win) version 2 "boasts thousands of improvements over the popular original. Color curves. Gamma control. Unsurpassed color correction and matching. Extensive grain parameters. Anamorphic wide screen conversion. Old Film effects. Gate weave for compositing."
(Other packages maybe compatible; sometimes offers free plug-ins , e.g., Cartooner and Mosaic and soon Lens Flare, Film Damage, Film Grain) Boris Continuum (Mac/Win) extends the original Boris AE by offering over 100 filters, including more advanced 3D text, time displacement, and particle system effects in addition to distortion, particle, color and keying features. The breadth of features and continual development of Boris Effects makes it an excellent all around package. See Tim's Corner for tutorials. Title Toolkit (Mac/Win) includes Boris Vector Text, Text Scrambler, Title Crawl and Vector Shape plug-ins that let AE users experience superior titling capabilities in a familiar environment.
Bresnev Shu (was Col Sebas -- but now Missing in Action) Expression Effects (Mac) is a shareware collection of plugins for AE 5, including Color analysis, which allows you to extract pixel information and high/low values of each channel; 3D Channel analysis, which allows you to extract metadata from 3D channels (Depth, Normals, Texture UV, Object ID); Vertex Analysis, which offers information on a selected mask's vertex; and Segment Analysis, which gives you information on a selected mask's segment. The masking filters allow manipulation of paths from the effects window, also allowing control of masks by expressions. Path Palette was a free (ok shareware, so send money) keyframe assistant that helps you create simple path patterns like stars. As of June 2003, I'm not sure if it is available. KoalaLumpor/Javascript for After Effects (Mac/Win) plug-ins allow After Effects to be fully scripted, and for users to write their own effects. Included scripts are the Console script Window, an Actions palette (PS-like), and a Groups palette.
Effect Essentials (Mac/Win) is a set of 10 plug-ins for MacOS 9 and MacOS X., and includes Super RGB Curves, HSV Curves, Radial Glow, HSV Manipulator, Feedback, Edge Manipulator, Frame Manipulator, Pixel Manipulator. Each effect works on 8-bit and 16-bit per channel video, and all are AltiVec enhanced for maximum speed. The demo includes a totally free Camera Flash plug-in! Dissolve Factory (Mac/Win) allows you to create new dissolve transitions from color attributes. It can simulate subtle effects like a film dissolve or create unique dissolves like a saturation dissolve. Swatch Buckler (Mac/Win) creates a color palette with integrated color picker right in After Effects. Au Naturel (Mac/Win) is a plugin for After Effects, Final Cut Pro, and Combustion that produces realistic looking lens blurs, allows you to adjust the exposure in f-stops, and produces composites using a separate alpha channel for each color channel.
Video Out Plug-in for After Effects (Win) has Advanced Preview Capabilities. Developed to enhance preview capabilities within After Effects, the Canopus Video Out Plug-in for After Effects speeds up video production by allowing users to output a compositing image from the timeline for preview on an NTSC/PAL monitor. Analog output is done in uncompressed YUV 4:2:2.
Conoa 3D (Mac/Win) brings "12 three-dimensional geometric primitives to your motion graphics and uses a powerful raytracing engine to render them... [it] can map video onto any of its supported primitives and supports true reflections, area lights, soft shadows, alpha channels and a true 3D camera model....the 1.5 upgrade features reflection mapping, bump mapping, better support of AE's lights, and support of Mac OSX." Conoa 3D allows intersecting shapes, shadows cast between objects and two material models, features not found in Conoa EasyShapes. EasyShapes (Mac/Win) features Conoa CylinderWarp, which allows wrapping and flexing of a cylinder, a feature not found in Conoa 3D. Users wanting both sets of features should consider the Conoa SuperPak Superpak (Mac/Win) includes Conoa 3D and Conoa EasyShapes. It is for users who want the multiple intersecting shapes of Conoa 3D, and the warpage of Conoa CylinderWarp and the ease and flexibility of Conoa Cube. EasyTinter is free with any Conoa purchase.
The Frame Buffer plug-in (Win) will preview After Effects composition on your TV or monitor if you have graphics card with TV out. Plug-in was tested on After Effects version 5.5 and 6 with for Nvidia and ATI cards with TV output
Cult Effects (discontinued and now part of AE): (Mac/Win) was 27 plug-ins from the creators of Final Effects. Includes Vector Paint (yes paint), 3D Glasses, Lightning, Basic, Fill, Magnify, Basic, Noise, HLS, Color, change, Noise, Cellular, Color, Link, Noise, Turbulent, Color, Solid, Optics, Compensation, ColorsQuad, Radial, Shadow, Difference, Roughen, Edges, Grid, Turbulent, Displace. Many tutorials for these filters had been posted on the Cycore site, and it would be nice if Adobe made them available again. Cycore Effects HD
DIN (Mac/Win) is an OpenGL-accelerated procedural noise effect plugin “for making everything from fire to force fields to spectacular transitions. DIN’s killer feature is the Control Layer. Control Layers allow you to specify where and how DIN noise effects are applied to your source layer. You can take any source footage or composition and use it to control DIN’s Size, Fade, Grid Align, Jiggle Distance, Rotate Align, or Squeeze amount.”
Diaquest DDR After Effects Plug-in : (Mac/Win) plug-in to access to Digital Disk recorders via ethernet and SCSI for image input/ouput. Supports Àccom, Abekas, Sierra Design Labs disk recorders. DQSoft.PIC (Mac) is an Image File plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and Adobe After Effects that allows users to work directly with SoftImage .PIC files.
(sometimes offers free plug-ins too; this was the 2nd AE filter set -- and I think I bought the 1st copy at a San Francisco user group hosted by the future Toolfarm) Aurorix: (Mac/Win) includes 26 effects filters including AgedFilm, VideoLook, Earthquake and Turbulent Flow. Berserk: (Mac/Win) 20 effects plug-ins including StarField, FogBank, VanGoughist and Laser. Cinelook: (Mac/Win) takes any video, computer animation, film-scan or photo and allows you to make it look like film -- add grain, correct color and add film artifacts like dust, scratches, stains, hair, etc. Cyclonist: (Mac) is a custom filter construction set for organic particle effects, including Fire, Rain, Painterly Styles, Confetti, Gauze, Satin, Bubbles, Displacement Maps, etc. CineMotion (Mac/Win) "is a set of 10 digital video special effects plug-in tools that will make your video move like film. It includes the Film Motion plug-in (an enhanced 3:2 pulldown functionality designed to simulate the motion characterstics of 24fps film), grain and noise reduction tools, selective noise and color correction tools, and other tools to manipulate digital video images." Delerium: (Mac/Win) 30+ effects plug-ins, including particle systems, specular lighting effects, image "fodder," glows, 2D & 3D warps, fire, smoke, lightning, 3D effects. The TILT plug-ins allow you to place multiple lights, complex models, simple objects and a camera to create a 3D animated scene, or displace in 3D. Fantazm (Mac) is a set of 36 plug-ins. There was a press release in Aug 2003, but status is unclear.
Text Anarchy (Mac/Win) is a nicely-priced package designed to easily create text elements. It consists of cool text, text spiral, text hacker, font changer, type on, text matrix, text grid, screen text. Geomancy (Mac/Win) contains 3 plug-ins (GridSquares, GridLines, HairLines) that make it easy to create and animate the shapes and lines. The particle system generates the shapes and the grid system is used to control how they look and behave. This may give a designer a great deal of flexibility and power, without the complexity that usually comes with particle systems. Psunami (Mac/Win) is technology from Areté Digital Nature Tools, is a realistic water simulator. Its powerful physics can simulate a mighty ocean or a still pond with convincing results, as demonstrated in Titanic, Waterworld, The Devil's Advocate, and The Fifth Element. You have full control over the camera angle, waves, ripples, swells, wakes, atmospheric effects, and a host of other details. Under Atomic Power, it used to ship with a full training series from Total Training but with the reduced price they are now extra. Gradient (Mac/Win) is a 16-bit filter that produces 6-color gradients. "The demo is AE 5.x/OS 9 and Windows. An OS X version and 8-bit AE 4.x will be forth coming once we release it" in March. 3D Assistants (Mac/Win) allow you to arrange 3D layers in AE's 3D space. They are broken up into two basic sets of assistants: one set arranges the composition's layers within a given type of primitive and the other attempts to create a primitive out of the layers. First there were ten, now there are sixteen. 3D Assistants EZ (Mac/Win) The six Assistants in the EZ package have more limited functionality than the Pro versions. Aurora Sky (Mac/Win) creates skies and clouds. The built-in camera can fly-throughout the world within the plug-in making it simple to composite other 3D objects. Designers can turn on 3D clouds and fly through them. The normal cloud layer in Aurora Sky is a fractal based flat layer of clouds, but for actually flying through 'cloudy matter' you can use the more powerful volumetric clouds. ReTimer SD (Mac/Win) “is an After Effects plug-in that allows you tos peed up, slow down, or dynamically time-warp any NTSC or PAL footage. Based on the engine of REALVIZ's award-winning application, ReTimer 2.5, this plug-in enables calculation of every pixel move, while retaining the highest quality output in anefficient and optimized manner.” The Mac version is said to be slow but that dual proc work is in the works. Anarchy Toolbox (Mac/Win) includes 9 new filters for creating a wide variety of effects for creative blurs, beautiful glows, controlled distortions, seamlessly tiled images, and warped graphics. Most of the Toolbox filters use grayscale maps to control some aspect of how they behave or what the filter outputs. 3D Layer (Mac/Win), based on Conoa technology, generates a 3D mesh with thickness, unlike AE's regular paper-thin 3D layers. It can be distorted using displacement maps, and uses the AE 3D camera and lights. ColorTheory (Mac/Win) "is a digital color wheel, used to find harmonious color combinations. The formulas are based on the studies of Bauhaus professor Johannes Itten, and utilize the classical artists' Red, Yellow, and Blue (RYB) color model. Using the RYB model, ColorTheory's formulas include all of Professor Itten's traditional formulas, as well as primary, secondary, tertiary, pastel, neutral and discord (clash) schemes. ColorTheory enables designers to quickly analyze hundreds of color schemes while working with existing logos and artwork." The demo of version 2 includes free fully functional versions of CT ColorSwatch, CT Location, CT Dial, CT Slider, and CT Checkbox (utility filters good for work with Expressions). Also, check out Microcosm, the super lossless 64-bit codec, and a free 64-bit None codec.
Aurora Water (Mac/Win) allows you to create animated water with waves, reflection, and refraction within AE’s production pipeline. Aurora Sky (Mac/Win) creates skies and clouds, including suns, stars, smoke, fog, and haze, and volumetric clouds. Aurora Sky takes advantage of the After Effects 3D camera, and allows use of texture maps and cloud shaping maps to create wildly custom skyscapes.
Free filter: DFT Fast Blur Composite Suite is a "comprehensive set of special effects plug-ins for the television and motion picture industries...From their years of experience, Digital FilmWorks has packaged...plug-ins to make seamless and realistic composites." Composite Suite Color Correct is now available as a separate set of plug-ins. 55MM: (Mac/Win) includes 13 plug-ins meant to simulate popular optical glass camera filters as well as specialized lenses. Instead of fumbling around with glass filters when shooting, you can now precisely treat your images in a controlled digital environment. Color Grad, Mist, Fog, Warm/Cool, Skin Smoother, Night Vision, Infra-Red and Faux Film are a few of the filters available. zMatte (Mac/Win) is a full featured keyer for Adobe After Effects and After Effects compatible programs like Apple's Final Cut Pro and Avid Editing Systems. zMatte uses proprietary matte extraction techniques and 16 bit processing, and Blur, Shrink and Wrap functions. Once the key is pulled, the foreground can be color matched to the background using color tools in addition to isolated color suppression. Digital Film Lab (Mac/Win) is meant to simulate a variety of film looks, popular glass camera filters, specialized lenses and optical lab processes--all in a controlled digital environment with either 8 or 16 bits per channel processing. Digital Film Lab is made up of Color Correct, Bleach Bypass, Low Contrast, Flashing, Overexpose, Diffusion, Blur, Grad Grain and Post Color Correct modules. You can use presets, modify them, or create your own.
Bullnose Mask for Adobe After Effects (Mac/Win) lets you quickly create a rounded rectangular mask (sometimes known as a bull-nosed matte) on video or solid layers. The Create Bullnose Mask plug-in is based on the Create Rounded Mask assistant in the Profound Effects Useful Assistants plug-in. Note: The Create Bullnose Mask plug-in is not an After Effects effect plug-in, so it will not work in After Effects plug-in-compatible hosts like Final Cut Pro. Free
Prime (Mac) is a set of 26 new plug-ins.
dvMatte (Mac/Win, both are only on the Composite Toolkit CD) is DV-format-oriented filter comparable to the AEPB Color Difference Keyer. It ships separately and as part of the "Composite Toolkit" training CD. Even more important, the CD shows you how keying filters work, how to use iterations of masks and filter instances to improve keying, and how to simulate the PB Color Difference Keyer with the Standard Bundle of AE. dvMatte Pro (Mac/Win) is the next generation of dvMatte, and now operates on the luminance channel for cleaner keys.
QTVR Matte (OS 9 Mac only) allows you to manipulate Quicktime VR panoramas from within the After Effects. Color Pal (OS 9 Mac/Win) provides a floating palette that provides quick access to a user-configurable set of colors. Color Pal can be used with any standard eyedropper in After Effects (e.g. composition background color, all color effect controls, solid color).
eFX Pyro (Mac/Win), based on the tools from Areté, "creates coupled smoke and fire motion and then performs volumetric rendering of the resulting inferno. [Interesting functionality includes:] Simulation calculation time does not increase when multiple sources are added; Turbulence, wind, and buoyancy fields can be applied; and Smoke can be illuminated by the flame automatically and by external lights." eFX Extract3D (Mac/Win) gives you access to image channels rendered by 3D applications like 3DS Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Softimage and Electric Image. eFX Extract3D lets you view, extract, mask and color-map image file footage using up to 12 additional channels of 3D information, including Z Depth, Material ID, Object ID, Texture UV, Surface Normal, Non-Clamped RGB and Coverage.
BikiniDots (Mac/Win) is a combined stroke renderer and a dot matrix generator. The basic functionality of BikiniDots creates a matrix of circles (dots), the color value of each dot is the average sampled pixel value of that area from the source image. Grader (Mac/Win) allows you to colorcorrect in true YUV-colorspace. Supressor (Mac/Win) allows you to supress different colours in a picture. AFX2VPB (Mac/Win) "allows you to import and export Quantel VPB files. You can render single file sequences, and import them again. Or, you can use any FTP program to upload sequences to any Quantel device." AFX2QTL (Mac/Win) "allows you to import and export single frames or sequences directly from a Quantel device via ethernet. The plug-in looks directly at the shared disk when importing and writes to the shared disk when rendering." Also available is the free XMult (like Knoll Unmult or WalkerEffects Premultiply), which is 16-bit and carbonized for OS X.
SuperTIFF (Mac/Win) is a free plug-in that profides more complete support for TIFF than AE does natively. Photoshop is able to create TIFF files that are 16-bit and use Zip compression which After Effects is currently unable to read or write. SuperTIFF also includes these features over the Photoshop-style TIFF plug-in that ships with After Effects: Single-channel (grayscale) saving option, Floating point TIFF support (for HDR images), and Better integration with AE's Output Module dialog SuperPNG (Mac/Win), by Brendon Bolles, is a free Photoshop style plug-in that enables Photoshop and After Effects users to save 16-bit PNG ("ping") files. AE and PS can already read and write PNG files, bit PS6 can't yet save 16-bit PNGs. SuperPNG can save remarkably small 16-bit RGB+Alpha images that virtually anyone can read. JPG 2000 (Mac/Win) is a free format plug-in for reading and writing the JPEG 2000 format, rumored to be one of the few formats to be added natively to QuickTime. Übercolor (Mac) can reproduce colors from digital cameras, scanners, and other devices with ColorSync. The intended appearance of any image is dependant upon the ICC profile properties of the device it was created with, and this filter makes working with digtal still cameras much easier. Brendan also says you can "get a decent NTSC preview right on the Mac monitor. It's especially handy on a PowerBook. You apply it to an adjustment layer floating above your comp and specify NTSC as the source profile, leaving the destination as your regular display profile. Of course, it helps if you have an accurate display profile." Power Picker (Mac/Win) gives you an interactive color picker inside the AE interface. Power Picker takes over the color of a layer, leaving the Alpha channel intact...when used in Expressions, it functions as the color picker for virtually any filter...leaving you with a central control center free of dialog boxes and guesswork. Power Picker is also good for tinting and subtly adjusting the colors of an image using one of three mapping modes.
MakeFileLookComp (Mac/Win) is a free plug-in which uses the latest AE SDK features to simplify creating a particular film-look recipe that renders fast and gives good results. "The plug-in: 1) creates a comp from that footage (like dragging the footage to the "Create a New Composition" icon) appending "-FL" to the name; 2) imports the same footage into the project reversing the field order; 3) adds the newly imported footage to the newly created comp; 4) lowers the just added footage's opacity to 50% and turns off its audio (so there's not duplicate audio)." Trish Meyer: "This is the original recipe (and was first proposed by Kevin Dole at one of the earliest MGLA meetings, btw!). Because you're importing twice, and interpreting differently, you don't need to move the layer up a pixel." Vegas EDL Import Plug-in (Mac/Win) "adds the ability to import Sonic Foundry's Vegas EDL files into Adobe After Effects as a Composition (similar to importing a Premiere Project into After Effects)." Script Language for After Effects (beta January 2003--but reference disappeared in 2004) "This plug-in will add a simple-to-use script language to After Effects. Use it to automate tedious comp setups."
Forge FreeForm: (Mac/Win) is a true 3D warping filter featuring full 3D control right in the Comp window. Forge FreeForm maps the user selected 2D image, footage or illustrator EPS files onto a 3D NURBS surface and offers full control over 3D deformations, lighting, camera, 3D displacement mapping and object controls on the X,Y, and Z axis. Hopefully, we'll see more 3D/OpenGL-based stuff from them!
Lenscare (Win/Mac) plugins move depth of field and out of focus generation to post processing. It consists of two separate plugins. One is a fast version to simulate camera blurs with constant radii; the other one is to create sophisticated depth of field effects. flAIR (Win/Mac) is a light ray effect filter. In June 2003, there were two free filters: Field Fixer, which allows the user to correct field problems manually by selecting upper and lower field for the current frame, and HSL Selection, a stand alone version of the selection method found in flAIR and Lenscare.
Sapphire (Mac/Win) “Sapphire Plug-ins provide digital artists with a collection of over 200 state-of-the-art image processing and synthesis effects.”..."From light rays to unique glows, shadows and reflections, GenArts makes tools that empower digitals artists to quickly and easily create amazing effects for television and film. These capabilities are a perfect complement to After Effects' extensive compositing, animation, and effects tools as well as to Adobe Premiere's industry-leading DV editing capabilities," says Steve Kilisky, group product manager for Adobe After Effects.” As others have noted, there are a number of overlaps with pre-existing filters and a premium price charged, so careful evualtion is required. Sapphire is now available in 4 sets: Sapphire Plug-ins Box 1 - Lighting Effects
TrinityFX (Mac in planning/Win) similar to effects in the Trinity video system feature transitions, DVE, and 3D video effects.
XLR8 X-Factor Basic is a grid computing network render plug-in from start-up company GridIron Software. Free with AE Pro 6.5, it will speed renders on two or more computers (or processors) linked over a network, reducing the time it takes to preview and render effects. Upgrades to larger networks are available, see: X-Factor Plus (Mac/Win)
MPEG export components: (for MPEG Power Professional and other software MPEG encoders) "read Adobe After Effects files via the shared QuickTime export component and directly convert them into MPEG files. This direct conversion saves time and prevents the potential quality loss associated with rendering the video to a different file format prior to encoding."
VizFX for After Effects (discontinued) (PC only) geometric transformations with OpenGL, mask manipulation, manipulation of resolution-independent 2D images, 2D particle effects, image processing, glows and shines, transitions.
Kaleidafex Images (apparently discontinued, reincarnated as dvMatte) Kaleidafex Matte Pack: (Mac-only) is a series of professional compositing plug-ins with a contrast keyer and a difference keyer, and protects you from transparency, soft edges, smoke and water. The Matte Pack includes Indymatte, Indymatte Difference, Dynamatch, Digimatch, Screen First Aid, Automatte, and Hollywood Nights (a “day-for-night” filter).
Koji (in Japanese [translate at WorldLingo]; the demos/beta could be free, but I haven't tried them) Koji's Plug-ins (Mac/Win) for AE4.x include TimeRemapper, LineBlend, MotionBlur, ZonePlate, Cosmo, ColorBalance, ColorChange, ScanlineNoise, AntiAliasing, LineCorrecter, PointWarp, RectWarp. Smooth (Mac/Win) is for anti-aliasing. Sesame a "time sheet" filter in development.
dpsReality preview (Win) plugins work with DPS NLE hardware (Velocity, Reality) and "allow input and output of the DPS and DVA file formats from within After Effects, and show a preview of the composition window on the external display."
WYSIWYG AE plug-ins (Win): RT2500 is part of the Matrox RT2500 PRO Pack. This and other Matrox WYSIWYG plug-ins (eg, for the Parhelia) lets users see their work directly on a broadcast video monitor from within AE so they can ensure proper 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio in NTSC or PAL and check for exact color temperature, safe-title area, and interlaced artifacts.
Free plug-ins incentives have included LensStar (Mac) and some FEC filters. Final Effects Complete: (Mac/Win) 110 (60 in original, plus now discontinued SoftICE plugs) motion graphics effects including rain, snow, fire, smoke, bubbles, liquid mercury distortions, explosions, 3D particles, liquid displacement and lighting effects, and other stylistic and production-oriented effects. Final Effects was the first 3rd party set avilable for AE and is perhaps still the most useful. There was even a video/CD training series available from Total Training, and an ICE hardware-accelerated version. Cycore kept rights to the original Swedish code, and now offers a set called Cycore Effects which is being bundled in AE 6.5--but with the SoftICE filters.
Scopo Gigio AE2 (Mac/Win) is a full-featured video waveform monitor and vectorscope, available as a plugin for Photoshop, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro.
Motion Key and AddEffects: (PC only) The Web site says there are AE versions to demo but does not indicate that you can order them.
aeFlame: (Mac/Win) is a free After Effects plug-in that "allows you to create and animate cosmic recursive flame fractals...[that] can be animated so that they smoothly morph into each other." The OSX version is at FLAM3.COM.
Inverse Telecine (Win only) automatically removes 3:2 pulldown from footage, to restore original film frames from interlaced video fields. The plug-in uses a proprietary algorithm to detect the pulldown phase changes for the footage. The software analyzes the footage for fields, interlacing, shot changes and motion, and inserts keyframes when a new pulldown phase is detected. Copy Image (Win only) is a free filter that copies the current frame's rendered image to the Windows Clipboard for simple pasting of the Composition image to other applications. Erodilation (Mac/Win) is a free subpixel replacement filter for the AE Minimax filter which only in single pixel increments. It has 8 and 16 bit support and a bonus "radial" direction.
HeboHebo (Mac only?) is a set of 7 simple free filters in Japanese for AE5. [translate at WorldLingo]
Free filters (Windows): Panopticum Super Emboss and Panopticum Strip have been promo items. Panopticum FX (Win/ Mac) is a collection for Adobe After Effects. The bundle is composed of: AnimaText, Array, Engraver, Figure, Fire, Grid, Lens Pro, Rich Typing, Tools. Panopticum Anima Text 3D (Win) is for creating different effects with volume 3D text. Panopticum Anima Text (Win/ Mac) is a tool for creating different effects with text. Panopticum Array (Win/ Mac) are tools for creating of backgrounds. This set includes 4 filters: Array, Digital Matrix, Digital Chaos and Digital Galaxy. Panopticum Engraver (Win/ Mac) is for cutting through images with thin lines that will form a geometric pattern as if to engraving. Panopticum Figure (Win/ Mac) is for creating common flat and 3D figures, such as boxes, ellipses, rhombs, stars, hearts, clouds, tags, and call-outs. Panopticum Fire (Win/ Mac) is designed for creating realistic burning effects. Structurally Fire plug-in is one module that contains a great number of different adjustable fire effects. Panopticum Grid (Win/ Mac) is a tool for creating common regular grids including lines, boxes,circles, disks, triangles, and hexagons. Panopticum Lens Pro (Win/ Mac) - is a universal tool for designing realistic lenses and 3D-crystals as well as crystalline 3D-models. Panopticum Rich Typing (Win/Mac) effects for titles. This set includes 3 filters: Rich Typing, Digitalizer and Morphing. Panopticum Tools (Win/Mac) includes 12 different filters for getting some interesting video effects. Plugin Galaxy for AE (Win) is set of 20 Photoshop plug-ins which include over 120 effects. Rulers(Mac/Win) includes various types of scales, clock-type dials, rulers and more. You can create direct and circular scales, adjust and animate their parameters. Their layout and value ranges can be adjusted as well as the digits type on your dials. Area FX (Mac/Win) consists of three filters: Area Transformer, Area Wipe and Area Filler. Ice Pattern (Win) Water (Mac/Win) Custom Speed (Mac/Win)
Paragate Systems (apparently discontinued) HoloDozo AE: (Mac/Win) "HoloDozo AE is an easy-to-use After Effects plug-in that lets you create 3D effects without using complicated 3D modeling software. Easily map video onto 3D objects. Rotate, zoom, lighten, distort, and apply special effects in 3D. Animate every parameter directly in After Effects. HoloDozo AE includes basic 3D objects (such as a box, sphere, etc.) and wireframe 3D objects that are great for crazy distortions or backgrounds." SISnikk AE: (Mac/Win) "SISnikk AE is an After Effects plug-in set for animated high-quality, single-image stereogram development. Use video as a pattern and for the hidden-depth illusion in the Magic Eye effect. Create animated random-dot stereograms that look like noise but hide something."
PatchMaker (Win) is a 2D motion tracking program designed for intraframe video editing and compositing. It can determine the motion of a selected object in the scene to a subpixel precision under a specified parametric motion model. The AE plug-in module takes care of importing/exporting footage between current projects as well as applying computed transformations to the active layer. Arkan B-Spline (Win): the transfer plugin for AE comes with that app.
Richard Patterson of Illusion Arts (Adobe gallery) was noticed around the net developing plug-ins for dealing more exotic cinema formats such as Cineon and OpenEXR. He even had an After Effects Plug-in which enabled him to render an After Effects project directly to the film recorder. He seems to have withdrawn from lower end business, but he might be still available in some capacity. He also posted a presentation he made for motion graphics designers (at MGLA in 1999) of the myriad of film and file formats and their respective considerations.
Video Effects(Win/Mac) is a free set of 44 filters -- with source code as well as AE and FreeFrame (VJ) versions available. These were tested on Mac OS 10.2.5 and seem to work fine; according to John Dickinson on the AE-list: "Obviously a lot of work has gone into them and making them freely available is very generous." Some people on the AE-list have mentioned memory and saving problems with the April 2003 versions of the filters.
SinedotAE (Mac/Win) this free filter makes an odd shape that's hard to describe. It's a port from a Photoshop filter, but it seems to be able to animate; if anyone's interested, there's a movie (which can play in QT on the Mac). The author says he's working on a filter pack that will be be available for AE and Photoshop The other filters in the AE section, Sinedots II, Retrodots, and Shear, crash in OS9; please post your experiences on the AE-list..
Knoll Light Factory LE was free with installation of Commotion 4 Demo (if you can find it). Hollywood FX: (Mac/Win) creates transition effects from over 100 presets. The functionality appears improved since early PC versions; AE is claimed as a host application for both the Silver and Bronze packages. CineAcquire import (Mac) a simple import plug-in for the CineAcquire application (part of Cinewave) that is invoked from AE. The user chooses the CineAcquire import, captures in a separate app, then the footage automatically appears in the AE Project window.
SpiceMaster (Mac OS9 only/Win) gives you greater control and visual management of dynamic mattes between layers than AE's built-in Gradient Wipe, and includes many gradient stills to use.
PFBarrel (Mac/Win) lets you emove lens distortion for more accurate insertion of 3D elements and reinstate them from within their compositing applications. PFStable (Mac/Win) allows users to remove unwanted camera movement from video footage at any resolution within supported applications while still maintaining distinct camera moves such as pans. Using data generated from PFTrack, PFStable provides virtually real-time stabilisation of any resolution footage, using 3D tracking information to produce much better quality image stabilisation.
Harry's Filters (Win) are Photoshop-compatible plugins (so no animation in AE) containing 55 different image effects. I haven't heard if an AE user has tried these. Plugin Galaxy for AE (Mac/Win) is set of 20 plugins which are OS X capable.
Pluto develops digital disk recorders (DDR), and has a Mac plug-in available as an option. "This plugin is able to import or define (with transport control) and import clips from any networked VideoSPACE array and can export or define and export clips in the Render cue to any networked VideoSPACE array." They were in process of developing an Intel version. Contact Tom Goldberg for more information.
Polygon Baka Ichidai (not clear if these filters are still available [translate at WorldLingo]) GuerrillaEffects (Win only?) is listed in Japanese. A summary and manual show these filters: Rgb_Shift_S, Displace_S, Lightblur_S, Overdrive_S, Kaleido_S, Storm_S, Cycle_S.
Gak Pak Elastic Gasket (for Avid, Mac/Win) "lets any Avid user gain access to the wide world of Adobe After Effects plug-ins. The Elastic Gasket let's you use all of your favorite AE plug-ins while editing on your Avid. Best of all this product is developed by the same folks who developed Elastic Reality." Swim (Mac/Win) creates swishy liquidy organic effects. Useful Things (Mac/Win) is a Python-based scripting engine for AE that ships with 70 "filters," with a bunch more available at the Profound effects website. You can even ask for an effect, and it can be written up within days for free. "All that it can't be done in AE' is going to change very soon for us in the film business," Manuel Gonzalez, Visual Effects Supervisor. The real power of Useful Things is its integrated Python scripting engine, used by major studios and post-houses as their standard in-house scripting language [for more, see http://pythonline.com/home.html and http://www.python.org/]. On 29 Apr 2003, Profound Effects announced that San Francisco-based Kenneth Woodruff as the first Useful Things Hired Gun developer. Trish Meyer developed a tutorial for UsefulThings using some of the new scripts that she found exciting: "The tutorial shows how to create grids of shapes and have them react to grayscale movies created with other plugins like Fractal Noise. (This is similar to what Particle Playground does with its maps, but I think UT is easier to figure out.) I also use a new color generator, where you can give different shapes "weighting" to determine the probability of shapes being different colors, like 80% are white and 20% are red." Reveal (Mac/Win), is a free palette that lets you "search for compositions, video and audio footage, layers, solids (including nulls and adjustment layers), effects, masks, cameras, and lights in the nested depths of your current After Effects project. You can also select previously entered search terms or use name patterns (regular expressions) for more flexible matching of project items." Crop (Mac/Win), is a free filter to let you crop video layers easily. Useful Assistants (Mac/Win) provides scriptable management of AE. Tasks such as report generation for asset management and assembling complex compositions (video walls, cubes, tubes, and other two- and three-dimensional layouts) can now be automated. Many automation assistants are supplied, more can be downloaded later. "This is like Useful Things, but for 'the rest of AE' rather than just effects. You can use it to make any kind of data importer/exporter, keyframe generator, layer builder, compositing setup utility, and other bits and bobs." CameraPOV (Mac/Win) is a suite of 8 video effects for simulating looking through the lenses of various 35mm, digital, or video cameras to give crime, reality, documentary, suspense, drama, and other types of footage an interesting look with a minimum of effort. The CameraPOV suite contains the following Camera Simulations: Digital Camera , Generic Camcorder, High-end Camcorder, High-end SLR, Night Vision Camera, Old SLR, Security Camera, SLR. Also included are 4 bonus camera “widgets” or components that you can use on your footage: Bloom, LCD Grid Look, Scanlines, Video Noise.
Red Giant Software (previously from ISFX, Knoll, Puffin Designs, and/or Pinnacle) Key Correct Pro (beta) is a new set of 17 plug-ins that lets users correct alpha channel, create smooth outlines, and color match any two layers. Film Fix Magic Bullet Editors (Mac/Win) is the film look part of the Suite (and folded in is Misfire, which was in beta, according to a web press reference). eLin (Mac/Win) consists of a suite of plug-ins and scripts “that allow compositors to work in an expanded photographic color space of film and High Dynamic Range (HDR) color space that mimics the physical properties of light. The system will be free of charge for non-commercial use. eLin will be available from this page for download by the end of April 2004. eLin includes support for industry-standard Cineon film scans as well as Industrial Light & Magic's open source EXR file format. RotoImport (Mac/Win) allows users of Pinnacle Systems Commotion™ to import their rotosplines into an After Effects composite for further manipulation, and/or for final composition rendering. RotoImport's main goal is to allow users to re-create their splines, as they look in Commotion, but inside an After Effects composition, using After Effects layer masks. The imported masks can be edited without leaving After Effects, saving time and improving work flow. Knoll Light Factory (Mac/Win) is "the gold standard in lighting effects used by thousands of motion graphic professionals and visual effects artists. With the package you can create light effects and lens flares like those on television and in feature films...the 25 plug-ins have all been updated to take advantage of 16-bit rendering in Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop...Light Factory was created by John Knoll, co-author of Adobe Photoshop and a Visual Effects Supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic." Magic Bullet (Mac/Win) is a set of AE plug-ins to make digital video sources match the look and aesthetic of film, and includes detailed documentation on the philosophy and science behind creating a film look. Backround is here and on The Orphanage site (under Press) including an article from 2-pop.com; see also reviews in Film and Video and on Creative Cow. If you don't know, this is the set for filmlook in AE. Primatte Plugin Pack (Mac/Win) this bundle includes Primatte Keyer v1.5, Composite Wizard v1.2 and Image Lounge v1.2. Primatte Keyer (Mac/Win) features a custom interface to help solve uneven lighting, subtle shadows, transparency and edge light spill in AE composites (from Photron USA; see their White Paper). Composite Wizard (Mac/Win) features tools to automate color correction, blur and feather edge borders, clean up unwanted artifacts, and improve the integration of elements (formerly ISFX Matte Wizard; said to be favored by creators of a certain serialized space western). Image Lounge (Mac/Win) offers an array of style tools and image filters including perspective shadows, photo-realistic blurs, text animation tools, and particle systems for creating natural elements like fire, water, and smoke (formerly ISFX Reality Check and ISFX Style). Also, look out for the useful Knoll UnMult (Mac/Win), a free filter that composites like the screen transfer mode but retains the alpha channel (like XMult and WalkerEffects Premultiply, which are 16-bit for OSX & Win). Also, if available, check out the free PS filter Cybermesh that can convert grayscale images into 3D models.
Mattenee plug-ins (Mac/Win) are specifically written to work with Chromatte, a fabric designed specifically for use as a background for chroma key production. The custom-written algorithm behind mattenee recognises the narrow width of colour returned by Chromatte and therefore simplifies the keying process. Remez Corp. (discontinued during beta) SUPER!DV was a combination of optical and AE filters that give Sony owners the ability to apply a film look with their current mini-DV camera. For a mini-DV demo of SUPER!DV contact Mikael Zerbib. In the demo observe the artifacts in the waves in the water.
(updated filters and manuals for new features available from within AE 6.0 only.) Video Gogh (Mac/Win): Gives your pictures and video the look of paint. ReelSmart Motion Blur (Mac/Win): "Automatically tracks and blur a sequence based on calculated motion." ReelSmart Shade/Shape (Mac/Win): "generates 3D models from your 2D graphical and picture elements using proprietary technology. Further detailing to 3D models can be added by applying reflection and bump maps." Twixtor (Mac/Win) "tracks every pixel in a scene and synthesizes new frames in a manner that is much better than After Effects' native Time Stretch and Time Remapping." To paraphrase a recent report, it can yield a constant or variable speedup or slowdown of footage using optical flow-based motion estimation. It builds new frames based on the motion vectors of pixels within a scene, so you can get real slow-motion from video sources. Using the same techniques, it can convert directly between frame rates, like converting directly from 30 interlaced to 24 progressive (the frame rate of film). ReelSmart FieldsKit (Mac/Win) provides smarter deinterlacing processing and more workflow options for interlacing and pulldown. RE:Flex (Mac/Win) consists of two plugins, RE:Flex Warp and RE:Flex Morph that bring intuitive morphing and warping to After Effects using After Effects' own drawing and masking tools. SmoothKit (Mac/Win) is "a new AE filter set designed to give you more control over the blurring and smoothing process. There are lots of uses for our filters... cleaning up footage for keying and tracking, simple effects, selective filtering of images. We paid special attention to filtering images while trying to retain feature and edge information. Besides the feature attention, we give you complete control of where and how much to filter (through the use of grayscale images)." RE:Fill (Mac/Win) is a plug-in set that mends holes in image sequences by "selecting the nearest "good" pixel, mirroring pixels about a hole's edge, or cloning from another 'good' region" which can come from another point in time or from another layer. Effections (Mac/Win) is a bundle of the following products: ReelSmart Motion Blur Pro, Twixtor Pro, FieldsKit, SmoothKit, Shade/Shape, RE:Fill, and Video Gogh.
Sakurai Optical Lab
Sebastian Mecklenburg (unavailable June 2004, though original pages are up) looper, raybeam, switcher, talker (filters not working in AE 6.5) (Free, Mac only) Looper lets you loop a nested composition or to loop a movie. The raybeam plug in gives the impression of an image that is successively built up from colored lightbeams...the sourcecode is available. With switcher it is now possible to control exactly what image is displayed in what frame by setting keyframes. Talker is almost exactly the same as switcher except the user interface elements are oriented to lip-sync.
Silhouette+roto (Mac/Win) allows you to quickly create sophisticated animated mattes using Rational B-spline, NURB or Bezier shapes. Intelligent design and easy-to-use tools, such as variable edge softness on a point by point basis and realistic motion blur, assist you in creating shape animations. Integrated motion tracking makes the normally tedious task of rotoscoping a breeze. Available as a plug-in or application.
The MovingPicture Plug-In (Mac/Win) is based on MovingPicture, a tool to pan and zoom on high resolution images as in motion-control rigs or animation stands. This appears to duplicate functionality in AE (animating the anchor point and scale), though the render speed could be different.
Echo Fire (Mac/Win): "Get accurate previews of your designs via your FireWire connection ...immediately on your NTSC or PAL monitor." This filter goes a few extra miles beyond the native AE feature. Color Finesse (Mac/Win) is “a telecine style color corrector for AE! 96bit floating point internal color space, primary and secondary color correction (6 secondaries), usable color curves... pretty much blows away any color corrector I have seen with the exception of the ColorStar Spark for Flame... though Inferno can only convert their floating point calculations into 12bit, and AE can convert it to 16bit... (reported by Matt Silverman at AE West). Free in AE 6.5! Test Gear (Mac/Win) provides motion graphics artists and video editors with a variety of test instruments to make objective measurements of their visual and audio work, all from within Adobe After Effects. All test instruments appear in standard After Effects dockable palettes and do not require that an effect be applied to your layers.
Tinderbox1 (Mac/Win) includes about 20 filters for blur, grain, distortion, drawing, and lighting effects. "The foundry's plug-ins are an established tool in high-end post production and we are now making them available for Adobe After Effects." Tinderbox 2 (Mac/Win) includes about 21 filters, featuring LensBlur (with controls to bloom highlights and apply chromatic aberrations), LensFlare (with hundreds of customizable parameters), Bandlimit, PseudoColour, and Paint. Tinderbox 3 (Mac/Win) is a collection of 21 plugins in four categories: Blurs, Effects, Generators and Tools. The Foundry features OldFilm, Lightning, Sparks and BadTV, but there much more in line with the high quality and fast renders of the previous sets. Furnace Keylight was bundled with After Effects 6.0 and 6.5 Professional, and was not available to buy through The Foundry.
OrphEXR (Mac/Win) was made freely available for download. "EXR files will appear in Log space similar to a Cineon file, preserving overbright information up to the Cineon max of 13.53. Using Log space makes OpenEXR files a breeze to use with eLin, our system for HDR compositing in After Effects." See also the Orphanage Log Profile for Photoshop. Theory, LLC (discontinued, but tools acquired by Digital Anarchy above) ColorTheory (Mac) "is a digital color wheel, used to find harmonious color combinations. The formulas are based on the studies of Bauhaus professor Johannes Itten, and utilize the classical artists' Red, Yellow, and Blue (RYB) color model. Using the RYB model, ColorTheory's formulas include all of Professor Itten's traditional formulas, as well as primary, secondary, tertiary, pastel, neutral and discord (clash) schemes. ColorTheory enables designers to quickly analyze hundreds of color schemes while working with existing logos and artwork." The demo of version 2 includes free fully functional versions of CT ColorSwatch, CT Location, CT Dial, CT Slider, and CT Checkbox (utility filters good for work with Expressions). Also, check out Microcosm, their super lossless 64-bit codec.
Toby Miller (discontinued but reborn as Digital Trove) Free AE Filters: (Mac) These are 39 Photoshop filters, with fade to source sliders. They may come in handy for TV/field artifact looks and other effects. Toby says: "They're no Evolution, but they're free. These filters do not have anti-aliasing built in. They are barely animatable, and are not optimized for speed. They come with minimal documentation and are disposable." He might be a handy guy to have around!
A San Francisco reseller, Toolfarm offers a handy CD with a boatload of demos (there's also a PDF brochure).
Trapcode (See the forum too. You'll need the newer versions for AE6.) The Flash clips for all Trapcode products are recommended viewing. Sound Keys: (Mac/Win) uses the audio spectrum of a layer to generate a stream of keyframes. "With Motion Math, you can isolate frequency bands using the audio filters in AE prior to using layerad.mm; Sound Keys is an attempt to make it *easy* to make very audio-driven animations." Trish Meyer: "Not only can you easily isolate bass, mid, treble areas, but the keyframes generated are somehow 'smoother' than those generated by MM." Shine: (Mac/Win) is a light effect plug-in from a former member of the Cult Effects team. "It works like this: You set a source-point, and it will blur the image radially outward from that point with built-in transfer modes making your animations literally shine. The effect looks very much like volumetric light, but is actually a 2D effect. There are special controls to make shimmering lights and numerous coloring modes." 3D Stroke: (Mac/Win) allows users to stroke paths and freely move them around and rotate in 3D space. Paths will not dissapear when viewed from the side; you can also bend deform the object as well as repeat instances of the object. Starglow (Mac/Win) creates a star-shaped glow on the highlights of the source. This is not easy to duplicate. Lux (Mac/Win) renders actual lights: placed on a comp-sized 2D solid, it renders representations of all point and spotlights in the scene. Particular (Mac/Win) is a 3D particle system that got rave reviews on release. A former ILM guy said it was the most exciting thing he'd every seen in AE!
Ultimatte Classic [discontinued]: (Mac/Win) Screen Correction and Grain Killer plug-ins for blue and green screen removal just like the big studios. Ultimatte AdvantEdge (Mac/Win) includes Ultimatte's new Video Correction filter to reduce the artifacts found in 4:2:2, 4:1:1 and 4:2:0 video image formats. The clean UI design is filled with features including: separate shadow mattes, smart matte sizing and roto-screen correction.
Videonics (availability unknown but assumed dead) Effetto Pronto: (Mac) was a combination of compositing and effects software and a PCI hardware accelerator. It featured advanced titling, a true 3D work space, keying and color correction, animatable lights, 3D warps and more. EP did NOT accelerate AE -- but did include support for After Effects plug-ins. AE filters may be faster due to newer application code.
Virtix Effects (Mac) for Final Cut Pro and AfterEffects is a single, unified product. This package works under OS 9 and OS X, and works with both Final Cut Pro (version 1.2.5 and up) and AfterEffects for the Mac version 4.1 and up. Several of these effects are already included in AE.
Visual Infinity (discontinued for AE, butshipping with AE 6.5) Grain Surgery [shipping with AE 6.5] (Mac/Win) is a suite of filters designed to remove image noise, including film grain, video noise, halftone patterns and other background noise from stills and moving sequences without blurring the image. "It is the best grain reducer I've ever seen. Period. I beta tested it (haven't seen the final version, BTW) and it's really amazing at preserving picture detail, and it's totally intraframe - no blending at all (gets a little slow above 4k, though). I took some 35mm footage shot with a really fast emulsion (totally grainy) on a Photosonics prism camera at 1500fps and made it good enough to blow up to IMAX for the film "Ocean Oasis." (you might have seen it in New Orleans during SIGGRAPH - the hummingbird shot). Highly recommended for film folks (it was written by Jonathan Shekter, author of AE Cineon Tools, AE Lightning, Retinal Flare, Atomic Power Evolution, etc, etc., and now a member of the Adobe AE team)." -- Tim Sassoon
Video Filters Pro "adds quick selective color correction and other enhancement tools to reduce noise and legalize for broadcast. Delivering an output waveform meter, a vectorscope, split color bars, templates, and many other useful tools in a single, professional interface, the software is oriented toward productivity. Built in are five processing layers based on a dynamic region and a color range, including three easy default settings for shadows, midtones, and highlights. Other important features are the film look and progressive tint lenses effects to catch audiences. With the straightforward color wheel and layers, the plug-in gives users the required latitude to create original and precise ambiences.” Video Filters Basic offers the same "tools found in the Pro version except that there is only one layer instead of five and no keyframe support. Those who need to fix more than one region and color range of their clips should consider the Pro version."
Bump Mapper (Win) can turn your image or video layer into bas-relief lit by point light source. Varying plug-in parameters help make your layer look like glass or metal, plastic or stone, water or sand. Tutorials with step by step instructions are included.
Walker Effects (was Steven Walker) Walker Effects (Mac/Win/16-bit) 18 compositing plug-ins in 3 packages. There were two free plugs for download -- 2001: Stargate (slit-scan), and Solid Fill. The old free filter set "ae filters" is now unavailable, but hey let's hear a "hurray" for unbundled effects packages and good tutorials! WE Basic Edition includes 4 plug-ins: Alpha Tool, Color Fill, Color Composite and Channel Viewer.
Magimatte (Win) is a shareware "color keying plugin for Adobe After Effects 4.0 for Windows. The plugin removes blue or green backing colors from video effect shots...It is free for non-profit or educational use on the conditions mentioned ..."
particleIllusion
3D Invigorator Classic for AE: (Mac/Win) is shipping with new AE 5.5 packages (upgraders get discount). "The Invigorator enables users to composite Adobe After Effects layers in 3D space with full control over position, rotation and perspective [with or without an AE camera]. It also contains a 3D modeling, rendering and animation workshop which can instantly turn any Illustrator vector artwork or Type 1 font into elaborate 3D models, with controls for spatial position, texture mapping, shadow casting, chrome and glass reflections, lighting effects, animation and rendering quality." Total Training has released a series on Invigorator Classic you might want to check out. 3D Invigorator PRO for AE: (Mac/Win) all Classic features but also includes model import and export, customization of edge profiles, ability to change model shape over time, and OpenGL rendering. also: Glintwerks (according to Zax, Mac/Win; apparently in beta) Gradientwerks (according to Zax, Mac/Win; apparently in beta) Easy Glow (according to Zax, Mac/Win; apparently in beta) 3D Flag (according to Zax, Mac/Win; apparently in beta)
Zbig or CFB (discontinued: Zbigniew Rybczynski has joined Ultimatte as the Senior Developer for Ultimatte's next generation of matte extraction and compositing algorithms) Zbig (NT x86/alpha, Mac) a color keying system, "Zbig is the first system which doesn't simply insert objects, but rather embeds them convincingly into the background." Works in After Effects and Discreet Logic effect.
comments or suggestions welcome at aefilter at yahoo.com Many thanks to the SFSU Multimedia Studies Program for hosting this site. Copyright © Rich Young 2004
rev 01/06/2005
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