AE Freemart

Take three of the latest cool tools from Boris FX for a spin. Boris Graffiti 5.1, Boris FX 9.1 and Boris Red 5.1.

We have lots more, so check out our Free Demo Downloads right now. And don’t forget to check the checkbox of the demo you want to try. Very important. No go!

It indeed should be simpler in AE, making an extruded shadow.. the kind you find in many NLE programs.

This uses the AE Type tool, and black solids with “Set Matte”. Each solid is offset 1 pixel in X/Y.

I’d recommend leaving this as its own comp, or placing your layers below the existing layers in this comp, as the expression is based on the layer number of the type.

Download the project here

Intel-based Macs Running Final Cut Pro Gain the Benefits of High Visual Fidelity and High Bit Depth Precision Offered by CineForm Intermediate Software

Solana Beach, Calif., March 6, 2007 - CineForm®, Inc. announced today that it has released an unrestricted public beta of its CineForm Intermediate software codec for Intel-based Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" systems running Apple’s Final Cut Pro. CineForm Intermediate is now offered as an extremely high-quality QuickTime movie running under Mac OS X. These QuickTime movie files offer 10 bits of arithmetic precision with spatial resolution up to 2K (2048 x 2048). Intended for Professional and Prosumer applications that demand high visual fidelity without the need for specialized hardware, CineForm Intermediate QuickTime files are visually identical to the .AVI files CineForm has supported on the Windows platform for many years. Further, CineForm QuickTime movie files are completely cross-platform (Windows or Mac) compatible, and may be created and played on either platform.

Lite Brite.. I’m sure you had one. Now you can relive the good old days in After Effects using Particular.

This uses two Layer Grid emitters, each one producing ever other line and offset from each other in the X axis, to get the distinct pattern. Drop your own video in the “Source” comp and watch the Lite Brite magic.

Download the Lite Brite project
(AE 7)

I was recently working up some type in After Effects and I was trying to get it to look like a Photoshop type preset, with a colorful stroke, a little bit of bevel, and a little bit of noise. As easy as this is to do in Photoshop, it is a surprisingly complex task in AE. I ended up using some blur, colorama, alpha noise, and bevel alpha. With it being AE type, we are free to animate it however we please!! Actually, this preset does included a basic blur/fade on by letter.

So, this is an AE7 Animation Preset. To use it, simply type some text in After Effects. With it selected, go to Animation>Apply Animation Preset.. and locate this preset after you download it.

Download the Outline Type preset

LME has graciously provided a freebie that is an extra bonus file from each of their sets of gorgeous comp files. These are Toolfarm exclusives and we’ll be posting one per week until they’re gone. Here is the first in the series. This sample is not included in the Amazing Video Walls & Photo Displays collection.

• Download the Free Comp (AE 6.5.1 and up)
• View sample movie
• View Amazing Video Walls & Photo Displays gallery - see what’s included in the full collection
• Buy Amazing Video Walls & Photo Displays - Only $132 (Save 5%!). 101 comps and over 137 precomps in the collection. The possibilities are only limited to your imagination. No plug-ins needed. Works with After Effects 6.5 or higher for Mac and Win.

Make some photorealistic auto gauges that you can composite into your auto scene! Steve Audette, AE hobbyist and Documentary editor for the PBS Series FRONTLINE, created this project and tutorial for Toolfarm. It’s a really a simple procedure but looks complex. There are a couple of wiggle expressions and a smattering of effects. Before you know it, you’ve created a beautiful set of gauges for an older muscle car.

Go to the Auto Gauges Tutorial

By the way, if you want an odometer, check out this tutorial.

Freebie Pack 1 - Four Free Filters for Final Cut Pro and Motion

idustrial revolution Freebies!

Brought to you by Peter Wiggins, author of the Volumetrix plug-ins for Final Cut Pro and Motion, idustrial revolution Freebie Pack 1 includes four fun, useful (and absolutely free!) plug-ins:

• MultiSpace: Puts two inputs into true 3D space with global and independent XYZ translation & rotation. Planes can intersect too.
• iSight Live!: Get a live input on your timeline in Motion and FCP. Very handy for picking a color off a client’s brochure.
• Rack Focus: Racks the blur from one input to the other with one parameter. Both blur values for each input can be set independently.
• Opposites: Two-input parameter linking: move one left, the other goes right. Rotate one clockwise, the other one goes anticlock.

A friend of mine was asking about easier ways to control depth of field in After Effects.

Although it isn’t complicated, AE cameras measure depth of field with a single number, measured in pixels. So, it isn’t very easy to visualize and estimate when and where
objects are in focus, aside from scrubbing the “Focus Distance” control and trying to put objects in focus by trial and error.

But, expressions come to the rescue. If we want focus distance to be equal to the distance between the camera and and exact, controllable point, we can do this. If we create a Null and use this as the point that we want in focus, we can add an expression to the Focus Distance to be equal to the length in pixels between the camera and the Null. Fortunately, there’s an expression term, “length” that retrieves the absolute distance between the anchor points of any two objects, regardless of position, rotation, scale, etc.

In the example here, the Focus Distance expression is:

length(thisComp.layer(”focusControl”).position, position)

So, it is the length between two numbers, think here in terms of length(a,b). The first number, via pickwhip, is the position of a Null called “focusControl”. The second number is shown as ‘position’. Being that this expression is on the camera’s Focus Distance, “position” in this case refers to the position of the camera. And that’s it!!! The expression will dynamically update the focus distance to be the exact distance between the Null and the camera. Just put the Null where you want something to be in Focus.

You could also just use the camera’s Point of Interest, with the expression like this:

length(pointOfInterest, position)

But, I like the Null, myself. As I often turn off the Point of Interest on my AE cameras.

Download the Focus Control project here

What does the encoded message say? Click the picture and find out! This is a little animation preset that displays random numbers and reveals your orignal source text when you change an expression slider.

decoderNumbers.ffx