You don’t need to be an owner of ToonIt, anyone can download it free and use it. It works on Windows and Mac and any recent version of Photoshop.

Also, check out the interview with Jim Tierney, head anarchist at Digital Anarchy, over at Colorburned.com.

Do you think ToonIt! is the coolest thing since iPods in a blender? Do you use Aperture?

We’re looking for a few good Aperture users to help us test ToonIt for Aperture! If you’re interested in helping us out please drop an email to jim@digitalanarchy.com and put APERTURE BETA in the subject field. Please let me know what products of Digital Anarchy you own, how long you’ve been using Aperture, if you’ve beta tested before, and what machine(s) you’re using.

Creating Volumetric Light – We all know the look of a beam of light bursting through the clouds or coming from the top of a dusty (and otherwise dark) cave. Usie Knoll Light Factory in conjunction with some of Photoshop’s built-in filters to create this look very easily.

Blurring Elements – On high resolution images, Knoll’s light flares sometimes show thin lines that don’t look realistic. This tutorial talks about ways to deal with this problem and produce natural looking lens flares. This movie may take a few minutes to load.

• 3D bar chart without Plugins – Harry Frank
• Fake Stock Chart – Harry Frank
• Pie Chart tutorial for Boris FX plugins
• Alan Shisko tutorial on pie charts
• Animating pie charts with expressions – Harry again.

I digress… Digital Anarchy ToonIt is such a cool plug-in. It looks fabulous. The one big drawback is that the screen redraw and render times are painful. When I tried to demo it at the booth at NAB, it was very difficult. Apple liked to have something on screen moving at all times so when you’re rendering an 8 second clip for a half hour, it kills the mood. I ended up rendering a clip and playing the render. The Ducati footage from Apple paired with ToonIt was nothing short of knock-your-socks-off impressive.

Well, the long wait (and long render times) is over. Digital Anarchy finally have a multi-processor aware version of ToonIt available only to those of you who own it. To get it, please send your name, platform, host application(s), and serial number to beta@digitalanarchy.com. You MUST have already purchased it (the AE/FCP compatible version) to receive the beta. This will be a free update to owners of ToonIt.

To register for the 7 free filters, go here.

Learn more about PlasmaFx in Toolfarm’s Plug-in Finder

ToonIt does a great job of creating a cartoon look from video, but it’s also capable of other types of ‘painterly’ and non-photorealistic looks. In this tutorial, we take a look out how to create some of those looks, by adjusting the ToonIt settings and applying other After Effects’ filters before and after ToonIt.

This creates a pretty cool range of interesting effects. Check out the video tutorial and let us know what you think. Or… better yet, submit some of your own receipes for getting more than advertised out of ToonIt!

• Watch the video tutorial here
• The tutorial page, with that tutorial, example movies, and AE project downloads
• Buy Digital Anarchy ToonIt!
• Learn more about Toonit! in our Plug-in Finder

Keith and Alan recorded the podcast live at NAB…. and it’s a HUGE Triliogy of HOT shows!

Podcast 2 recorded at the Toolfarm Party on Sunday night at the MGM Grand

Exclusive interviews with the tops in the industry including Paul Babb, President of Maxon (Cinema 4D), Zax Dow of Zaxwerks, Christoph Vonhreim of CHV-Electronics, Debbie Rich of Digital Anarchy, John Dickinson of Motionworks, Niclas Bahn of Noise Industries, and Jason Sharp, President of Toolfarm.

Podcast 3: Live Interviews at the IMUG Media Motion Ball

Interviews Chris & Trish Meyer, Rob Birnholtz from Absolute Motion Graphics, Wes Plate of Automatic Duck, Frank Capria of Xprove, Brian Maffitt of Total Training.

Podcast 4: Interviews from The Promax Digital Cafe at the Empire Ball Room

Exclusive interviews with Carey Dissmore of IMUG, Phil Hodgetts of the Digital Production Buzz Podcast, Barbara Dehart of Telestream, Jason Levine Sr. Worldwide Evangelist of Adobe Systems or something like that… a really long title, and Dan Hatch of ProMax.

There are two ways to listen to the podcasts in iTunes:

Add to iTunes

Or Launch iTunes and you’ll be taken to the podcast page, without subscribing.

If those links do not work for you, you can do it manually.

1. Copy this link to your clipboard.
   
2. Launch iTunes. Go to Advanced > Subscribe to podcast.
3. Paste the URL and click Okay.

They’re giving away LOADS of door prizes including Red Giant Software: Magic Bullet Suite, MB Colorista and Trapcode Suite (all Trapcode Plug-ins), three Wondertouch particleIllusion licenses, GridIron Nucleo and Nucleo Pro, Cinema 4D and Mograph, Sorenson Squeeze Power Pack, Automatic Duck, Digital Anarchy PlasmaFX, Cycore FX and more. Wow…. good stuff, indeed.

We’re working on some plug-ins using the Core Image stuff on the Mac and need some quick testing help.

We need folks who have:

- Mac OS 10.4 or better
- FCP 5.1 or better
- AE 6.x or better
- preferabably a Mac-Intel machine and FCP 5.1.2 (but PPC is ok)
- 2-3 hours to install and briefly look at each filter

Drop me a line at jim@digitalanarchy.com if you’re interested and let me know what version of the OS, FCP, and AE you have and what machine you’re running.

If you report back to us after you’ve tested it, you’ll get a free license of the software.