When
Thursday, March 22, 2012 @ 1:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time

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Join Michele Yamazaki as she teaches you how to create the following effects…

FOX's Fringe 3D Text Effect

J. J. Abrams' science fiction television series Fringe revitalized the old-school technique of incorporating 3D text in video. Now, numerous shows are creating their own spin on this same concept. Learn how you can easily create this unique 3D text effect combining Boris Continuum Complete with Adobe After Effects' 3D cameras and lights. Then, get ready to put it into practice in your next creation.

TRON Legacy Title Animation Effect

TRON Legacy puts a modern twist on the classic TRON title design, keeping the retro tech feel. While it looks complicated, you’ll learn how you can easily create this amazing title effect in Adobe After Effects with the help of Boris Continuum Complete's 3D Objects and After Effects’ built-in camera and lights.

About Michele Yamazaki
Michele Yamazaki is VP Marketing & Pluginologist for Toolfarm, a value added reseller and distributor of visual effects software. She recently wrote Plug-in with After Effects: Third Party Plug-in Mastery, published by Focal Press. In 2009, she co-authored Greenscreen Made Easy: Keying and Compositing Techniques for Indie Filmmakers with Jeremy Hanke. Michele started at Postworks as a motion graphics artist in 1995 and worked there for a decade before joining Toolfarm. She also taught Adobe After Effects and Photoshop at Kendall College of Art & Design. In 2001 she launched AEFreemart.com and in 2002 co-founded the West Michigan Animation and Effects User Group.

There are sync problems that I was trying to fix. After some research, it seems that the problem is from the USB mic and iSight – so it's right at the source. I'm not rerecording this video, so you'll have to just ignore the sync problem. Next time I guess I will just use the built in mic. Oddly, in Screenflow the problem was not at all obvious and I wasn't aware of the issue while previewing. It only shows up after exporting.

Michele Yamazaki, VP Marketing & Pluginologist at Toolfarm (that’s me!), talked to Larry Jordan at Digital Production Buzz last Thursday about why editors need plugins, what new and what’s a must have in the plug-in scene.

Listen Now!

Michele is scheduled to be a regular on the Digital Production Buzz every couple of weeks so tune in. You can also get the podcast on iTunes.

Here’s a brief overview of what’s in store for you at Toolfarm.com.

1. One log-in for the store, forum, demo downloads, posting comments and more. Register today for access to these areas. Its fast and free and your information is safe with us. (Note: register in the first 2 days of our launch and receive a coupon code to save on everything in our store!)
2. A complete overhaul of the store – shopping and finding what you need is much easier. Information is more cohesive and consistent throughout the store. For example, find the system requirements link for each product in the store.
3. Demo Downloads – we’ve updated and added many new demos. There are a couple of ways you can find them. First, you can click the link and search by host, or find the item in our store that you’d like to try and click the download demo link. Once you are registered and signed in, you will not have to fill in your information each time you want to try something new.
4. The Toolfarm Forum – the new forum could use some posts! The functionality and style of the forum are easy for users.
5. Tutorials are now linked to products through our store as well as through the tutorials link. The tutorials database is still being filled in and styled. We will continue to add to the tutorials daily.

There are many more new features of the new Toolfarm site which will be covered in the upcoming video. Please stop by and checking out our new digs!

We don’t often post this type of thing here, but you could help a young filmmaker win the contest of a lifetime… and he’s EXTREMELY talented. Evan Sussman’s film short, Escape, is a fantastic voyage into a freedom from the stresses of modern life. It is a contender for a $30,000 prize from The Doorpost Film Project. If you like the film, please vote for it!

Evan talks about how he created the film, including the special effects, working with expressions in After Effects and using Trapcode plugins. Read the full interview here

I’m sure most of you are starting to feel the economic crunch, so we’ve put together a section for plug-ins that are $99 and under. These are useful plug-ins by well known plug-in developers like Red Giant, Trapcode, Digieffects, Noise Industries, Nattress and others.

Plug-ins for $99 and under

If you’d like to take the plug-in for a test drive before you buy it, most of the plug-ins are available for download on our demos/trial page: http://www.toolfarm.com/demo/demo.php

Toolfarm will be unlocking a new freebie each weekday until December 24th, kind of like an Advent Calendar, minus the chocolate all over your fingers.

Download some free holiday schwag here!

Freebies will include templates, project files, stock footage, and more; stay tuned!

• Day 1 – an After Effects CS3 template for a 3D Greeting Card
• Day 2 – a fantastic holiday tree template from LME.
• Day 3 – a gorgeous tree ornament created with Conoa 3D.
• Day 4 – Eye Scream Factory Binary Code DVD Template.

We will have lots of other goodies lined up, including freebies from Pond5, Professional Video Templates, free presets for plug-ins and more. Day 5 will be uploaded on Monday. What will it be? Is the suspense killing you?

and you’ll be entered in a drawing to win a free copy of Red Giant’s new plugin, Radium Glow!

I give Trapcode Form Training with Harry Frank a whopping 5/5 stars for well explained training and ROI. You can pick up the training at ToolFarm.com. I highly recommend Trapcode Form Training with Harry Frank for anyone wanting to get going with Form fast.

Congratulations on the great review, Harry. Trapcode has also endorsed the training. It is really excellent training.

Harry’s training is available just this week and to say it’s selling well would be an understatement! After Effects Expressions hits a niche where there is really not a lot of training and Harry’s training is fun to watch and easy to absorb. It’s downloadable immediately and is affordable at just $29 for 60 minutes of Expressions training. It is designed for the designer, not the programmer, and it will take your Expressiophobia away.

• After Effects Expressions 01: Introduction to Expressions Duration: 20 Minutes
• After Effects Expressions 02: Introduction to Arrays and Variables Duration: 20 Minutes
• After Effects Expressions 03: 3D Text Duration: 20 Minutes
• After Effects Expression Series 1 Bundle Duration: 60 Minutes

John Dickinson’s Creative Background Design Series has also been very popular. John currently has six modules in his series and he uses some innovative techniques and explains several shortcuts that will help your workflow. John’s training is just $5 a pop and great for the beginner or seasoned veteran.

• Creative Background Design for After Effects 01: Basic Fractal Loop – Free Sample
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 02: Award Night
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 03: Venetian Blocks
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 04: Fractal Flower
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 05: Molten Cells
• Creative Background Design for After Effects 06: Rose Window

Dean Velez puts out training through his company, The Anvel. His training, The Anvel Industry Training for AE is incredible. I showed my class some of the training last semester and they were completely into it. People actually stuck around until the end of class instead of bagging class after an hour

Just yesterday, Dean posted the following to our Expert Forum:

Hello Video, Film and Web guys and gals,

The Anvel has just posted 29 new royalty free and fully customizable After Effects 7.0 Professional projects ready for download.

The Projects all deal with Text and adding effects to text. They cover the letters A-Z ( Aura, Balls, Cosmic, Destroy, Electric, Extrude, Fire, Glimmer, Hose, Ice, Join, Killer, Laser, Magnify, Nature, Odor, Paint, Quartz, Road, Strange, Tear, Universe, Vile, Web, Wind, X-Ray, Yank, Zoom )

Some are render intensive…so prerender when you can.

Hope you enjoy them! and drop me a line to let me know which one is your favorite…mine is Killer.

Dean is always posting awesome free stuff every month or two, so you’d be doing yourself a big service to go to our forum and hang out. Ask some questions while you’re there and guys like Harry and John will answer your questions.

Ko also mentions Aharon Rabinowitz’s quality training. Aharon runs After Effects NY user group, which met last night and Toolfarm gave away Harry’s new training at the meeting. I hear the meeting was great, with Curious Pictures showing their Disney Channel program, Little Einsteins ("Come on! Wave your arms to make our ship fly faster!" and so you can hear some Vivaldi… oh, I’m sure you’ve seen it!)