CoreMeltFREE! – 33 Free plugins for FCP, FCE, Motion and AE

Ever since the release of our DV Enlightenment lighting course, people are always asking us, “How did you make those awesome light rays on your titles?”

In that case, we used an excellent plugin for After Effects called Shine. Shine worked for a bit in Final Cut Pro years back, but then Apple changed the plugin API, and Shine no longer worked in Final Cut. (It works now, however!)

I’ve always liked the super-dramatic light rays effect, but the light rays filters in Motion and Final Cut Pro take too long to render… and frankly, they are pretty lame. So I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to help you create those super long, awesome godlike light rays, and preferably in real time! And finally, that opportunity is here.

I bet you probably own an amazingly powerful 3D graphics program that you’ve never even installed- even though it’s on a disc within sight of where you’re sitting.

It taps directly into the awesome power of OpenGL, OS X Core Video and Core Image to give you incredible real time effects. And the project files can be dragged right into the Final Cut Pro or Express timeline (just like LiveType or Motion) for pristine, uncompressed SD or HD animations that will knock your socks off!

WARNING: This is not a tutorial for non-techies! If you don’t have a propeller on at least one of your hats, you may be a little overwhelmed. Also, you must own OS X 10.4 or higher.

However, if you fancy yourself a bit of a nerd, if you’ve tinkered with HTML, PHP, or Javascript, if you feel you have a good grasp of relativity, or predicted the subprime mortgage meltdown, or understand the movie Memento, this free tutorial will open up a whole new world of visual effect programming that will allow you to create some animations no other common software program will.

It was designed to be presented in our patented Chunkalized learning environment, so it moves pretty fast. You’ll want to keep a hand on your space bar to pause the movie after each step if you are following along hands-on. Some of the presets have some additional controls, and some are similar, but we have total faith that you’ll have fun with them even though they are not quite finished! We will keep teaching you about this impressive secret tool!

Also, this tutorial was done with Tiger, but Leopard users will find the tutorial is still 100% current. It’s even a little cooler in Leopard.

Ask questions about the course by clicking here.
Enjoy!

The student files are in this zip file:

Click here to download student files

Extract the zip file and place the folder in your Documents folder.

Then download DVcreators University by clicking here and “buy” Rayz O Lite” for free!

Nattress releases Big Box of Tricks plugin set!

Posted by on March 1, 2007

Nattress Big Box of Tricks includes the existing filters from the discontinued Nattress Set 1 and Set 2, as well as several new filters.

The package consists of eight groups of filters, one group of generators and one group of transitions:

Blurs: These filters give you several different ways to blur your image, or parts of your image. Includes: G Cool Blur, G Directional Blur, G Horizontal and Vertical Blur, G H and V Blur Glow, and G Radial Blur.

Extra Touches: In this group you find filters that add a little something to your video. Includes: G Beauty, G Bug Eye, G Earthquaker, G FBM Noise, G Lens Flare, G Reverberator, G Split Screen, G Star, G Theartrical and G Tone Enhancer.

FixIT: Each of these filters addresses a specific problem, and fixes it. Includes G Alpha Expander, G Chroma Smoother, G Copy Channel, G Deflash, G Deflicker, G Field, and G Reinterlacer.

Image F/X: This group of filters modifies the look of your video and includes G Diffuse, G False Colour, G Monochrome, G Posterise, G Saturator, G Saturator Balanced, G Sharpen, G Surreal, G Threshold, and G Tint.

Levels And Curves: These filters are designed to give you precise control over the tones in your video, operating in either RGB or Y’CbCr space for creative control. Although Final Cut Pro has some in-built plugins for Levels and Contrast, they can be tricky to use and do not provide the creative control that these plugins offer. Includes G Contrast, G Detail Contrast, G Detail Levels, G Hyper Contrast, G Levels, G Simple Contrast, G Simple Curves, G Simple Levels, and G Super Levels.

Noise Reduction: Some useful filters to reduce/eliminate static and buzz. Includes: G Chroma Noise Reduction, G Spatial Noise Reduction, and G Temporal Noise Reduction.

Time Tools: These filters play with time and/or fields and frames. Includes G 50 Percent, and G Timelapse.

TV Effects: When you need to create the look of television, with all its quirks and faults, these filters give you the tools you need. Includes G Analogue, G Chroma Shift, G Digital, G Head Clog, G Resolution, G RGB TV, G Roll, G Scratch, G Shift, and G TV Lines.

Transitions: Here you will find several innovative ways to get from shot A to shot B! Includes G Burn, G Directional Blur Dissolve, G Dissolve, G Glow Dissolve, G Horizontal and Vertical Blur Dissolve, G Lens Flare Transition, G Long Dissolve, G Sharp Dissolve, and G Spring.

Generators: Look here for plug-ins to create animated lines for your next Indianna Jones style epic, animated video strips, countdowns, bar graphs or random symbols for alien manuscripts. Includes G Bars, G Countdown, G FBM Noise Generator, G Fields and Frames, G Laser, G Lines, G Long Lines, G Random, and G Video Strip.

Nattress Big Box of Tricks visit http://nattress.com/

Noise Industries FxFactory Pro

Posted by Josh Mellicker on January 5, 2007

FxFactory Pro is first choice for any FxFactory user looking for the richest combination of plug-ins and features.

150 Plug-ins Included
Start with the Motion Pack (40 plug-ins) and Editing Pack (40 plug-ins), both included with your purchase of FxFactory Pro.
Enjoy exclusive access to the 70 plug-ins in the FxFactory Pro Pack.

Unique Features
Modify and create your own plug-ins for Final Cut Pro and Motion without writing a single line of code.
Solve specific tasks with custom plug-in development.
Share your plug-ins easily with other FxFactory Pro users.
Sell your plug-ins by joining the growing number of companies that are using FxFactory to deliver plug-ins for Final Cut Studio.

Noise Industries FxFactory Pro
Availability: Usually ships same/next business day
Our Price: $399

How do I cut a subject out of the background?

Posted by on October 14, 2006

To separate a subject from a background, you can either:

1. shoot in front of a greenscreen/bluescreen, then key out the background in postproduction

You can also key out a background that is much darker or brighter than your subject, but it usually takes a little more work, because often your subject will have pixels that are darker and/or lighter than the background, so there there will be holes in your subject that must be “patched” with a garbage matte. If your subject is not moving much, this is much easier than if you have to do a lot of keyframing on the matte.

*NOTE: there an excellent section on lighting a greenscreen on this DVD:

2. have a team of rotoscopers (or just you) manually “cut” the subject out of the background frame by frame

There are advanced tools that help rotoscopers, but consider how long it takes to do a decent job cutting a subject out of the background in Photoshop. Now multiply that by 30 and you have one second of footage.

So, if it takes you 5 minutes per frame, that’s 150 minutes per second of final footage. For a ten second sequence, that’s 1500 minutes, or about 25 hours of work. For a national spot, this is probably worth it!

For a minute of final footage, plan for 150 hours of work! A team of three people could get this done in a week.

If you’re using Final Cut Pro, you might need more than 8 points, sadly.

Here’s a 50 point matte plugin.

Apple announces Final Cut Pro 5.1.2

Posted by on September 11, 2006

Apple this week at the IBC tradeshow announced an update to its professional video editing application. According to Digit Magazine, the company announced details on an forthcoming update update: Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 will bring support for Motion’s FxPlug plug-ins and more capture formats, enabling Motion’s real-time plug-ins — including those bundled with the application – to be used within Final Cut Pro. The report also said the update will include support for Sony’s XDCAM, Panasonic’s P2 and HDV: previous releases of Final Cut Pro supported the 25Mbps CBR version of XDCAM, while the version will add support for both 18Mbps and 35Mbps video and the XDCAM IMX 30. In addition, it will bring improved integration between Final Cut Pro and the freely-downloadable XDCAM Transfer import and asset control tool as well an expanded P2 import tool to offer more information about clips. Version 5.12 will also bring support for 24P and 25P versions of HDV, the report said. Apple is expected to release the free update via the Mac OS X Software Update function within 30 days.

50 Point Bezier Matte

Posted by on June 24, 2006

50 Point Bezier Matte is a filter for Final Cut Pro (and Final Cut Express) that lets you create a garbage matte with up to 50 points. Unlike the 4 and 8 point garbage matte filters that come with Final Cut Pro, 50 Point Bezier Matte lets you create curves between the points instead of straight lines. This allows you to easily create a mask to extract almost any element you need.

http://homepage.mac.com/tomhenderson/beziermatte/

Final Cut Pro plugins

Posted by on December 31, 2005

This page and this one have great lists of free Final Cut Pro plugins.

Here’s a list of plugins from Toolfarm.

Here are some free FCP Transitions and Filters from Graeme Nattress.

Twixtor 4.5 could be the best option for filmlike slow motion

Posted by on

One big difference between video and film is that some film cameras can be cranked up to much higher than 24 frames per second, capturing full frames 75 or 100 times per second, making for perfect, silky-smooth slo-mo.

The only way to approach this effect in video is to interpolate pixels between frames. (Most programs simply dissolve between slower frames which is definitely not the same thing!

Twixtor is a software plugin that enables you to speed up, slow down or frame rate convert your image sequences. Twixtor synthesizes unique new frames by warping and interpolating frames of the original sequence… employing RE:Vision’s proprietary tracking technology that calculates motion for each individual pixel.

I have not worked with this plug-in and it is a bit expensive but it could be the answer for video projects needing smooth slow motion.

http://www.revisionfx.com/rstwixtor.htm