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VIDEO COPILOT BLOG News, Updates, Projects Files & Tips |
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Video Copilot presents the all new 3D lens flare studio: Optical Flares!
Key Features include:
- 3D Position & Light Tracking
- Real Texture Mapping
- Includes 60 Presets (Pro Preset Pack Available)
- Realistic On-Lens Simulations
- Automatic Luminance Tracking
- Dynamic Triggering (Animation without Keyframes!)
- Creative Tutorials
- and much more!
Check out the product right now:
Optical Flares Product Page
Be sure to watch the feature videos for an exciting, in-depth look at using Optical Flares. With such a powerful plug-in, we separated the videos into individual sections so you can check out the features you want to see!
Optical Flares will be available Monday, Jan 25 in our online store.
Optical Flares is available for download only.
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Select your package:
OPTICAL FLARES PLUG-IN: only $124.95
Includes the Optical Flares Plug-in, 60 Presets and 5 Video Tutorials.
OPTICAL FLARES BUNDLE: only $139.95 (save $10)
Includes all the above, plus the Pro Preset Pack with 50 high-end flare presets.
The Pro Presets are available separately for $25.
After Effects CS5 will to be a 64 bit application only. At the moment QuickTime is only a 32 bit application and users of other 64 bit applications like (3D max 64 bit, Nuke 64 bit, etc.) do not have the ability to import or export any QuickTime files. So seeing how QuickTime is one of most popular formats that has been supported by After Effects since the beginning, what will happen with AE CS5?
I received direct word from the Adobe After Effects product manager himself: Michael Coleman
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He said this:
“QuickTime is very important and we will continue to have QuickTime support in the next After Effects. It involved extra effort on our part to work around the QuickTime issues, but it’s looking good now.”
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It seems you can count on QuickTime support in After Effects CS5. And in a few years, a robot in every home.
As some of you may know, the new version of After Effects CS5 will be native 64 bit, which offers major speed and memory enhancements (among other things) but 3rd party plug-in developers like Video Copilot, will need to update their code before they will work in 64 bit. But worry not…
When After Effects CS5 ships, (some speculate later this year) Video Copilot is committed to offering free product upgrades to customers on all of our plug-ins. All… TWO of them 
Twitch & Optical Flares.
I think the move to 64 bit is essential for the future and we want to support it as best we can. Of course we are dedicated to make our products compatible with 32 and 64 bit systems as far back as After Effects 7.
Also, our stock footage and audio products will continue to be compatible with no upgrading required and we will even be updating our free plug-ins like VC Reflect and the new Sure Target 2 when the time comes.
As we get closer to the release of Optical Flares, our new lens flare creation studio, I wanted to show you some cool examples of Optical Flares in action. This reel includes actual productions by some of our beta testers and some tests I did internally. I think this reel has a nice variety of how lens flares can be used but I’m sure you could think of many more!
Motion graphics or visual effects… be ready for Optical Flares: January 25, 2010.
UPDATE 2: We uploaded the newest version in the project to 2.0.10 Be sure to have the latest version. Thanks!
In this tutorial we will take a look at the new version of Sure Target 2 featuring advanced control over the After Effects camera. Sure Target 2 is a Free plug-in that automatically executes expressions for easy setup and use.This version features inertia, auto-focus, camera Roll and more. Must see!
Here is one of the examples we will create in the tutorial with Sure Target 2.
I was playing around with Particular 2 and came up with this particle swirl using a couple of smoke images as particles. I love that Particular 2 reacts to the lighting as well as fake shading to make the particle seem more volumetric.
Here is what I did, in Particular 2 custom particles are called Sprites, so once you select this as your particle type, the texture slot becomes available to use my smoke video that is included with the project download. I stretched the particle area and rotated the world transform to make it look like a twister. I added a couple of lights to give it coloring and a BG gradient.
Check out the screen shot for particle settings and my timeline. You may want to see this tutorial using Particular 1.5 to get started with the smoke element.
Download Project CS4
(Sorry but I sometimes forget to use CS3 so more people can open it but the smoke element is inside the Footage folder for you to experiment. )
I recently worked on a graphic card for a Star Trek DVD commercial and I thought it would be boring fun to talk about the Action Safe Area! Many graphics are broadcast in HD but there must also be an alternate version for people watching in standard definition.
One solution is to design for the 4:3 Center Cut. This is where you use the title and action safe area is based on a 4:3 frame in your HD 16:9 comp. You’ll notice that After Effects CS4 has 2 extra lines for the interior Center Cut to help you practice safe action (for your designs).
Some people have a tighter recommendation for the safe area so please check with your format specialist.
UPDATE: This also applies to widescreen DVD menus as well…
Happy New Year to everyone! Let’s kick this year off with some exciting news about Optical Flares. Our new lens flare plug-in will be available January 25 2010. That’s going to be one bright Monday and you can be sure to see some in-depth demonstration of the amazing features very soon.
This going to be a big Year at Video Copilot!
In this tutorial we will create a reflective orb using only built-in After Effects plug-ins. The key to this tutorials is building a proper spherical map and utilizing the raytrace capabilities of the CC Sphere effect.
I couldn’t find the exact video I saw on TV but here is one of the promos for a show called Human Target on FOX. The design has a slick scope effect with some well-composited explosions and smokey hits that melt right into the design. This graphics package is a great example of using stock elements transparently within the design. In fact I didn’t even recognize it until I combined curiosity with my DVR recorder and played it back in slow motion There was a more elaborate 3D fly-through in the version I saw but I thought I would share this one anyways.
Action Essentials 2 is our HD stock footage collection with over 500 elements that is great for compositing AND motion graphics!
More Info
To help with your holiday graphics, Save 40% on our design collection Evolution all this week.
UPDATE: Sale ended Friday. Happy Holidays!
Evolution is 100% downloadable and available after purchase!
For those customers who own Evolution, please enjoy this free project file for After Effects CS3 and CS4. The title design uses only 1 of the 155 elements and all you need to do is relink the one missing file with your Evolution collection. You may also need this font and possibly a snowcone.
Be sure to check out our other great products and gifts from the Video Copilot online store at everyday low prices! Your support keeps this site going and might also keeps Sam Loya off the streets (Maybe).
At Video Copilot, we do a lot of project-based tutorials but our goal is to provide useful techniques and tips that you can use on future projects as well.
I received a nice email from a customer regarding our Dynamic Bar Graphs Tutorial:
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I found you guys by watching your tutorial about creating dynamic charts in After Effects. I did a set of animated charts last year for one of our clients without a slick method like yours. Instead I created a dozen different 3DS animations. It was so painful…
I am about to start on a new project which will be LOADED with charts. Your technique will come in VERY handy.
Thanks Again.
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I know this technique is somewhat specific but after doing a fair amount of graphs in the past I’m glad it was appreciated by others as well.
There are big changes happening at Video Copilot…
As we approach the release of our new Power Plug-in Optical Flares, we realized that it’s time we expand our team and hire a full-time lead programmer to help with future development and maintenence. This is an important move that is an essential step towards creating next-generation software & plug-ins at Video Copilot. Optical Flares is not only our most advanced plug-in but now we have the staff to develop and maintain it with features and compatibility.
So please Welcome Sergio to the Video Copilot community.
My goal is to focus on ideas and features and then work with Sergio to bring them to life. In the case of Sure Target 2, I had a few crazy ideas that I never would have attempted but with an actual programmer, we made it happen. It also helps that he is a genius
As you know, Video Copilot is a business and I believe our success is an opportunity to develop new tools and amazing technologies that will benefit the visual effects community and lead to greater possibilities.
Today is an important day…
Well I started making a snow globe with CC sphere inside of After Effects… then I started playing around with reflections and then I ended up with this video. There are some interesting techniques for creating the glass reflections so I may release a project file or even do a tutorial. You can never have too many Orb-based tutorials
Everything was created with default plug-ins too!
In this new tutorial we will isolate bar elements from a 3D render to build a customizable bar graph in After Effects. We will use expressions to control time-remapping and link values for the displays.
The tutorial is a cool 20 minutes for quick viewing and easy reference for when you get the call… the telegraph call… That’s a telephone call about making graphs. Be ready!