Useful Tools

August 26th, 2008

In addition to After Effects there are other great tools I found myself using frequently on this latest project:

Trapcode Horizon
This great little After Effects plug-in makes it easy to add environments to 3D scenes and saves a ton of time. I use it almost as much as Particular. www.Trapcode.com

Lenscare
Probably the best tool for creating realistic blur for individual layers or by using a depth matte. https://www.frischluft.com/lenscare/lenscare.php

HDR Shop
This program is hard to describe but I use it to create spherical environment from digital still images to create 3d Environments and backgrounds. https://www.hdrshop.com/ Learn as much as you can on this subject it is great.

Nodal Ninja
This tool makes shooting still images for panoramic easy and consistent. Be sure to check it out all the helpful resources within.
https://www.nodalninja.com/

Andrew Kramer

POSTED:

17 years ago

64 Comments

Atlanta Video Production

15 years ago

Thanks for the list! I'll have to try Horizon.

Aleks

16 years ago

Could you please make a tutorial were u use Horison, i bought it, but don't know how it's working... sad.. could you please make any tutorial were you use it, so i can learn to use it?

Josh

17 years ago

Andrew; as for HRDshop, could you use the HRD batch process on a sequence of images from broken up video and then string them back together to create a HDR-video effect? Possibly you did this on the meteor video? Looks kindof like it's been processed into HDR.

avtorentacar

17 years ago

Thank you.

Loay

17 years ago

Thanks for sharing andrew
this topic is waaaay useful

Leon Grant Bussinger

17 years ago

I made an after effects keyboard shortcut map that anyone can print out and since this site pretty much taught me after effects i thought i would share it.

http://www.originallgb.com/original_LGB/current_files/after%20effects%20keyboard%20shortcuts.jpg

Connor

17 years ago

woo! sites back

dasnico

17 years ago

i personaly think that some of you guys are just overreacting. Mr.andrew, gives alot to us as soon as he has some time. so be grateful for that. but some of you just want more and more and more. stop wining and just wait, when the guy has done his important work he will think about the site also. there is one guy on the forum that posted a post with the title "is that it?" thats so not nice you know. he should be happy what andrew gave us.

just my feelings
nico

steve

17 years ago

Site down!

i remember the site like it was yesterday. All those beautiful bubbles and shiny titles

Oh how I miss it

Sandy

17 years ago

O Dam, the site's down. Shit!
Plz fix it ASAP. Go Go Go!

I hope some BIG updates are coming..... hehehehe

Sandy

al2cl3

17 years ago

Sorry about what i'm going to said:

OMG! Videocopilot is down! Medic! MEDIC!!

Louis

17 years ago

Yep, I have the same trouble as derek this is the only page that is working....

Hope you can fix it soon!

Derek

17 years ago

hey your website has crashed and this is the only page i can get to.

just thought i'd let you know. hope everything's alright.

naab

17 years ago

tutorials, tutorials...... brainssss..... tutorials....

Hamid From Iran

17 years ago

Hi Andrew
Thanks for the tools
But don't you want to make a new tutorial
since your website forum starts , i think tutorials are going to be dead !
Is there any new tuts ?
Thanks again

After-Effects.blogfa.com

Brynye West

17 years ago

Hey guys how's it going.
I got an inquiry for you all, including you Andrew if you're reading this: I'm looking to purchase a new computer to edit my HD footage without any lag or slow rendering that I experience with my dell inspiron. I have a sony hdr11 and i really enjoy it but it takes forever to render my footage and edit it.

Soooo, my question is this: What computer should i get to edit my footage? I'm trying to move over to apple because it seems more user friendly. I'm looking to spend 2k-4k.

help anyone?!?!

tparker

17 years ago

Wow, that Horizon one is the bomb!

Thanks for all you do, Mr. Kramer, sir!

john drach

17 years ago

Brain Hungry!
Want tutorial!

LifeType

17 years ago

i remember i use to write down all the plugins i seen in andrews effects list during his tuts then id go out and get most of them .

FrankG

17 years ago

Hi,
besides Nodal Ninja there also is Panosaurus for about 75$ which can also take multi-row panorama shots , for photo enthusiasts and semi-pro ppl its stable and good enough - I use RealViz Stitcher to get sperical, cubic or rectangular panoramic shots with my Lumix DMC FZ-50.

versa

17 years ago

Thank's for the info Andrew! Lenscare, that what I looking for.

Sina

17 years ago

Surely you are perfect.
just wana say Thanks For What you have done.
sina

Jack Watts

17 years ago

the best advice i can give to you people who are looking for tuts on horizon is
1. watch the Horizon Intro tutorial on the trapcode site then
2. start playing around with it yourself, film, create something, you will learn at your own pace and on the plus side you will remember the utilistaion of the plug-in a lot better.

Jason Sayer

17 years ago

Andrew do you think you could do some tut's on horizon

Pretty Please

bbb

17 years ago

has anyone found a tutorial where you can make spherical maps in HDRshop?

Paul

17 years ago

I bought a Nodal Ninja 3 recently and had a few problems with fitting my camera to the head. Bill at Nodal Ninja has been great - no, beyond great - in getting me up to speed and out shooting panos. If you're in the market for a pano head Nodal Ninja is the way to go!

As for creating straight HDR images: Dynamic Photo HDR is good :http://www.mediachance.com/hdri/index.html as is Photomatix: http://www.hdrsoft.com/

Like everyone else - I'd love to see you demonstrate any of these tools.

Cheers

paperbird

17 years ago

thanks a lot for sharing, AK. Useful!

unfiltered

17 years ago

Here you go, Benji:

http://www.trapcode.com/in_action/horizon_intro.html

Eduardo Torres

17 years ago

Has anyone tried BorisFX.com products? They support AE but the prices seems to be to high.

Karim Dehbi

17 years ago

great tools
unfortunately these tools cost a lot of money (for amateur/students at least)

check out this site: http://maltaannon.com for some cheap tools
actually there's only one you have to pay for (about 10 USD) but the remaining ones are free
and there are some really powerful ones like a plugin to have fully functionally 3D letters in Aex

check it out!!

abe

17 years ago

ooH thanks for the tips, Hdr shop looks sweet.

Jeff

17 years ago

Horizon is a must in my book. Thanks for all the other information you always supply.

Josh Johnson

17 years ago

Very cool produts. I'm sure I will splurge for horizon soon. HDR shop is great I shot my first HDRI photo on a chrome sphere few weeks ago and used HDR shop and photoshop to assemble and unwrap it.

Then used it in C4D for my lighting. Very cool stuff and not as hard as you may think.

Nikan Ansari

17 years ago

I have Horizon thanks for showing me the Frischluft stuff never looked into them

bbb

17 years ago

shortcut tutorial about trapcode horizon?
is this some kind of joke? on the official site they explain Horizon.

Jack Daniel Jenkins

17 years ago

Why are you so nice to us?? Is it because you know we can't afford all these fun toys? =p

Adam Farnsworth

17 years ago

Thank you for sharing!

Benjamin Eshagpoor

17 years ago

Andrew,

Thanks for these!! I bought Horizon, and I've been dying to create my own spherical maps and the one tutorial I found online about doing it in Photoshop was a little too confusing, so I'm going to look into HDR Shop!!

Oh captain, my captain!!

bE

Le'Verne

17 years ago

Thanks alot for the Hdri site I have been looking for it for along time. You guys have one of the best sites out there keep up the AE tuts they are so informative. I have learned so much just off your site. Could I send A couple of projects i've done to you guys to critique it would mean alot.

elboogie2008

Kenneth Sebastian

17 years ago

thanks for the great info on the plugins!!

pat

17 years ago

all those things are great but why do they have to cost money

drobins10

17 years ago

The radiohead video at the trapcode site is great.

CampPhotoshop

17 years ago

Andrew,

Very interesting tools. When will we see how you are using them?

Benji

17 years ago

A shortcuts video on Trapcode Horizon would be awesome!

mason

17 years ago

Awesome! andrew
i think your next tutorial name is about "smoke trail"
you use Trapcode Horizon to finish it. that's my guess
haha! hope you give us more info about the helicopter project

Cristian

17 years ago

im checking the horizon plugin...one question...the page doesnt load at night...im not sure if it is a problem here or there but when i type videocopilot.net at night time it says page not found..

arsalan

17 years ago

Andrew when the next tut i check every day man cum on put tut on site man

Rafael

17 years ago

hum...horizon sounds cool

Jeremy

17 years ago

Where do you get your maps for Horizon? Or do you make them? And how? Think that'd be a great Short Cut...

Infaas

17 years ago

Thanks a lot for sharing Andrew

Wenny

17 years ago

Thanks for sharing with us Andrew.

Cheers

Fede Gomez

17 years ago

Thanks Andrew! greats links...

Christopher Gruber

17 years ago

If anyone has a mac and would like to convert images to HDRI....there is a program called Photomatix. OR you could always run a windows emulator and use hdrshop

http://www.hdrsoft.com

Best,

Chris

Stephen Bolton

17 years ago

hope your getting some advertising dollars for the mentions ;-p

Curtis H

17 years ago

Lenscare is nice but it lacks 32 bit float support. Is there a bokeh blur type plug-in out there that does use floating point? I'd kill for one. Messing with specular passes and mattes just to get a less accurate and time consuming result is not my preference. Any suggestions?

AfterEffectsJUnkie

17 years ago

Thanx for the links i will check them out

Ravi

17 years ago

Thank you Andrew .. all links are worthful

I would like to paste a link, useful for all VFX designer.

http://www.fxguide.com/modules.php?name=fxtips&rop=fxtip_list&catid=5

must check

Magix

17 years ago

Thanks for all info Andrew, I just Woke up to finish one of my project. I'm always faster this time of night and I think you are kinda same if I pay attention to the time you posted.
btw this is my first time posting comment here, so thank you for all you did for us. I know you are too busy to reading all this comments but thanks anyway...

KAMRAN a Persian guy who came to Hollywood to win an Oscar

SAHIL

17 years ago

thnks fr d link ...mr kramer

Sunny

17 years ago

Trapcode plug-in is EXCELLENT!

Cheers again Mr Kramer

Roger

17 years ago

Thanx Kramer! U r a very nice guy!!!
Greetings from Brazil!

dam

17 years ago

Thanks a lot Andrew !

By the way, you forgot to make the link to hdrshop.com.

See ya !