UPDATE: Now Available

If you are still wondering exactly what Element 3D is all about, check out this new video!

The video shows you exactly what it is like to work with the plug-in so you can see the impressive controls and ease of use.

There are many more features to cover in the next few days so stay tuned for those!

Watch Element Demonstration!

Also on Youtube and Vimeo for your convenience.

Features shown in this video:

• All New Element User Interface
• Importing 3D Objects with Textures!
• Interactive Lighting
• Material Options and Presets
• Group Array System
• Environment Mapping
• Motion Blur and Depth of Field
• New Expansion Pack demonstrations: Pro Shaders & the Motion Design Pack

The Element Plug-in will remain at the low price of $149.95, and we will also have several bundle options available as well!

Click here to see all Bundles and Prices

Element will be available Tuesday, July 10 2012!

UPDATE: Now Available

As we approach the release date for our new plug-in Element 3D, I started thinking about where this plug-in started and what inspired us to make it a reality.

I've been working with traditional 3D programs since Ray Dream 3D, followed by 3D max over 10 years ago when it was published by discreet. (Crazy to think about how long it's been!).

What I loved (and still do) about 3D is that there was always something new to learn! One day I want to fly helicopters, then I want to create explosions or realistic ocean waves. And what I've learned is that there is not a single or right way to do anything. It's all an illusion, the goal is to create something that "looks" good any way possible. There may be scientifically more accurate ways to calculate lighting but accurate doesn't necessarily mean better in fact it usually means slower.

The true balance was finding the sweet spot between the final look and a realistic render time because if you can't deliver a shot then it doesn't matter how good it will look when it is done rendering. I remember having to render my 3D at lower resolution and then scale up in After Effects to get things done on time. I was desperate, I got smarter and learned to manage my render requirements.

Then computers got better, stronger & faster and render engines pushed the limits of photo-realism with the use of global illumination and micro-triangle displacement! The quality of modern raytracing engines like Vray, Renderman & Cinema 4Ds really is spectacular. But the way raytracing works can be CPU intensive so on projects without unlimited render power, artist still have to find the right balance.

Meanwhile the video game industry was innovating with a different approach. REALTIME. Games are meant to be played so the worlds need to render on the fly. With popular game titles breaking records, the graphics card industry exploded with new innovations and developers tried to make the most realistic games as possible while maintaining realtime performance on current graphics cards. Some developers went a little too far like the Crytek game that was notoriously sluggish at maximum quality but the graphics were undeniable at the time. I personally think Battlefield 3 has the best quality rendering without affecting gameplay performance although I admit I'm more of a Doom guy myself :)

So what does it all mean? Well here was our idea... Video games look pretty dang good, and they render in realtime, so what if we could use the same OpenGL capabilities to create a custom 3D engine and then add professional features as well? So we did! Our early tests were promising and we kept pushing the limits while maintaining speed and visual quality.

We even added things to our engine that game developer could never do because everything in their world MUST be realtime but in the creative world, some rendering is expected. So we could add powerful features that would be too slow for a game engine but blazing fast for creative artists.

We know that OpenGL doesn't handle raytracing, so 3D objects do not reflect other nearby objects BUT with Reflection Maps, we can still create impressive materials that still look great and still render fast! Our goal was to create a plug-in that could fill the gap between the world of 3D and After Effects so you can composite while you work.

We want Element to appeal to professional 3D artists that want to save time when possible and non-3D artists looking to reach the next level. Plus we want to put the fun back in 3D for everyone!

When I look at some of the things that Element has rendered... I can't believe they came out of a Plug-in, :)

Happy Independence day too! Will Smith's best movie!

I was just responding to a few comment about what I've been up to and so I thought I would make a post about it as well to demystify my life... or something like it.

Here are some of my responses below.

Hey! OK, it is true, I have not been able to make as many tutorials lately but I really want to be more active! The truth is they require a lot of work and I always want to show people cool NEW things so it's not a matter of just throwing one together cause it is Monday. I make them because I love to share cool tips and techniques that I've learned or that inspire me. That is why I also make occasional blog videos because I get excited about something new and we just make it!

The other thing some people may not know is that I do professional work for TV and Film as well I just can't talk about it until it is released. Just in the past year I have done several Title sequences for TV Shows like Fringe, Person of Interest and the film Super 8. I also do a Visual Effects work on these shows as well as Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol. On the film Super 8 I personally did over 100 VFX shots... now that was crazy!! But I loved it.

I also designed and created the FX for a fun iPhone App called Action Movie FX that let's people add cool visual effects to there video like a missile exploding or car flipping. Designing visual effects was a major challenge since they have to work for everybody and look pretty good still. We built some amazing technology that has been really fun and well received.

I also have my family which is kinda the best thing ever. My wife and I have 2 girls and a boy on the way (any day now!). It's fun and our oldest (4yrs) spends a lot of time drawing stuff and we have this activity where I give her something to draw like a "jungle gym play set". Then she says 'that's too hard' and I say, start with the slide. 'OK, no problem', then make the ladder and then the monkey bars etc. She has become much less afraid of bigger things as well. I literally work the same way, when you see an amazing visual effects shot that has tons of 3D and layers, it can be overwhelming but if you break it down and do it little by little it is much more manageable. Now when I'm not with my kids, I think "it's pretty quiet, they must be getting into something!"

In addition over the past year we have been working on Element 3D along with several other plug-ins that we think are ground breaking and innovative. I'm passionate about pushing things to the next level. I realized that I don't like to do things half-baked... it's kind of a curse sometimes but I want things to be amazing and not just pretty good. Which leads me to this idea...

It seems creatively that the better you get at something the longer it takes to do it. That may not make sense at first but trust me it is! When you know better, you can't ignore mistakes, your attention to detail goes off the charts and even when you learn to do something faster you pay attention to other details and it ends up taking longer. What is going on!! I definitely could explore this idea further another time because it blows my mind!

I think the natural place for Video Copilot as we see in the movies and motion design community is more 3D but hopefully inside of After Effects. 3D opens up a lot of new places we haven't explored (intentionally) that will soon be possible with Element and ideally bridge the world of 3D without the steep learning curve you have with traditional 3D programs. 3D has always been regarded as too complicated or out reach but with Element we're making it much more attainable.

All in all, It's a balance, and not always a perfect one. I think it's important for me to keep one foot in the professional ring so that I can continue to push my knowledge and learn new things and hopefully that will translate into tutorials, plug-in, etc. After Element is released I'm going to have a lot more time to develop tutorials keep the energy going so I look forward to that!

The other thing I dare say is that if anyone feels that they are being held back on learning something because I haven't made a tutorial lately, I would say don't let that stop you! There are many great ways to get better as an artist and they don't necessarily require you to know all the shortcuts and buttons in a program. They come from experience and DIVERSITY! For examples, learning to shoot with cameras and lenses may not seem directly related to After Effects but if you become proficient with shooting it will actually make you a better compositor. You'll know how cameras are supposed to work, how light works, colors and even how the camera moves so you can recreate it more realistically.

I look for inspiration everywhere because you never know what might inspire your next project.

UPDATE: Now Available

As we count down the days until the release of Element 3D on July 10th, I thought it would be fun to share some of the impressive new features that we have built into the plug-in. I know I have been cryptic about the details of the plug-in but that is because I wanted to save the big surprises for launch!

We think the 3D text extrusion system not only fun to play with but it's unlike anything you've ever used before. It's fast, and easy to use but this is just one of the many cool new features! Stay tuned for many more reasons to check out Element 3D on launch day.

There was a version of the this plug-in that we were almost ready to release last October, it was very impressive and we think it would have been one the most advanced 3D plug-in available for After Effects. Now here we are 9 months later and we hope you understand all the extra hard work!

UPDATE: Now Available

Our 3D object based plug-in for Adobe After effects known as Element 3D has an official release date! You know that little plug-in we've been working on that let's you use real 3D objects as particles... well it's finally ready for release!

Available here: JULY 10, 2012

I'll be showing you everything there is to know about this plug-in and we hope you'll see why it has taken so much hard work and more importantly, we hope you can see the amazing possibilities!

Some Technical Features: (tutorials and demonstrations coming soon)

• Supports 3D Objects in 2 formats (OBJ and native C4D files)
• Powerful particle based animation system.
• Easily Extrude and Bevel Text and Mask shapes! Wait til you see how it works!
• Powerful Custom User Interface. Surprise!
• Compatible with After Effects CS3 and above (we built our own Open GL Render Engine!)

Creative Features list in the works! Thank you for your patience, we are truly excited!!

Price you ask? It will be announced soon!