Unmult, premultiplied, and straight

 
Two resource roundups were posted on PVC this week: Alpha channels: premultiplied vs straight and “Unmult” with and without a plug-in, on Unmult, Xmult, and channel and matte effects.

Creative Cloud June 2014

This April, Adobe revealed many of the new features of Creative Cloud at NAB 2014, but that was for After Effects, Premiere, & the other video apps. It appears there's more -- over 1000 updates for 14 desktop apps, and numerous mobile and cloud updates.  

Creative Cloud NAB 2014 Reveal was already detailed new features of the video apps, including additional tutorials and reviews by others. Highlights for the overall release is at PVC, Creative Cloud 2014 Release.

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Note: The new versions (2014) install next to old versions, so plug-ins can be integrated when feasible. They may not all work correctly and this let's you manage your migration to the new app. If you don't see the 2014 updates, restart the Creative Cloud desktop application.

Adobe Add-Ons are available as plug-ins, presets, HTML5 panels, and such (with forum). The new After Effects HTML5 panel SDK & plug-in SDK is also available. Scripting update notes were already posted at the bottom of Todd Kopriva's new and changed detail notes. ProEXR v1.9 was released with After Effects CC 2014 (13.0); download for older versions from fnord software website.

Fold or unfold objects in AE

Folder or unfolding layers has become popular in After Effects and other apps in the last several years, and tutorials, scripts, and even animated typefaces have popped up to help spread the meme. An origami plug-in would be nice, but for now the easiest way to start folding or unfolding layers is using AE scripts.

See more on scripts, tutorials, and plug-ins in Fold and unfold layers in After Effects at PVC.

Automatic rounding with expressions

A few years ago, Stu Maschwitz noted the utility of the Math.round method, which rounds a number to the nearest integer. If you're repositioning or animating an object in AE, you'll often run into AE's subpixel positioning in Best Quality, which as noted long before expressions were a feature by Trish Meyer as the source of bad renders with lossy formats. 

But you can use an expression to force rounding on scale/position to whole numbers, in order to avoid softening on anti-aliased text or other layers. It's much easier to use that than to adjust entries by hand, and its utility goes further.

For the rest, see Fixing soft edges & number counters with automatic rounding at PVC.

MovieType for After Effects and Element 3D

Element 3D renders in real time, but setup takes time. To help save time, there's now MovieType For Element 3D from Motionworks, with over 1000 animation & camera presets, materials, bevels, and backgrounds. See the blurbs on Pro Video Coalition...