Atlas: a new tone map­ping filter for After Effects

Stefan Minning has released a new tone map­ping plug-​​in for After Effects, Atlas. It's a work-in-progress and open-​​sourced under the free GPL license.

Atlas is Win­dows-only for now -- but the full source code is included, which means that any­one can com­pile a Mac ver­sion. Here's more from Stefan...

"So what’s tone map­ping you ask? Accord­ing to Wikipedia:

Tone map­ping is a tech­nique used in image pro­cess­ing and com­puter graph­ics to map a set of colours to another; often to approx­i­mate the appear­ance of high dynamic range images in media with a more lim­ited dynamic range.

The tech­nique is par­tic­u­larly use­ful if you have high dynamic range images, such as ren­dered CG-​​imagery in float­ing point color-​​depth (OpenEXR) or HDR pho­tographs, and you want to bring their broad spec­trum into a range more suit­able for dis­play on a com­puter mon­i­tor or tele­vi­sion screen."

Note: Stefan released [umm sorry, teased instead] another filter recently, Edgar, "which is designed to work in com­bi­na­tion with Nor­mal­ity and gen­er­ates squeaky clean car­toon out­lines. Edgar uses a novel, pro­pri­etary algo­rithm devel­oped specif­i­cally for the pur­pose of con­vert­ing nor­mal passes into line art for use in car­toon and anime pro­duc­tions."

Effects A-Z: Bilateral Blur with Eran Stern

Motionworks' sorta weekly tour of built-in AE filters continues onto the Bilateral Blur filter, with guest host Eran Stern demonstrating Bilateral Blur.

Tutorial Gap Monday

Topher Welsh links to some neglected After Effects, Motion, and Photoshop tutorials amidst the mostly 3D stuff in his latest update survey, 2 Weeks = 114 New Tuts!

PremierePro "Next": 64-bit CUDA GPU + CPU model

If you're a Premiere user, you might keep an eye out choosing the graphics card in your next machine upgrade. In September there was news from Fxguide at IBC on demos of Adobe nVidia CUDA acceleration for compression and RED.

Now at Dav's Techtable there's more on PremierePro"Next" in It's Official: The future of Adobe video is 64 bit! (excerpts):

"For PremierePro"Next", we are moving to new GPU + CPU model which allows us to scale and divide the workload more efficiently between multiple CPU Cores and GPU Cores. It uses the new nVidia CUDA technology and is designed to work with nVidia cards such as the Geforce 285 and FX4800/5800 series.

We want to give our users plenty of time to upgrade their systems to 64 bit and to get ready for the changes that are quickly coming. Both Apple and Microsoft have released 2 excellent 64 bit OSes in 2009. Mac users already know how great the Mac OS is and Windows users can look forward to seeing Windows7 64 in action.They can also finally look forward to using all of that RAM they purchased.

Anyone looking to buy new hardware might want to know what the requirements will be to run CS"Next" and how make great use of their CS4 investment today. I am recommending Multiple Cores, 8GB RAM or more, one of the nVidia cards mentioned above, and either Win7 64 or OSX 10.6. Again, CS4 runs excellent on this config as well.

The 64 bit versions are still many many months away... The early performance tests are truly amazing."

Unplugged 12: interview with Nick Campbell (Greyscale Gorilla)

Motionworks' Unplugged 12 features an interview with Nick Campbell (the Greyscale Gorilla):

"Relatively new to the online training scene, Nick Campbell has quickly established himself in the After Effects world, with his popular site Greyscale Gorilla. In this episode of Unplugged we discuss how Nick got started in the industry, his view on the benefits of university, and the challenges in his early freelance career. We also discuss our similarities in tutorial style, developing design skills on the job and of course Cinema 4D, plus plenty more."

Today: an After Effects team call-in hour

from Todd Kopriva:

"Michael Coleman, the After Effects product manager, has just invited people to call in and talk with the After Effects team this afternoon. Here's his post."

A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades

via Recovering Journalist's When Presses Roll Less, Execs Spin More (see also Twitter feed subscription numbers of the "biggies")...

A Graphic History of Newspaper Circulation Over the Last Two Decades by The Awl, which also noted How Are Newspapers Reporting on Newspaper Circulation?

Update: Advancing the Story posted on Jesse James Garrett’s “12 Things I’ve Learned about Online News.” Garrett coined the term Ajax; here's an excerpt:

'The Online News Association convention in San Francisco included a session titled, “Design Solutions from News Experts.” While panelists from the New York Times revealed a glimpse into new features coming to the newspaper’s Web site, Adaptive Path president Jesse James Garrett offered practical advice from his company’s work on Web redesigns for CNN, PBS and NPR. During the session, one person tweeted that Garrett’s speech got him thinking of a news site as something like a “dashboard” and less like a “publication.”'