HitFilm plug-ins for NLEs and After Effects

In April, FxHome spun off most of the plug-ins from HitFilm, their affordable After Effect "clone" app, into a new product, HitFilm Plugins. With over 130 plug-ins for visual effects, compositing, and color grading, the package supports After Effects, Final Cut Pro X, Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, and Apple Motion on two computers for all hosts on Mac and Windows.

Oddly enough, HitFilm Plugins are more expensive than the much fuller-featured HitFilm Ultimate app, which itself causes some to wonder Is it the new “Production Premium”?. As for the plug-ins, you'll have to download the free trial to see for yourself if enough of the package is unique for you and how it might fit in your workflow. 

If you're not invested in After Effects plug-ins already, and looking for a fun & broadly capable package that's relatively inexpensive, check out the resource guide HitFilm plug-ins for NLEs and After Effects on PVC.

Nebulas in After Effects

Nebulas can be created several ways in After Effects: with "cards in space" of real images, or generated by Fractal Noise or 3D particle systems, commonly fractal-displaced particle arrays like Trapcode Mir, Form, or perhaps Hiltfilm Atomic Particle and others.

Nebula construction in After Effects collects a few resources, most notably Nebula Construction Kit, a video guide to a free AE project file using Trapcode Mir from Peder Norrby of Trapcode.

See the rest at PVC... and for the meantime, here's background from the Hubble Space Telescope:

Making GAEA: After Effects for print projects

A couple of years ago, Jesse Michael Newman released a layer-by-layer video deconstruction of an After Effects project, 'DECONSTRUCTING GAEA I - Flowing Meditation' — though the end result was a print piece — as part of a Kickstarter campaign. He has a new piece, 'DECONSTRUCTING GAEA II,' to support a short sale on art prints.
Read about Making GAEA and After Effects for print (+ ETLAT) at Pro Video Coalition. Here's some of Newman's work:

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Making It Look Great 5

Tidbit on YouTube buffering

a map of the Internet, from Wikimedia Commons

 
Last November AE Portal posted a quick exploration of How YouTube Works, which, even with a recent update on the "secret" algorithm, still left questions about caching unanswered. But actual explanations become apparent with a simple search word change to "buffering".

The best explanation of YouTube buffering mysteries was offered last summer by ArsTechnica in Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make—and break—online video, about how ISPs and video providers fight over peering agreements to "pass traffic from one to another and negotiations over caching services that store videos closer to people's homes so they can load faster in your browser." These issues will most likely be with us for awhile, given new Internet rules that will likely gut net neutrality (more from Boing Boing).

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Read more bits on YouTube buffering mysteries at PVC.

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We are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1/30th of a second ago. We think we’re in the present, but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movie of the past.

– Ken Kesey

AE Easter eggs + hunt for a plabt egg

People are sometimes surprised discovering Easter Eggs in After Effects -- apparent oddities in the interface. Some of these have been around for a very long time... 

Take part in a new hunt at PVC in Easter eggs in After Effects: a new hunt.

brush

Behind the Scenes of ‘Adobe and the Frog’

Film Riot and Adobe have a slick little web ad for the new Creative Cloud NAB 2014 reveal. It was edited in Premiere CC, with the CG character rendered in After Effects CC using Element 3D, and color graded using Magic Bullet Looks.

Details at Pro Video Coalition.

Sneak peeks of CC Next for NAB

Adobe revealed new features in the video apps in Creative Cloud and will showcase these next versions at the NAB 2014 show in Las Vegas next week (schedule). Highlights of the reveal features, additional details, videos, and links to product pages, team blogs, and 3rd-party previews are at PVC:

Creative Cloud NAB 2014 Reveal: Sneak peeks of what's coming