Stu Maschwitz at FAF/SF Tuesday

Stu Maschwitz will present the DV Rebel's Guide at the Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco, Tuesday April 10, 2007 at 9pm. Courtesy of SFCutters FCP User Group, you can use discount code SFCUTTERS15 when reserving your ticket, $15 (415) 552-8760 x311 (non - member price is $39).

I reviewed DV Rebel's Guide for SFCutters last month, and added useful hyperlinks to background on luminance, codecs, and high bit-depth image processing.

Open Source alternatives to Creative Suite

Shahid Online Tech Corner runs down Open Source alternatives to Adobe Creative Suite apps, some of which might come in handy in a crunch.

Update: also Why Use Software Illegally When You Can Use Legally...from the Linux and Open Source Blog.

AE Web Resource Roundup

Here's a brief roundup of online resources for AE. Are there any big gaffs or missing pieces?

After Effects CS3 Scripting Guide

Adobe is already offering a scripting guide for AE 8/CS3 at the Developer Center.

Here's more AE scripting & Flash resources:

• JJ Gifford's Expressions in After Effects is basic but very useful.
• redefinery from Jeff Almasol has a great script library along Scripting Fundamentals.
• Motionscript is Dan Ebberts' resource for After Effects scripting and expressions (and there is a difference).
• AE Enhancers is THE scripting forum for AE.
• Dr. Woohoo specializes in AE<->Flash integration where Adobe leaves off.

Zaxwerks 3D Warps filters

Zaxwerks is planning demos of a new 3D Warps plug-ins for After Effects at NAB. As noted by Motionworks, Alan Shisko has posted notes and a video introducing Layer Tools.

Update: as clarified by John Dickinson, this is a distinct product from Zax's recent Layer Tools filter.

CS3 video product managers talk

Adobe product managers Steve Kilisky, Giles Baker, Hart Shafer, and Mark Randall all chat with Tim Wilson and Ron Lindeboom about the new CS3 products on recent CreativeCOW News podcasts.

Digital Anarchy's TOON IT

from Ko Maruyama's new blog, Ninja Crayon:

"Digital Anarchy's TOON IT [new filter package]...is a very, very good reason to check out Digital Anarchy at NAB (or at Photoshop World for that matter). Jim Tierney has a couple of tricks up his sleeve: One for Photoshop users and another for After Effects users."

Update: a person in comments finds this filter too slow for real world work and couldn't get a refund even a day after. Hopefully buyers will try the demos before a purchase, and vendors will realize that piracy is very easy. This blog mostly just passes along news so sorry I didn't comment that you can do this sort of thing by hand with multiple layers of posterize filters, blurs, color correction, and mattes. The setup would be much harder than a filter but once you have a formula you like...