By Brady BetzelIf you have ever watched After Effects tutorials, you are bound to have seen the people who make up. By Brady BetzelColor grading is an art unto itself. A dedicated colorist can make your footage look so good, your response upon seeing it will likely be, “I had no idea it could look like this.”Unfortunately, as an editor you don’t have the opportunity to spend 10 hours a day honing the craft of color correction. You don’t sit in front of high-end color correction panels while surrounded by thousands of dollars worth of equipment whose reason for being is taking everyday footage and pulling peoples’ minds inside out.Even with Blackmagic’s free version of DaVinci Resolve out in the wild, color correction is a skill that takes a lot of time to hone. Don’t fool yourself, one, two or three years doesn’t really even scratch the surface of the dedication you need to dive into the dark art of color correction, and most color correction artists are more than willing to tell you that. Hopefully, that doesn’t discourage you on your journey to becoming a color master, because it is an awesome career in my opinion. By Brady BetzelThroughout 2016, we have seen some interesting acquisitions in the world of post production software and hardware — Razer bought THX, Blackmagic bought Ultimatte and Fairlight and Boris FX bought GenArts, to name a few.

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We’ve also seen a tremendous consolidation of jobs. Editors are now being tasked as final audio mixers, final motion graphics creators, final colorists and much more.Personally, I love doing more than just editing, so knowing tools like Adobe After Effects and DaVinci Resolve, in addition to Avid Media Composer, has really helped me become not only an editor but someone who can jump into After Effects or Resolve and do good work.Unfortunately, for some people it is the nature of the post beast to know everything. Plug-ins play a gigantic part in balancing my workload, available time and the quality of the final product. If I didn’t have plug-ins like Imagineer’s Mocha Pro, Boris’s Continuum Complete, GenArt’s Sapphire and Red Giant’s Universe 2, I would be forced to turn down work because the time it would take to create a finished piece would outweigh the fee I would be able to charge a client.A while back, I reviewed Red Giant’s Universe when it was in version 1, (check it out ).

In the beginning Universe allowed for lifetime, annual and free memberships. It seems the belt has tightened a little for Red Giant as Universe 2 is now $99 a year, $20 a month or a 14-day free trial. No permanent free version or lifetime memberships are offered (if you downloaded the free Universe before June 28, you will still be able to access those free plug-ins in the Legacy group). Moreover, they have doubled the monthly fee from $10 to $20 — definitely trying to get everyone on to the annual subscription train.Personally, I think this resulted from too much focus on the broad Universe, trying to jam in as many plug-ins/transitions/effects as possible and not working on specific plug-ins within Universe.

I actually like the renewed focus of Red Giant toward a richer toolset as opposed to a full toolset.Digging InOkay, enough of my anecdotal narrative and on to some technical awesomeness. Red Giant’s Universe 2 is a vast plug-in collection that is compatible with Adobe’s Premiere Pro and After Effects CS6-CC 2015.3; Apple Final Cut Pro X 10.0.9 and later; Apple Motion 5.0.7 and later; Vegas 12 and 13; DaVinci Resolve 11.1 and later; and HitFilm 3 and 4 Pro. You must have a compatible GPU installed as Universe does not have a CPU fallback plan for unsupported machines.

Basically you must have 2GB or higher GPU, and don’t forget about Intel as their graphic support has improved a lot lately. For more info on OS compatibility and specific GPU requirements, check out Red Giant’s compatibility.Universe 2 is loaded with great plug-ins that, once you dig in, you will want to use all the time. For instance, I really like the ease of use of Universe’s RGB Separation and Chromatic Glow. If you want a full rundown of each and every effect you should download the Universe 2 trial and check out. In this review I am only going to go over some of the newly added plug-ins — HUD Components, Line, Logo Motion and Color Stripe — but remember there are a ton more.I will be bouncing around different apps like Premiere Pro and After Effects. Initially I wanted to see how well Universe 2 worked inside of Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve 12.5.2. Resolve gave me a little trouble at first; it began by crashing once I clicked on OpenFX in the Color page.

I rebooted completely and got the error message that the OpenFX had been disabled. I did a little research (and by research I mean I typed ”Disabled OpenFX Resolve” into Google), and stumbled on a post on Blackmagic’s Forum that suggested deleting “C:ProgramDataBlackmagic DesignDavinci ResolveSupportOFXPluginCache.xml” might fix it. Once I deleted that and rebooted Resolve, I clicked on the OpenFX tab in the Color Page, waited 10 minutes, and it started working.

From that point on it loaded fast. So, barring the Resolve installation hiccup, there were no problems installing in Premiere and After Effects.Once installed, you will notice that Universe has a few folders inside of your plug-in’s drop down: Universe Blur, Universe Distort, Universe Generators, Universe Glow, Universe Legacy, Universe Motion Graphics, Universe Stylize and Universe Utilities. You may recognize some of these if you have used an earlier version of Universe, but something you will not recognize is that each Universe plug-in now has a “uni.” prefix.I am still not sure whether I like this or hate this. On one hand it’s easy to search for if you know exactly what you want in apps like Premiere. On the other hand it runs counterintuitive to what I am used to as a grouchy old editor. In the end, I decided to run my tests in After Effects and Premiere.

Resolve is great, but for tracking a HUD in 3D space I was more comfortable in After Effects.HUD ComponentsFirst up is HUD Components, located under the Universe Motion Graphics folder and labeled: “uni.HUD Components.” What used to take many Video CoPilot tutorials and many inspirational views of HUD/UI master Jayse Hansen’s work, now takes me minutes thanks to the new HUD components. Obviously, to make anything on the level of a master like Jayse Hansen will take hundreds of hours and thousands of attempts, but still — with Red Giant HUD Components you can make those sci-fi in-helmet elements quickly.When you apply HUD Components to a solid layer in After Effects you can immediately see the start of your HUD. To see what the composite over my footage would look like, I went to change the blend mode to Add, which is listed under “Composite Settings.” From there you can see some awesome pre-built looks under the Choose a Preset button. The pre-built elements are all good starting points, but I would definitely dive further into customizing, maybe layer multiple HUDs over each other with different Blend Modes, for example.Diving further into HUD Components, there are four separate “Elements” that you can customize, each with different images, animations, colors, clone types, and much more. One thing to remember is that when it comes to transformation settings and order of operations work from the top down. For instance, if you change the rotation on element one, it will affect each element under it, which is kind of handy if you ask me. Once you get the hang of how HUD Components works, it is really easy to make some unique UI components.

I really like to use the uni.Point Zoom effect (listed under Universe Glow in the Effects & Presets); it gives you a sort of projector-like effect with your HUD component.There are so many ways to use and apply HUD Components in everyday work, from building dynamic lower thirds with all of the animatable arcs, clones and rotations to building sci-fi elements, applying Holomatrix to it and even Glitch to create awesome motion graphics elements with multiple levels of detail and color. I did try using HUD Components in Resolve when tracking a 3D object but couldn’t quite get the look I wanted, so I ditched it and used After Effects.LineSecond up is the Line plug-in. While drawing lines along a path in After Effects isn’t necessarily hard, it’s kind of annoying — think having to make custom map graphics to and from different places daily. Line takes the hard work out of making line effects to and from different points.

This plug-in also contains the prefix uni. And is located under Universe Motion Graphics labeled uni.Line.This plug-in is very simple to use and animate. I quickly found a map, applied uni.Line, placed my beginning and end points, animated the line using two keyframes under “Draw On” and bam! I had an instant travel-vlog style graphic that showed me going from California to Australia in under three minutes (yes, I know three minutes seems a little fast to travel to Australia but that’s really how long it took, render and all). Under the Effect Controls you can find preset looks, beginning and ending shape options like circles or arrows, line types, segmented lines and curve types. You can even move the peak of the curve under bezier style option.Logo MotionThird is Logo Motion, located under Universe Motion Graphics titled uni.LogoMotion.

In a nutshell you can take a pre-built logo (or anything for that matter), pre-compose it, throw the uni.LogoMotion effect on top, apply a preset reveal, tweak your logo animation, dynamically adjust the length of your pre-comp — which directly affects the logo’s wipe on and off — and, finally, render.This is another plug-in that makes my life as an editor who dabbles in motion graphics really easy. Red Giant even included some lower third animation presets that help create dynamic lower third movements. You can select from some of the pre-built looks, add some motion while the logo is “idle,” adjust things like rotation, opacity and blur under the start and end properties, and even add motion blur.

The new preset browser in Universe 2 really helps with plug-ins like Logo Motion where you can audition animations easily before applying them. You can quickly add some life to any logo or object with one or two clicks; if you want to get detailed you can dial in the idle animation and/or transition settings.Color StripeFourth is Color Stripe, a transition that uses color layers to wipe across and reveal another layer. This one is a pretty niche case use, but is still worth mentioning. In After Effects. Transitions are generally a little cumbersome. I found the Universe 2 transitions infinitely easier to use in NLEs like Adobe Premiere. From the always-popular swish pan to exposure blur, there are some transitions you might use once or some you might use a bunch.

Color Stripe is a transition that you probably won’t want to use too often, but when you do need it, it will be right at your fingertips. You can choose from different color schemes like analogous, or even create a custom scheme to match your project.In the end, Universe 2 has some effects that are essential once you begin using them, like uni.Unmult, uni.RGB Separation and the awesome uni.Chromatic Glow. The new ones are great too, I really like the ease of use of uni.HUD Components. Since these effects are GPU accelerated you might be surprised at how fast and fluid they work in your project without slowdowns.

For anyone who likes apps like After Effects, but can’t afford to spend hours dialing in the perfect UI interface and HUD, Universe 2 is perfect for you. Check out all of the latest Red Giant Universe 2 tools.Brady Betzel is an online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on Life Below Zero and Cutthroat Kitchen. You can email Brady at. Earlier this year, Brady was nominated for an Emmy for his work on Disney’s Unforgettable Christmas Celebration. By Brady BetzelIn my recent Red Giant Trapcode Suite 13 for After Effects review, I touched on updates to Particular, Shine, Lux and Starglow. In this installment, I am going to blaze through the remaining seven plug-ins that make up the Trapcode Suite. Those include Form, Mir, Tao, 3D Stroke, Echospace, Sound Keys and Horizon.

While Particular is the most well-known plug-in in the Suite, the following seven all are incredibly useful and can help make you money.Form 2.1Trapcode Form 2.1 is best described as a particle system, much like Particular, but with particles that live forever and are used in forms like cubes. If you’ve used Element 3D by Video CoPilot you probably know that you can load objects from Maxon Cinema 4D into your Adobe After Effects projects pretty easily and, for all intents and purposes, quickly. Form allows you to load these 3D OBJ files and alter them inside of After Effects.When you load the OBJ file, Form applies particles at each vertices point. The more vertices you have in your 3D object, the more detail you will have in your Form. It is really a cool way to create a techy kind of look for a HUD (heads up display) or sweet motion graphics piece that needs that futuristic pointillism type look.

The original function of Form was to create particle grids that could be exploded or tightly wound and that would live on forever, as opposed to Particular, which creates particle systems with a birth and a death. Form 2.1A simple way to think of how Form works is to imagine the ability to take simple text and transform it into “particles” to create a sandy explosion or turn everyday objects into particles that live forever. From Grids to Strings and Spheres to Sprites, with enough practice you can create some of the most stunning backgrounds or motion graphics wizardry inside of Trapcode Form, all of which is affected by After Effect lights and cameras in 3D space.I was really surprised at how powerful and smooth Trapcode Form can run. I am running a tablet with an Intel i7 processor and I was able to get very reasonable performance, even with my camera depth-of-field turned on.Mir 2.0Trapcode Mir is an extremely useful plug-in for those wanting to create futuristic terrains or modern triangulated environments with tunnels and valleys. Mir is versatile and can go from creating smooth ocean floors to spiky mountain tops to extreme wireframe structures. Mir 2.0These days GIFs are all the rage, so I am really impressed with the seamless loop option.

It might seem ridiculous but if you’ve seen what is popular on social media you will know it’s emojis and GIFs. If you want to prep your seamless loop, check out this quick from Trapcode creator Peder Norrby.Simply, you create beginning and end keyframes, find the seamless loop options under the Fractal category, step back one frame from your end loop point, mark your end-of-work area, go to the loop point (which should be one frame past where you marked the end to your work area) and click Set End Keyframe. From there Trapcode Mir will fill in the rest of the details and create your seamless loop ready to be exported as a GIF and blasted on Twitter.

It’s really that easy.If you are looking for an animated GIF export setting, try exporting through Adobe Media Encoder and searching “GIF” in the presets. You will find an “Animated GIF” preset, which I resized to something more appropriate like 1280×720 but that still came out at 49MB — way over the 5MB Twitter upload limit. I tried a few times, first with 50% quality at 640×360, which got me to 13.7MB. I even changed the quality down to 5% in Media Encoder, but I kept getting 13.7MB until I brought the size down to 320×180. That got me just under 4MB, which is perfect!

If you do a lot of GIF work, an easy way to compress them is to use and to fiddle with their optimization settings to get under 5MB. It’s quick and it all lives online.As with all Trapcode Suite plug-ins (or anything for that matter), the only way to get good is to experiment and allow yourself to fail or succeed. This holds true for Mir. I was making garbage one minute and with a couple changes I made some motion graphics that made me see the potential of the plug-in and how I could actually make content that people would be blown away with. 3D Stroke3D StrokeOne plug-in that isn’t new but will lead into the next one is Trapcode 3D Stroke. 3D Stroke takes the built-in After Effects plug-in Stroke to a new level.

Traditional Stroke is an 8-bit plug-in while Trapcode 3D Stroke can run on the color-burning 32-bits-per-channel mode. If you want to add a stroke along a path that interacts with your comp cameras in 3D space, Trapcode 3D Stroke is what you want. From creating masks of your text and applying a sweet 3D Stroke to them to intricate 3D paths that zoom in between objects with a HDR-like glow, 3D Stroke is one of those tools to have in your After Effects tool box.When using it I really fell in love with the repeater. Much like Element 3D’s particle arrays, the repeater can create multiple instances of your paths or text paths to create some interesting and infinitely adjustable objects.TaoTrapcode Tao is new to the Trapcode Suite of plug-ins. Tao gives us the ability to create 3D geometry along a path, and boy did people immediately fall in love with this tool when it was released.

You can find tons of examples and tutorials of Tao from experts like VinhSon Nguyen, better known as on Twitter. Check out his on Vimeo, too. Tao is a tricky beast, and one way I learned about it in-depth was to download Peder Norrby’s project files over at and dissect them as best I could. TaoIf you remember Trapcode 3D Stroke from earlier, you know that it allows us to create awesome glows and strokes along paths in 3D space. Trapcode Tao operates in much the same way as 3D Stroke except that it uses particles like Mir to create organic flowing forms in 3D space that interact with After Effects’ cameras and lights.Trapcode Tao is about as close as you can get to modeling 3D geometry inside of After Effects at realtime speeds with image-based lighting. The only other way to achieve this is with Video CoPilot’s Element 3D or by using Cinema 4D via Cineware, which is sometimes a painstaking process.Horizon 1.1Another product that I was surprised by was Trapcode Horizon 1.1.

In the age of virtual reality and 360 video you can never have too many ways to make your own worlds to pan cameras around in. With a quick Spherical Map search on Google, I found all the equi-rectangular maps I could handle. Once inside of After Effects, you need to import and resize your map to your comp size, add a new solid and camera, throw Horizon on top of your solid, under Image Map Layer, choose the layer name containing your spherical image, and BAM! You have a 360-world. You can then add elements like Trapcode Particular, 3D Stroke or Tao and pan and zoom around to make some pretty great opening titles or even make your own B-Roll! Echospace 1.1Echospace 1.1Trapcode Echospace 1.1 is a powerful section in the Trapcode Suite 13 plug-in library.

It is one of those plug-ins where you watch the tutorials and wonder why people don’t talk about it more. In simple terms, Echospace replicates layers and creates interdependent parenting links to the original layer, allowing you to create complex repeated element animations and layouts. In essence it feels more like a complex script as opposed to a plug-in.Let’s say you want to create some offset animation of multiple shape layers in three-dimensional space, Echospace is your tool.

It’s a little hard to use and if you don’t Shy the replicated layers and nulls, it will be intimidating. When you create the repeated layers, Echospace automatically sets your layers to Shy if you enable Shy layers in your tool bar. A great Harry Frank tutorial/Red Giant Live episode can be found on the website:.Sound Keys 1.3The last plug-in in the massive Trapcode Suite v13 library is Sound Keys 1.3.

Sound Keys analyzes audio files and can draw keyframes based on their rhythm. One reason I left this until the end of my review is that you can attach any of the parameters from the other Trapcode Suite 13 plug-ins to the outputs of the Sound Keys 1.3 keyframes via a pick whip. If I just lost you by saying pick whip, snap back into it.If you learn one thing in the After Effects scripting world, it’s that you can attach one parameter to another by alt+clicking (command+clicking) on the stopwatch of the parameter that you want to be driven by another parameter and dragging the curly-looking icon over the other parameter. So in the Sound Keys case, you can attach the scale of an object to the rhythm of a bass drum.

Sound Keys 1.3What I really liked about Sound Keys is that it not only can create a dynamically driven piece of motion graphics, but you can also use the audio meters it draws to visualize the audio. You see this a lot in lyric music videos or YouTube videos that are playing music only but still want a touch of visual flare, and with Sound Keys 1.3 you can change the visual representation of the audio including color, quantization (little dots that you see on audio meters) and size.Easily isolate an audio frequency with the onscreen controls, find the effect you want to drive by the audio, and pick whip your way to dynamic motion graphic. If I was the graphics designer I wish I was, I would take Sound Keys and something like Particular or Tao and create some stunning work. I bet I could even make some money making some lyric videos one day.Summing UpIn the end, the Trapcode Suite v13 is an epic and monumental release. The total cost as a package is $999, and while it is a significantly higher cost than After Effects, let me tell you: it has the ability to make you way more money with some time and effort. Even with just an hour or so a day I feel like my Trapcode game would go to the next level.For those that have the Trapcode Suite and want to upgrade for $199, there are some huge benefits to the v13 update including Trapcode Tao, GPU performance upgrades across the board, and even things like the second pass wireframe for Mir.If you are a student, you can grab Trapcode Suite 13 for $499 with a little verification legwork.

If you are worried about your system working efficiently with the Trapcode Suite you can check the technical requirements, but I was working on an Intel i7 tablet with 8GB of memory and Intel Iris 6100 graphics processor. I found everything to be very speedy for the limitations I had. Tao was the only plug-in that wouldn’t display correctly, but rightly so, as you can read the GPU requirements.If I was you and had a cool $999 burning a hole in my After Effects wallet I would pick up Trapcode Suite 13 immediately.Brady Betzel is an online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on Life Below Zero and Cutthroat Kitchen. You can email Brady at, and follow him on Twitter. Earlier this year, Brady was nominated for an Emmy for his work on Disney’s Unforgettable Christmas Celebration. By Brady BetzelHave you ever watched a commercial on YouTube and thought, how in the world do these companies have the budget for the VFX and motion graphics work featured?

Well, many don’t, but they do have access to talented artists with access to affordable tools that bring pricey looks. Most motion graphics creators have a toolbox full of goodies that help them build great-looking products.

Whether it’s preset transitions, graphic overlays or plugins — there are ways to incorporate high-production value without the million-dollar price tag. ParticularOne of those tools that many Adobe After Effects motion graphics artists have in their toolbox is Red Giant’s Trapcode Suite, which is currently in version 13.

While it isn’t cheap, if you are focused on that style of motion graphics, it can definitely pay for itself after just a few jobs. Inside the suite are magical plug-ins like the famous Trapcode Particular, Trapcode Form, Trapcode Mir, Trapcode Tao, Trapcode Shine, Trapcode Lux, Trapcode 3D Stroke, Trapcode Echospace, Trapcode Starglow, Trapcode Sound Keys and Trapcode Horizon. Holy cow, that is a lot.The complete Trapcode Suite 13 works with After Effects (CS6 through CC 2015 officially, including the latest 2015.3 update, just make sure to download the update from Red Giant since it might not appear in your Red Giant Link updater), as well as a couple like Shine, 3D Stroke and Starglow that will also work in Adobe Premiere (the same version compatibility as After Effects). A good resource to get your feet wet is on the Red Giant where you can find a lot of info and in-depth tutorials from the likes of the master Harry Frank and Chad Perkins.That being said, if you have no idea what the Trapcode Suite entails, buckle up.

It is one of the most useful but intricate plug-ins you will see with a $999 price tag to match ($199 if you are upgrading). Of course, you can pick and choose the product you want, such as Shine for $99 or even Particular for $399, but the entire suite is worth the investment. ParticularAs an editor, I spend the majority of my time inside of a nonlinear editor like Adobe Premiere or Avid Media Composer/Symphony — probably 80 percent if I had to estimate, the other 20 percent is divided between color correction solutions and VFX/graphics packages like After Effects, Blackmagic Resolve, and others. Because I don’t get a lot of time to play around creatively, I really need to know the suite I am working in and be as efficient as possible. For instance, products like Mocha Pro, Keylight in After Effects and Red Giant’s Trapcode Suite 13 are enhancers that help me be as efficient as I can be as an editor without sacrificing quality for time.In the latest Trapcode Suite 13 update, Trapcode Particular 2.5 seems to have been updated the most while Trapcode Tao is a new addition to the suite, and the rest were given modest enhancements as well.

I will try to touch on each of the products so this will be a two-part review.ParticularTrapcode Particular is one of the plug-ins that most After Effects nerds/aficionados/experts have encountered. If you have been a little wary and intimidated of Particular because of its complexity, now is the time to dive into using Red Giant’s incredible particle building system. In the 2.5 update, Red Giant added the Effects Builder, which seems to resemble the Magic Bullet Looks builder a little, and I love that. Like I said earlier I don’t typically have eight hours to creatively throw darts at a particle system in hopes of creating a solar system fly-through.Luckily, the new Effect Builder allows you to easily create your particle system and be emitting (or exploding) in minutes. While it isn’t “easy,” per se, to create a particle system like those featured on Trapcode creator Peder Norrby’s , the Effects Builder, along with some tutorial watching (mixed with some patience and love) will send you down a Trapcode rabbit hole that will allow you to create some of the most stunning artwork I’ve seen created in After Effects. Don’t give up if you find it overwhelming, because this is one of those plug-ins that will make you money if you can grasp it. One thing I did notice was the Effects Builder interface was tiny and did not scale with the resolution I was using on my system (2560×1440), but After Effects appeared fine.If you are an experienced user of Trapcode Particular you should be happier with the updated graphing system that lets you set size and opacity over the life of your particle by directly drawing points on your graph, smoothing, deleting and even randomizing.

I really loved using this graph. I immediately saw results that mimic using color curves against an RGB Parade and Waveform on a color scope. Particular has also bumped its particle count up from 20 to 30 million, which will matter to someone creating fireworks back plates for the Fourth of July, I’m sure. ShineShineSecond on my Trapcode Suite 13 hit list is Trapcode Shine, which might not be the most obviously glamorous update to many people, but still has its merits. The largest update is the ability to attach Shine to After Effects light sources easily. Before you would have to do some fancy footwork that most editors don’t have the time or interest in doing, but as long as your light is named “Shine,” with proper spelling and capitalization, your light now controls the light rays produced by the Shine plug-in.One thing that most After Effects users know to be a staple is the use of Fractal Noise.

Whether you are trying to replicate light rays with realistic and organic effects or a fancy text reveal where you use a Fractal Noise mask as your transition, Fractal Noise is a must use effect. Trapcode Shine has Fractal Noise built into the plug-in now, including the use of 3D fractal noise to create a type of parallax within your light ray work. Simply, parallax is the way the foreground moves in relation to the background. Think of a camera on a slider as it moves from left to right your foreground might stay in relatively same position while the background moves much more — this is your parallax.One thing that you will always use when applying Fractal Noise is animating the Evolution to add realism. Plus, adding the script “.time” to multiply the evolution factor is an easy way to move the fractal noise along its path.

Shine has an “Evolution Speed” under the Fractal Noise heading that allows you to easily adjust the evolution without any scripting (I love this!). Being able to quickly add fractal noise into your light rays really improves my efficiency when a client asks for “that fancy text with those light rays poking through,” but wants to pay exactly zero dollars and zero cents.Lux and StarglowTrapcode Lux and Starglow are some other light-focused plug-ins that can add that subtle or dramatic detail to your work setting you apart from the rest of the general motion graphics population. Lux is a fast and easy way to add volumetric drama to point and spotlights.

Much like the other plug-ins, you need to apply Lux to a new solid, adjust the specific parameters for the spot or point lights in your composition and, my favorite part, tell Lux if you want to apply to lights named anything, “Lux,” “Front” or “Back.”Simply, instead of just seeing the emanating light from an After Effects light source, you will now see the physical light source when Lux is added. Lux really shows its power when you need to add a light source to something like an after burner on a jet or the tip of a comet-like fireball. Adding physical light points so easily really opened up my way of thinking.

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It’s a relatively small feature, but it’s similar to knowing how to do something, but also knowing it takes four hours to accomplish it, so because of diminishing returns you just move along. Now I can do that same thing in little to no time and add that finishing touch easily. This makes me more money and makes the client more confident.Trapcode Starglow is a small-yet-powerful plug-in that gives life-like glow to bright objects. Think of the star or cross-hatch streaks that can appear on stars or street lights in TV shows and movies. Included in all of the Trapcode Suite are presets, and Starglow is no different with 49 presets, each containing various ray length, color, ray direction and more — all of which are the starting points I like to use when figuring out just what type of Starglow I want to go with.So far, I’ve covered four of 11 plug-ins contained in the Trapcode Suite 13, all of which are amazing and full of ideas that will undoubtedly elevate your work to a higher level. Something I have noticed over the last few years is a lot of amazing work that comes from those using After Effects; most of it, though, has the scent of a preset and/or tutorial that someone watched, duplicated and exported for their display. One tip that will overstep that ordinary look is to double- and triple-stack effects (in particular the same effect) to add varying levels of depth, color and detail that you couldn’t get with just one instance of a plug-in.In Part 2 of my Red Giant Trapcode Suite 13 Review, I will tackle the rest of this behemoth plug-in set: Trapcode Form, Trapcode Mir, Trapcode Tao, Trapcode 3D Stroke, Trapcode Echospace, Trapcode Sound Keys, and Trapcode Horizon.Brady Betzel is an online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on Life Below Zero and Cutthroat Kitchen. You can email Brady at, and follow him on Twitter.

Earlier this year, Brady was nominated for an Emmy for his work on Disney’s Unforgettable Christmas Celebration. Red Giant is partnering with to deliver two new products: Automatic Duck Ximport AE and Automatic Duck Media Copy 4.0. Both leverage Automatic Duck’s software for transferring projects between host applications and locations. Ximport AE transfers entire timelines, including cuts, third-party effects, transitions and more, from Final Cut Pro X to Adobe After Effects.

Media Copy 4.0 uses AAF and XML to simplify copying and moving media files from any Final Cut Pro 7, Final Cut Pro X or Avid Media Composer/Symphony project. Ximport AE and Media Copy 4.0 join the Red Giant family of software plug-ins for visual effects and motion graphics artists.With Ximport AE, users can copy entire projects directly from Final Cut Pro X to After Effects without requiring conversion or XML processing. Effects created using third-party plugins such as those from Red Giant, as well as a number of Final Cut Pro X features including compound clips, transforms and retiming, can be transferred from FCP X to AE.Designed for Final Cut Pro and Avid users, Media Copy 4.0 allows users to copy and move project media by reading the project’s AAF or XML export and copying referenced files to a chosen destination. Users can also generate HTML reports for a record of copied files, and they have the option to process individual project files or group them all for relocation.Watch this space — interview with Automatic Duck’s president, Wes Plate, coming soon! OffloadOffloadFirst up is Red Giant Offload. Offload is one of those really simple tools that can potentially save your job. More often than not I see and read about jobs that ask for an “experienced” DIT, editor or assistant editor to be on set to transfer footage from cameras, log, add LUTs and many other responsibilities.

The only problem is they usually want to pay $100/day — not a good rate-to-job responsibility ratio. (My advice is don’t take that job.) So to those posting these ads on Staff Me Up and Craigslist, do those poor new hires a favor and buy them Offload, at the least.Offload allows the user (Mac or Windows) to choose a media source folder (including XDCAM, GoPro, etc.), a folder to copy the assets to and a folder to copy a back-up of the assets to. This all happens very simply and even shows a preview thumbnail of the files at the bottom. ChecksumBulletproofIf your skill set lies beyond Offload, you’ll want to open Bulletproof, which takes the idea of copy and backup to the next level with addition of metadata editing, light color correction, curves adjusting and even LUT application. I really love the color adjusting with the Red Giant Colorista three-way and LUT addition — it even comes with a few LUTs like Prolost Flat to Warm.

Denoiser IIMore ToolsThe final few tools included in the Red Giant Shooter Suite are Denoiser II, Instant 4K, Frames and LUT Buddy. Denoiser II is one of those tools you can just drop on a noisy clip and for the most part it does its job without any tweaking (although you can do some fine tuning, like luma offset or chroma smoothing). I dropped in a free stock footage clip from featuring a coffee mug. The footage wasn’t terrible to begin with but after bringing it into After Effects CC, I zoomed in close and saw some noise. I dropped on Red Giant Denoiser II and without any tweaking saw a vast improvement. What I like is that it got rid of the noise and some blocky artifacting without having to specify anything. It really made the clip look great; I might add a little noise back into the clip, color, then export.Instant 4K is a plug-in for Adobe Premiere and After Effects that will uprez any footage to 720p, 1080p, 2K, 4K and many other resolutions.

I added the effect to a 1920×1080 piece of footage and upscaled it to my composition’s width of 4096. The footage looked pretty great even after being upscaled so much.To find out about the last two apps: Frames and LUT Buddy, check out or follow Red Giant on twitter:. Do yourself a favor and if you aren’t following Aharon Rabinowitz already follow him. He has a host of tutorials and general amazing Red Giant awesomeness going on.Summing UpIn the end, if you want a complete toolset for copying, organizing, verifying, synchronizing, denoising, and upressing your images, then you will want to purchase the complete Red Giant Shooter Suite 12.6. Personally, I think Pluraleyes and Bulletproof are worth the $399 cost of admission — add in the magic of Denoiser II and the 4 other Red Giant video tools and you have a true technical value pack. Every person who works in freelance production and post that is in the realm of onset shooting, organizing media, and assistant editing should have Red Giant Shooter Suite in their toolbox.Just to reiterate, here are my top Red Giant Shooter Suite 12.6 highlights: it contains seven highly specialized video tools in one package saving over $345; it comes with newly released Offload for easy and worry-free transfer and backup of master files from camera memory cards; and it includes the lifesaving PluralEyes 3.5 auto-syncing app, which can really save hours of work. Red Giant, makers of Magic Bullet, Trapcode and PluralEyes, has launched (a public beta) — a community that gives members access to pro tools for editing, filmmaking, visual effects and motion design.“It’s rare we get to introduce technology that is entirely new,” said Red Giant’s co-founder and CTO Sean Safreed, who has been working with his team, behind the scenes, on Universe for the last year and a half.

“Universe is an entirely new foundation for tools. It marries the simplicity of JavaScript with the power of the GPU to deliver speedy renders and pixel-perfect results. Users are going to love how quickly we offer new plug-ins.”. Knoll EZ ArsenalIn total, is releasing 50 new plug-ins at once — with more already in development. Every tool in the Universe library of effects and transitions is GPU-accelerated, both Mac- and Windows- compatible, and works across multiple host applications including After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro X and Motion.

The Universe library of tools is continuously growing— new effects and transitions are added regularly, and existing tools are updated often, based on user feedback.In addition to the expanding library of plug-ins, Universe also offers Premium membership, which gives users access to even more tools – including new effects and transitions, as well as existing Red Giant favorites ported over to the new Universe platform (such as Knoll Light Factory EZ, Holomatrix, Retrograde and ToonIt). Premium membership is available through monthly and yearly subscription, as well as a one-time lifetime membership fee.Red Giant Universe free membership is available now, with the Premium membership available for purchase this month. Premium pricing will be $10 (monthly), $99 (yearly) and $399 (lifetime).“I’m a motion graphics and visual effects artist, and definitely not a coder,” said Aharon Rabinowitz, Red Giant’s director of content and communities. “Even so, along with the Universe development team, folks like motion designer Harry Frank and I have been secretly cranking out plug-ins for the last few months. Our new development tools have made it surprisingly easy.