<p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5004" height="455" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/c4d-ps.jpg" title="c4d-ps" width="612" /></p> <p>Our Pro Shaders for Cinema 4D is now available to New and Current owners of the Pro Shaders pack.  We rebuilt each shader to work natively in Cinema 4D as a free upgrade to those who would like to use them.  Just sign in to your customer account to download, we even created an easy installer!  Enjoy.</p> <p>Previous customers will see the Cinema 4D installer under the Pro Shaders product.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ae_fr.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4989" height="180" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ae_fr.jpg" title="ae_fr" width="612" /></a></p> <p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> Make your features come true, <a href="https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform" target="_blank">File a Feature Request with ADOBE!</a><br /> <a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ae_fr.jpg"><br /> </a>Our buddy Todd Kopriva at Adobe just posted an <a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2012/12/top-feature-requests-for-after-effects-in-2012.html" target="_blank">article</a> outlining top feature requests from the After Effects community in 2012 and while you browse the<a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2012/12/top-feature-requests-for-after-effects-in-2012.html" target="_blank"> comprehensive list,</a> do you see your top features there?</p> <p><strong>Here are a few of my top features that should be on that list!</strong></p> <p><strong>Improve Expressions Speed:<br /> </strong>As I outlined in <a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2010/08/should-adobe-improve-expressions/" target="_blank">2010</a>, expression run-time should be much faster! This feature is still high on my list because expressions are very powerful but can weigh down a project if they get too complex. I notice major speed hits when using complex expression like those generated from using Sure Target 2! <a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/sure_target_2/" target="_blank">http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/sure_target_2/</a></p> <p>POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Red Bull!</p> <p><strong>Duplicate Layer Instances:<br /> </strong>The option to make a copy of a layer with effects like Particular or Element 3D and have the effects sync throughout the project when edited. So if you change one instance, they will all change, but at anytime you can disconnect it from the group and customize individually. Basically when you repeat certain effects it can be cumbersome to go through the entire project and update the effects for each copy. This would save time and avoid forgetting about a rogue copy.</p> <p>POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Copy option called &#8220;Copy as Instance&#8221; then when you paste it, the parameters have a highlight color so that you know it is connected to other parameters. Then maybe an icon next to the effect name that can be clicked to disconnect an instance and make it independent.</p> <p><strong>Must we pre-compose everything!?<br /> </strong>It would be great if pre-composing wasn&#8217;t required every time you want to reference a layer from a plug-in.  We all have been there, you want a plug-in to use a layer but it won&#8217;t work until you pre-compose or flatten that layers effects. So you pre-compose it even though you really don&#8217;t want to! This problem is even worse when you have 3D layers, because then you need to copy the camera into the pre-comp as well and keep updating it every time you want to change the camera.</p> <p>POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Have a layer switch like the 3d or motion blur switch on the layer that is called &#8220;Render First&#8221; or &#8220;mimic precomposing&#8221;. This way you can mimic pre-composing when you need to.</p> <p><strong>Render Output in folder:<br /> </strong>Having just completed graphics for a trailer that needed to be translated into 8 languages, it would be nice if I didn&#8217;t have to create a folder for every single output sequence.  It would be nice if there was an output setting to &#8220;Place in Folder&#8221; that could be saved into a template. Then whatever you name the files will be the name of the folder. Saving precious minutes!!!</p> <p>POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Output option check-box &#8221;Place in folder&#8221;. I know there are scripts for this but C&#8217;mon!</p> <p><strong>Improved Light options:<br /> </strong>AE lights could use some upgrading now that 3D is becoming more common. Here are a few suggestions:</p> <p>- Controllable Light range. Not just falloff but cutoff.<br /> - Ambient Light with distance range. Instead of ambient light everywhere, it would be cool to have a radial range for things to illuminate objects evenly without the specularity from a point light.<br /> - Better Light icons and representation in the viewer<br /> - Exclude specific layers from Lights. Maybe.</p> <p><strong>Bonus Feature:</strong> Kill shape layers! Well at least disconnect them from the mask tool.</p> <p>What are your top feature requests for After Effects?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/presets_top_secret.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="alignnone wp-image-4981" height="300" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/of_133.jpg" title="of_133" width="612" /></a></p> <p>Optical Flares 1.3.3 has been released along with a free bonus pack of presets.  As some of you may know we are in development on Optical Flare 2.0 and we were able to fix some bugs and we wanted to make these fixes available now!</p> <p>The bug fixes include OpenGL fixes, Quadro Crashses on OSX and speed improvements.</p> <p><a href="https://www.videocopilot.net/products/opticalflares/update/" target="_blank">Download Optical Flares Update</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Conspiracy_Presets.zip" target="_blank">Download Free Conspiracy Presets</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/presets_top_secret.jpg" target="_blank">View Screen Shots of new Presets</a></p> <p><strong>LIMITED TIME CYBER SALE:</strong><br /> Remember we are currently having a sale for 25% off all Video Copilot Products, don&#8217;t miss it!<br /> <a href="https://www.videocopilot.net/sales/cybersale2012/" target="_blank">See Coupon information</a></p>

<p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pov_scopes_web1.mov" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4969" height="1018" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/scopes.jpg" title="scopes" width="612" /></a></p> <p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4970" height="502" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/lens_textures.jpg" title="lens_textures" width="612" /></p> <p>Wow, this post is long! In this new tutorial we&#8217;ll take a look at creating various simulated scenes such as a Camera POV, sniper scope and even night vision. The tutorial also includes a project with 13 templates ready to mix and match plus 9 REAL lens textures to build your own.</p> <p>And yes some of the templates include chromatic aberration using the channel blur.</p> <p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/scopes/" target="_blank">Watch Tutorial</a><br /> <a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pov_scopes_web1.mov" target="_blank">See Sample FX</a></p> <p><a href="http://video9.videocopilot.net/efc5e19e65fe9ca2cbd9818d45ac92a1/videotutorials/projects/135.zip" target="_blank">Download Project Files</a></p>

<p></p> <p>After a little bit of work, I discovered an experimental technique for generating Image Based Lighting with Element 3D!</p> <p>So what is image Based Lighting? Basically is when you use an environment map (or HDRI) to simulate the lighting in a 3D scene without adding any individual lights. The specular highlights and overall illumination is generated from the environment automatically. This is a common technique for dedicated 3D programs for high-end Visual Effects work so they can match the practical lighting as accurately as possible.</p> <p>This technique uses 2 additional copies of the Element 3D plug-in stacked on top of each other to generate the lighting but you can also add additional lights to your scene as well.</p> <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/53402935" target="_blank">Watch Tutorial on Vimeo</a><br /> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7CawxPjDbI&amp;feature=channel&amp;list=UL" target="_blank">Watch Tutorial on Youtube</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/help/element/tutorial/basic/image_based_lighting/">Watch on Video Copilot</a></p> <p>Apologies for the raspy voice, getting over a lingering cold&#8230;</p> <p>TIP: You can import the environment maps from Element too!<br /> Documents\VideoCopilot\Materials\Environment</p>

<p></p> <p></p> <p>Who doesn&#8217;t love a good VFX reel? I sure do. Being able to see what went into some of these amazing shots makes me appreciate the long hours of every vfx artist and gives some insight as to how the shots were conceived.</p> <p>And for those who aspire to do amazing shots like these just remember these shots were not created overnight.  One layer at a time&#8230;</p>

<p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/skull_fire_web.mov" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4914" height="679" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/hw.jpg" title="hw" width="612" /></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/coming_soon_lg.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="" height="326" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/halloween_sm.jpg" title="halloween_sm" width="612" /></a></p> <p>We may not be changing our name to Video Kill-Pilot but today we are releasing a free Halloween Model pack with 13 spook-tastic models! &#8220;Spook-tastic&#8221;? &#8230;  What am I talking about?</p> <p>These models are ready to use with <a href="https://www.videocopilot.net/products/element/" target="_blank">Element 3D</a> inside of After Effects or import the OBJ files into your favorite 3D program, the texture files are universal too.</p> <p><strong>UPDATED:</strong> Fixed Skull model bug and UV&#8217;s in C4D.</p> <p><a href="http://videocopilot.s3.amazonaws.com/Halloween_Pack1.1.zip" target="_blank">Download Halloween Pack and Experiment now!</a></p> <p>Now&#8230; why are we doing a lot of 3D stuff? Is Video Copilot Changing? Should I investigate that strange sound outside near that trail of blood?</p> <p>I would say that Video Copilot is evolving along with the industry to keep pace with the ambitious demands of modern advertising and film.  More and more we see movies and commercials that use elaborate 3D animation that require a dedicated 3D application.</p> <p>So we came up with a plug-in called <a href="https://www.videocopilot.net/products/element/" target="_blank">Element 3D</a> that bridges that gap between After Effects and a full 3D program. It offers many great capabilities of a traditional 3D program and majorly expands the capability of your favorite software After Effects.  This way the skills that you have learned over the past few years can continue to grow with the plug-in&#8217;s new capabilities.</p> <p>YES we earn money by selling our Plug-ins and that is the main source for keeping the website running and our 10+ employees. But Element 3D truly offers capabilities that were simply not available before. Like realtime 3D models in After Effects with all of the advanced features like Depth of Field and Ambient Occlusion to name a few. I can&#8217;t even count how many tutorials I&#8217;ve created in the past dedicated to making things LOOK 3D-ish&#8230;</p> <p>We also get people telling us that we could have charged much more for the plug-in but we wanted to make it as affordable as possible.  Of course, we will continue to do traditional compositing tutorials like before but we also want to add more 3D stuff to the candy bowl.</p> <p>Stuff like the Airplane from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc_yO28NHtk&amp;feature=plcp" target="_blank">Mid-Air Emergency video</a> is actually easy to do with Element 3D but might otherwise be difficult with a dedicated 3D program. I even used Element 3D to create the recent <a href="https://vimeo.com/40926575" target="_blank">Fringe Intro</a> for FOX and the animated vegetation in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJiabcpLvJM" target="_blank">REVOLUTION</a> intro on NBC. So when you think about all the small things that are possible with Element 3D, it&#8217;s actually kinda SCARY.</p> <p>Happy Halloween and enjoy that Candy Corn!</p>

<p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/coming_soon_lg.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-4907" height="326" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/halloween_sm.jpg" title="halloween_sm" width="612" /></a></p> <p>Something we&#8217;ve been working on&#8230; A Free Halloween 3D model Pack that works with most popular 3D programs and <a href="https://www.videocopilot.net/products/element/">Element 3D</a>!  Stay Tuned or Die!</p> <p><a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/coming_soon_lg.jpg" target="_blank">Larger Sample Image rendered with 3D max!</a></p>

<p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3922" height="575" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/matte.jpg" title="matte" width="612" /></p> <p>The <a href="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2012/05/matte-painting-challenge-alien-landscape/">matte painting challenge</a> is going well. Today I&#8217;m going to start looking through all of the matte paintings and find a few to use for the different shots in the sequence. Once we have a few that work, I&#8217;ll start comping in the background and finishing the rest of the shots. Keep up the great work, I think we&#8217;ll definitely do more of these in the future! Maybe the next one will be a matte painting in the future&#8230; Yes!!</p> <p>Keep going, the challenge ends June 15th!</p>

<p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3914" height="515" src="http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/vs.jpg" title="vs" width="612" /></p> <p>Today we updated our website with a slightly new look and layout. Our goal was to focus the content of the site and make it easy to see the stuff you want. We are also releasing a few products this year and we spent some time rebuilding our customer download system to make downloading products faster and easier. The new account system keeps track of your products so you can download anytime, anywhere. News about those products will be forthcoming soon but we need to get all the systems in place first. Stand by as we tweak the site and get the bugs out.</p> <p>My favorite change is probably the wider blog space so the images and video can really stand out!</p>