RE:Vision Effects has announced the release of RE:Map 1.1, a professional quality mapping and distortion plugin set for Fusion, After Effects, Combustion and others. The set contains 4 plugins:

• RE:Map UV
  
• RE:Map Distort
• RE:Map Displace
  
• RE:Map Planar

With this update a new plugin has been added:

• RE:Map Inverse UV takes a UV Map and a color image that matches that UV Map, and inversely projects the color image to a rectangular image that may then be used to texture the UV Map with RE:Map UV, or for use as a texture map for your 3D system.

If you own 1.0, this update is free for you. If not, you can pick it up for $149. Just looking at this picture makes me want it.

Bob Donlon's got a quick tutorial on using After Effects to create a 3D scan and pan effect. It starts out by taking a photo and masking it out into 3 different layers, which we all know can be time consuming. If you've got a image that is already in layers then the rest is cake. This is also a good way to learn how to use the camera settings in After Effects if you haven't played with it before.

Creative Cow's Aharon Rabinowitz provides a thorough review and introduction of this promising 3rd party package. Nucleo Pro allows After Effects to better utilize and take advantage of multiple CPU's or multiple cores. The way it works is Nucleo Pro uses hidden instances of AE in the background to decrease render times and RAM previews. It is basically tricking After Effects into thinking the multiple CPU's or cores in your PC are a render farm. How clever. This 3rd party plugin will also improve your workflow with such things as background rendering and commit (layers) to disk. If you do a lot of After Effects work (along with a lot of waiting) and have more than one processing unit in your system, trying out this software is a no brainer.

Creative Mac has posted a tutorial from one of Lynda.com's tutorials on After Effects. In this particular tutorial, Jeff Foster talks about animating text layers using displacements. A pretty simple tutorial but I think, more importantly, gives you an idea on how useful the Lynda.com training material can be. I have been following their podcasts which contains tutorials on many common applications that creative artists use. You can subscribe to it here.

Boris Red, the effects software that many editors and compositors rely on, hits version four today at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam. Some of the features in brief:

• 16-bit color support
• Motion Key -- apparently this effect will erase foreground elements akin to Mo:key or Mo:net
• OpenGL support -- much like their new standalone app, Blue.
• New vector paint and rotoscoping support

That's the look in brief... we'll be getting a test copy here shortly and have a full review within a few weeks.

As a budding motion graphics student, I'm trying to learn as much as I can about the differences and advantages of After Effects and Apple's challenger to the throne. Fortunately, Apple just posted a quick tip on how to import Motion projects into AE, which should help at least a few projects flow a little more smoothly.

It's a pretty simple import process, and as long as you have AE 6.5 or greater, it sounds like things should go without a hitch (Apple doesn't specify, but it looks like Motion 1 and 2 are supported). As icing on the cake, AE will even recognize edits of the motion project; selecting Edit > Edit Original will open the project in Motion, and once it's saved again, AE will update with the changes. I haven't tried this yet, but they even provide some sample files for your testing pleasure.

Creating motion graphics can be tricky. These free video tutorials should help you get started using After Effects to create some top-notch motion designs.

• Harry J Frank has 11 tutorials at GrayMachine.com including grunge text with track mattes, a circle segment design with random numbers, and incorporating Maya 3D objects with After Effects.
• Motionworks.com.au has a host of tutorials centered around 3D motion.
  
• CreativeCow.net has a huge list of tutorials for various topics and skill levels.
  

And if you need some inspiration for motion graphics, check out XpslvTV

Andrew Kramer from VideoCopilot.net has a tutorial on creating a flip-book effect in After Effects. You can see the finished effect here. When I first saw this I thought that you could do this in any editor with a page-peel transition, but Andrew shows us this is procedural effect meaning you can use it again and again with different footage. The process is streamlined and flexible. Check out the 18-minute screencast where he goes step by step through the process.

(via Creative Cow)

Previously mentioned here at DVGuru, Digital Anarchy's Resizer 2.0 is an After Effects and Final Cut plug-in that allows for massive scaling (up to 800%) of video while retaining a high quality look. It's mostly appropriate for implementing SD video into HD sequences. Be sure to check out this review if you want more in-depth info about the software.

(via HDforIndies)

VideoCopilot.net has an excellent flash-video tutorial explaining how to create a depth of field rack-focus effect using After Effects.  The results are impressive and the host Andrew Kramer goes step by step through the process.  The quality of this video tutorial just blows me away as I feel like Andrew has taken control of my mouse on my own computer.  The resolution of this video is huge for the web, as the video barely fits in my browser window.  For those of you who can't fit the whole video in your browser window remember F11 goes to fullscreen mode in Firefox and IE.  VideoCopilot.net has a free tutorial section which you should check out as well with 14 other high-quality videos for your After Effects consumption. 

TRT 7:02

Tim Johnson at CreativeCow fires up After Effects 7 and pits Red Giant's Magic Bullet Suite 2.1 against DigiDesign's Cinelook 2.  Cinelook 1 was one of the earliest examples of a film-look software package, but when Magic Bullet came out, it was made obsolete.  I was using Cinelook 1 when Magic Bullet came out, and while the new kid on the block required longer render times, the resulting footage simply looked much richer (one thing Cinelook had going for it over MB was its "damaged film" simulations, which MB has since added in the form of "MisFire").  So how does version 2 of each software compare?  Despite Johnson's 4.5-star rating of each, it seems that not much has changed--Magic Bullet looks better, and CineLook renders faster.  I think most indie filmmakers would rather trade in short render times for a nicer finished product--but those in other environments, especially those more corporate by nature, may not share that same sentiment.

Dave Nagel's last set of Mactel benchmarks saw a MacBook Pro beating out a dual-processor G5 at running Final Cut Studio.  This time around, Nagel puts the MacBook to the test using Adobe's non-native Photoshop, After Effects, and Illustrator applications.  Running through Apple's Rosetta translation process, the results aren't pretty; the benchmarks find that by and large, the applications take almost twice the time to perform the same task on a (native) PowerPC chip.  Also note that Rosetta is very memory-intensive, and Nagel's laptop has 2GB of RAM--if you've got the stock 512MB or 1GB, you can expect your results to be even more sluggish.

Camerman couldn't hold the camera still and ruined your shot?  Even worse, were you the cameraman?  Then you'll have even more motivation to smooth out the jitter.  Studio Daily has posted a nice tutorial on how to use After Effects to smooth out your project's shaky footage.  They do a good job explaning the functions that AE's different tracking boxes serve, and how to optimize the process for the best results.  Check it out if you're trying to CYA.

Studio Daily has posted a quick tutorial on creating a web banner advertisement in AE7, and exporting it to Flash (.flv).  Given that Adobe acquired Macromedia last October, you can expect even more integration between the two applications in the future; in the meatime, if you're a motion graphics veteran who's new to Flash, this could help you get started.  Everything's going web, and you don't want to be left behind.

Chromakeying is simple: stick someone in front of a blue or green screen, and replace the backround with whatever you want in After Effects.  But what happens when you move the camera?  The movement of the background doesn't match the movement of your subject.  You may be able to get away with AE's built-in tracking features if it's a simple pan or tilt, but if the camera moves--on a dolly, for example--you're going to need to step up to 3D matchmoving.

If you want to integrate computer graphics with real environments (think Lord of the Rings), or place real characters in virtual environments (think Sin City, or a modern music video like those popularized by The Saline Project), you're going to have to learn a lot about matchmoving.  While matchmoving software packages can run upwards of $10k, there are cheaper alternatives: SsonTech's SynthEyes retails for $399, and, in spite of its bargain price, has been used on films as large as King Kong.  Literally.  It was used on King Kong, the film--I'm not trying to say it's been used on "really big" films.  Ahh, film blog humor.  Anyway, start by reading the Matchmoving Demystified feature on DV.com (registration required), and if that piques your interest, then check out Digital Content Producer's review of Matchmoving: The Invisible Art of the Camera.  If you're still interested--and the "for dummies" title of this post is sarcastic--then grab the book and get started.  When it comes to matchmoving, Tim Dobbert's book is the only game in town.