While the vast majority of ProductionCrate assets are available for commercial use, a small selection of our content is subject to editorial use. ProductionCrate assets labelled with an Editorial License fall under different usage terms than assets that fall under our standard license.

These assets may be subject to and protected by another party’s Intellectual Property rights. Permitted use of assets under editorial use in media products is limited to news reporting in productions of cultural, editorial, journalistic, or otherwise newsworthy value, and includes news reporting on television and the internet. This restriction does not apply if you have written consent to use the Other-Party Intellectual Property for your Production, such as if you are the Intellectual Property owner yourself, or an Intellectual Property owner’s advertising team, hired party, or licensee purchasing that company’s product. ProductionCrate does not own or license any other-party intellectual property, nor does it in any way make any representations or warranties about other-party intellectual property associated with media elements. You are solely responsible for determining the need for and, if appropriate, obtaining any needed other-party clearance, consent, or release to use any other-party intellectual property in your productions.

Click here to read the full ProductionCrate membership terms of usage (Enterprise link).

Download a free JPG exporter script for After Effects.

ProductionCrate has released a free JPG exporter for Adobe After Effects, so now it only takes a single click to save and share your art. This script is easy to set up and enhances your ability to work in After Effects.

From mockups to pre-visualizations of new concepts, there are plenty of reasons why you may need to export a still image in JPG from After Effects – and in a short amount of time as well.

Unfortunately, the conventional method of exporting jpg images from After Effects is not only complicated – but it is also unintuitive and a hassle for such a simple task.

But what if we told you that there is a simple way to save jpg images on After Effects?

How to install the aeJPG script for Adobe After Effects

Installation

First, sign up for a free ProductionCrate account. Pro users will be able to access our entire library of 10,000+ VFX, music, sound effects and 3D models.

Next, download and place the script in your After Effects Scripts UI folder:

Windows:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 2023\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels\
Mac:
Applications/Adobe After Effects 2023/Suppport Files/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels/

Relaunch After Effects, and go to Windows -> aeJSX. Once you click this, the script interface will appear. You can position and slot this anywhere into your existing layout for your convenience.

When clicking on the panel’s menu, by enabling Small Tabs in the settings, you’ll be able to make this interface even smaller.

Creating the template

Before you can export JPG images, you will need to create a template with your preferred JPG settings.

Go to Edit -> Templates -> Output Module

In the pop-up window, click “New”, and set the format to JPEG Sequence. You may also set the compression strength in the format options.

Click “OK”, and rename the output template to “JPG”.

Once that’s ready, click “OK”. You’re now ready to go!

How to Quickly Export Still Image From After Effects?

We believe that exporting a single from After Effects should be a quick and simple process – which is why we’ve introduced our own free image exporter script for Adobe After Effects, called aeJPG.

What is aeJPG? Ae JPG is a simple script that you can download from ProductionCrate and use to export JPG images from After Effects in less than a second.

There are plenty of other reasons why you should consider hitting download on our free script for exporting still JPG images from After Effects.

This After Effects Image Exporter Script is Free

Not only does our ae JPG script save you from having to perform a lengthy process only to get a simple JPG image, but it is also completely free to download and use!

Our aim is to make things more convenient for artists so that the lengthy image exporting process on Adobe After Effects isn’t an obstacle in the way – especially when you’re working on a project that has to be wrapped up within a set time limit.

So, if you haven’t already, visit this link to download the ae JPG script for free.

No more screenshots

Ever tried to hastily take a screenshot of your project, only to get a blurred downscaled image with cropped edges? This After Effects image export script is the perfect alternative.

Downloadable in Every Version of After Effects

Wondering if our script will work on the version of After Effects that you work on? Keeping both our beginners and professionals in mind, we’ve made sure to keep this simple – yet useful still image exporter for After Effects – available on all versions of After Effects starting from version 14.2.1 (2017) and beyond!

This makes our free ae JPG script accessible to almost all Adobe After Effects users and does not require you to get the latest version of After Effects.

Send Work Progress to Clients in Seconds

We’ve all dealt with clients who demand work updates every few hours to make sure that progress is being made on the project.

This can become even more frustrating when you have to deal with the added extended time that it takes to export a still image from After Effects using the conventional method provided by the software.

Luckily, with our free ae JPG script, you can shorten the time it takes to export still JPG to less than a second.

Make Comparing Between Variations of an Asset Simple

Why spend a long time exporting an MP4 file to compare different variations of an asset when you can export stills from After Effects in seconds to achieve the same purpose?

Our ae JPG script makes it easy for you to go through your footage and save a still of your choice in seconds! All it takes is two clicks, and the still JPG will appear in your folder automatically.

Create Youtube Thumbnails in Adobe After Effects

With this script, you can use your existing video footage to export a still JPG in seconds and then bring that still over to another software such as Adobe Photoshop to work on. This means that you can perform all your tasks of exporting still images from After Effects for YouTube thumbnails or video frames all within the software without a convoluted messy process.

Export High-Quality Still Images from After Effects

One of the biggest reasons why you should download the free ae JPG script to shorten the time it takes to export a still image from After Effects is the fact that you get a final-render quality JPG image exported instantly.

Our script was made to automatically export JPG images from After Effects without you having to provide additional instructions.

JPG is the recommended format for most larger and more detailed images as it intelligently compresses it to a manageable size – making the loading, exporting and sending time faster without significantly reducing the quality of the image.

The JPG format makes our free JPG exporter for After Effects script convenient in terms of time-saving when exporting high-quality still images from After Effects.

Start exporting JPG images from After Effects today!

If you want to switch to the two-click method of exporting JPG image from After Effects, then download our free ae JPG script today!

Download free space HDRI images for your 3D VFX project here.

ProductionCrate has released an incredible bundle of 100 space and atmosphere HDRIs for you to use in your 3D digital art and VFX. 10 of these are available to download for free today, and only require you to sign up for a free ProductionCrate account.

Getting to space in your 3D renders can be the most visually rewarding project an artist can work on. Capturing the grand curvature of the earth, the vast atmospheric clouds and endless stars in the sky serve as the best background in the universe, and now you’ll be able to access it for free. The free HDRI’s include:

Orbital 46 – Sunset
Orbital 45 – Sunset
Orbital 40
Orbital 38
Orbital 35
Orbital 34
Orbital 30 Sunset
Orbital 29 Sunset
Orbital 14
Orbital 10 Sunset

These free space HDRI’s are ready to download in 16K resolution, making their resolution perfect for cinematic renders that demand a high texture quality.

Download Earth from Space HDRI environment images

If you’ve worked in 3D artwork, you’ll most likely be familiar with HDRI images. These are specialized images that are designed to contain all of the information to illuminate a 3D scene. This is achieved by representing the colour and intensity of light coming from every direction and is used by a rendering engine to integrate a 3D object into the environment contained in the HDRI image. HDRI images are one of the foundations of all VFX projects, as lighting your 3D models to match the lighting of background footage is crucial to achieving a photorealistic result.

In this example, the spaceship illumination is automatically prepared, as the HDRI image contains a bright sun, as well as a soft blue light beneath (representing the light reflected from the planet).

Capturing HDRI images is a tedious process. First, a camera will be positioned in the expected location of the 3D object (so that the light being captured accurately represents the conditions expected). By taking several photographs at varying exposures, it’s possible to avoid the clipping seen if a photo contained a shadow and the sun in the same frame. By doing this, the multiple images can be “stacked” together, with an algorithm automatically identifying which exposure levels contain the most information for each area of the picture. Additionally, the exposure information is embedded into the final result, meaning that while typical images have brightnesses ranging from 0 – 1, our combined “high dynamic range” image may spread from 0 – 1,073,741,824 (based on the OpenEXR specification). This process is repeated with the camera rotating enough times to capture 360 degrees of imagery, creating a spherical photo similar to those you encounter in Google Street View. The end result is an image that can be wrapped around an environment, projecting its light into a scene exactly how it would do in the real world.

While the process of creating these can be a laborious technical obstacle, the end result is an asset that can be added to any 3D scene instantly. This is why we created these space HDRI images, simulating an accurate appearance of the Earth from space for you to download now!

Granted, we did not go to space to capture these images, however, incredible attention to detail has been carried out to offer the most realistic and spectacular backgrounds for your spaceship scenes. Refusing to accept mediocre results is what pushed us to create truly unique HDRI images that are simply out of this world. In these 16K HDRI space images, you’ll see vast cloud structures, sunsets, physically accurate atmospheric scattering and the arching thin blue line between earth and space.

The 16K resolution of these space HDRI images provides an unparalleled level of detail with minimal impact on performance. Thanks to the high resolution of this environment map, you can zoom in up close to every cloud scattered in the sky with little loss of visual quality. The 360 degrees of content, combined with the 16K resolution, makes this the definitive space environment that offers your camera unlimited freedom of movement. Tilt up, pan left, zoom in, and witness an awe-inspiring view of Earth from space.

With incredible colour and exposure accuracy, anything that you add to your scene will be influenced by the light with pixel-perfect accuracy. Edges on your 3D models, whether it’s a spaceship, astronaut or asteroid, will catch the highlights of the blazing bright sun. Swathes of blue light received from Earth’s vast atmosphere provide vibrant fill light, softly illuminating the underside of your models. The pitch-black darkness of empty space will create unbeatable contrast and shadows. All of these features combined replicate the iconic lighting seen in space scenes from Star Wars, Gravity and Interstellar.

How to create a Space Scene in Blender

Adding space HDRI images to your 3D scenes is much simpler than you would expect. In most software, such as 3ds Max, Maya and Cinema4D, you first create a Sky or Dome light source. This sets up a source of light that comes toward your scene from every angle. We can then specify what colour each ray of light should be by simply using our space HDRI images as a texture. You may need to set the mapping to “spherical” so that it interprets the image’s coordinates correctly.

To create the space scene in Blender, you will first navigate to the Shading window. By changing your output from Object to World, you will be able to manipulate Blender’s background. Start by adding an Environment Texture node and use the file explorer to navigate to your downloaded space HDRI image. Once the Color output of the Environment Texture node is connected to the Background node, your HDRI image will be ready!

For best results, making your spaceship’s surface metallic and reflective will create the most immersive appearance. Seeing the reflections of Earth on the panels and details of your ship is an excellent way to tie the foreground and background of your artwork together, making them feel like one cohesive scene. Creating a bloom effect will also help the brightest parts of your image, such as the sun, appear to interfere with the lens for a truly photographic appearance.

Likewise, it is recommended to adjust the exposure and saturation of the space HDRI to steer your scene towards realism or stylized. Adding a bloom effect, which is built into Eevee’s rendering engine, is an easy way to simulate the bright lights of space bleeding through the camera lens.

ProductionCrate’s Youtube channel has uploaded a detailed tutorial on how to create space scenes in Blender. David presents several additional tricks that will then take your render to the next level, such as additional bounce lighting, bloom and how to customize the color of the planet.

If you need assets to populate your space scene with, ProductionCrate has a collection of free 3D spaceship models for you to explore. Additionally, our library of assets hosts astronauts, aliens, robots, asteroids, and other 3D models that are easy to download, set up and render.

Additionally, graphicsCrate hosts a unique collection of Nebula effects that can be added onto these space HDRI images for an incredible backdrop to your planet.

ProductionCrate is excited to see what you will be able to create with these free planet HDRI images. Whether you’re working on a blockbuster space film or a music video aiming to push the limits of creativity, ProductionCrate is here to make it possible.

Want to explore more content? Check out our entire collection of HDRI imagery here!

Download a free Light Wrap plugin for Adobe After Effects here

ProductionCrate has released a free light wrap plugin for Adobe After Effects! It is available to download now. Crate’s Light Wrap fixes one of the biggest obstacles any VFX artist faces, how to cleanly and easily composite in After Effects. We made it specifically for use alongside the VFX Assets available at FootageCrate, but it works perfectly for any compositor’s needs.

What is a light wrap?

Light-wraps are an effective and underutilized technique that improves the realism of a compositor VFX. These simulate the apparent diffusion of extremely bright lights around a foreground, helping to integrate the composited layer into the background. This visually blends the two different layers, creating a cohesive unified final image.

When should I use a light wrap?

Light wraps are commonly used against bright backgrounds, skies, fire video effects and any other intense sources of illumination. This can be added with the motivation of improving the realism of a scene, as a bright source of light (such as an explosion) will carry excessive luminant energy that leaks into adjacent pixels. This means that when a particular area of an explosion is being obscured by a foreground, its colors may still influence the pixel’s final output due to bloom, illumination and fog scattering.

An artist may also want to add a light-wrap for stylistic purposes to visually exaggerate the intensity of a source of light. For example, a dragon breath can be given a stronger light wrap to communicate its deadly heat; or the opening doorway of a UFO blinding the onlookers to reinforce their mysterious nature. Digitally, a pixel can only reach a maximum luminance of 1 (white), so to create a sense of limitless intensity, the implied brightness is reinforced by a light-wrap.

How to create a light wrap in After Effects

Crate’s Light Wrap generates light-wraps at blazing fast speeds. While most light-wrap After Effects tutorial videos require a dozen individual steps to complete, Crate’s Light Wrap generates these optical effects instantly.

Begin by installing the plugin to your Windows or Mac plugin directory:
Windows:      Extract plugin to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Common\Plug-ins\7.0\MediaCore
Mac:                Extract plugin to Applications/Adobe After Effects/Plug-in

Open Adobe After Effects, and in your composition, identify your background (the source of light) and the foreground (what the light-wrap will interact with).

The plugin then requires you to pre-compose these two layers, so that they can be correctly aligned. Once that’s done, apply Crate’s Light Wrap to your foreground layer.

• Background Layer – Use this to select the source of your light wrap.
• Background blur – Blur the background before the light-wrap is generated to help smooth out colors.
• 
• Wrap Width – How far into the foreground the light-wrap extends
• 
• Exposure – Controls how bright the light-wrap is
• Blend mode – Choose between several different ways for the light-wrap to transfer onto the image
• Tint/Color – Increase the saturation of the light wrap
• 
• Luminance Bias – Use this to control how much influence the foreground’s luminance has on the intensity of the light wrap
• 
• Bias Exposure – Adjust the luminance bias matte’s brightness
• Bias Gamma – Adjust the luminance bias matte’s contrast
• Auto Detect Gamma – Allow the plugin to guess the best color management settings for your project
• View – Change how the light-wrap is output to the layer.
• Premult background – Before the light wrap is processed, premultiply the background so that anything directly behind the foreground does not contribute to the glow.
• 

The great way to build a free light wrap in After Effects is to duplicate the foreground layer and apply the light wrap with the “View” set to “Wrap Solo”. By setting the blending mode to “Add” or “Screen”, you will have a separate light wrap layer that is available for even more artistic control. For example, you can add a Curves layer to enhance a specific color, or control exactly where the light wrap is applied with a feathered mask.

Light-wraps in After Effects work best when working in a 32-bit project with an sRGB linear workspace. This provides the most accurate color behaviours, which is especially important in the context of light-wraps. By utilizing a linear workflow, bright highlights in your backgrounds (whether from a sunset, or a bright energy blast) will create the correct intensities and falloffs in your foreground. We recommend using this for professional use.

This free light-wrap plugin in After Effects is ideal for compositing green screen footage. When shooting inside a green screen studio, the lighting conditions are unlikely to match the complex lighting arrangements of the intended background. Using a lightwrap helps to carry your foreground elements coloring closer to what is expected to be seen if the actor was really in the artificial scene.

Light-wraps can also work inversely, adding CG elements to real-world footage. Most 3D rendering software are unable to produce the phenomena that are responsible for a light-wrap, and so in the compositing stage, a light wrap is often required to seamlessly integrate the 3D model into the scene. This makes ProductionCrate’s free light-wrap plugin a powerful and attractive addition to users of Blender, Cinema4D and Houdini.

Crate’s Light Wrap Requirements

• AE CS6 and newer
• MacOS 11.3 or newer
• Windows 7 or newer

• GPU required (integrated GPU such as Intel Iris supported)
• Apple Silicon native. Older mac’s (~2013) with Nvidia cards may not work

This plugin cannot be re-shared, distributed or provided anywhere else without our expressed permission. Contact Support@ProductionCrate.com for any questions. Articles, blogs and videos promoting this free plug-in are encouraged. You are free to use any of our media elements in your promotions, reviews or edits.

Interested in more free plugins? Check out our free Godrays plugin here.

Download 4K Spark VFX assets here.

ProductionCrate has updated its VFX asset library, with over 250 spark effects now available to download and use in any personal or commercial project.

The addition of sparks in explosions, bullet impacts and crashing cars undeniably intensifies the visual spectacle of an action sequence.

Blazing trails of burning hot embers provide incredible contrast and detail, enriching a scene with its turbulent chaotic appearance. They are the icing on the cake of any pyrotechnic special effects and have become a go-to ingredient for many filmmakers to make their action-packed films memorable. Spark effects, when used well, can often elevate a scene to an iconic level, with Michael Bay taking the spotlight in; Transformers, 6 Underground and Pearl Harbor.

“The pyrotechnicians were having fun on this one!” Chris Kelly recalls, while reviewing the footage, “They kept saying things like ‘Oh, I didn’t expect that to happen’ or ‘let’s see what it looks like if we combine these two!’ clearly having a lot of fun. We got some great content out of it that would be nearly impossible to recreate.”

For visual effects artists, sparks offer an avenue for enhancing the realism of explosions and destruction simulations. Using these effectively tackles the challenge of digitally replicating the imperfect chaotic behaviour of explosions seen in the real world. While artists familiar with Houdini are capable of creating spark simulations, this task requires countless hours of R&D and rendering. Using live-action stock footage VFX elements allows editors to immediately apply authentic sparks to their video within minutes; making it an effective solution for projects facing a deadline.

By browsing ProductionCrate’s library of stock footage spark elements, you can instantly preview exactly what each file contains. With the vast selection available to download, you’ll identify the perfect spark effect that your project needs. Whether you need a brief bullet impact, or a star-wars style death star explosion, ProductionCrate aims to cover all creative requirements

These stock footage elements are meticulously prepared by carefully calibrating the recorded footage from the studio. This is done to meet the several requirements for creating professional VFX assets that are ready to be used in feature films, music videos and games. ProductionCrate ensures that all of its content is delivered with these consistent and reliable standards.

4K video resolution gives these video assets a greater range of flexibility. With this, you’re free to position any 4K spark asset around your composition whilst retaining incredible visual quality. The freedom to scale up, rotate and position the spark asset anywhere in the scene without introducing pixelation makes this worthy of even high-end projects exported at a high resolution. This 4K resolution is also crucial to match the realism of the original background footage, allowing artists to naturally integrate this into scenes effortlessly.

The spark VFX assets were recorded at 96FPS on 2 RED cameras. This high framerate captured all of the incredible behaviours seen in sparks, including crackling microbursts, rapid embers bouncing against surfaces, and the explosive initial blast during ignition. To achieve a greater sense of scale, these spark assets are being delivered at 30FPS. These pyrotechnic explosion effects now appear to be several metres high, making them suitable for large car explosions, missile impacts and exciting car chases. To convert these spark effects back to real-time speeds, set their framerate to 96FPS, or adjust the speed to 320%. Slowing down the sparks even further will make them appear even larger in size.

“Our top priority is for these to be composited in seconds, without any technical knowledge or refinement required”, David Blaker explains whilst demonstrating how effortless ProductionCrate has made the process. “It’s really important for us to know that any artist can use these without further instructions, no matter if they’re editing a gunfight or a space battle”.

A huge contributing factor to the quality of these assets comes from the clean-up process. The footage has been thoroughly processed to remove artefacts, background elements, inconsistencies, unfavourable behaviours and various other corrections; providing a clean and polished VFX asset that exclusively features the essential sparks. Further processing has been accomplished to perfectly eliminate any hard edges on the edge of the frame – no sparks will be immediately cut off as they fly out of the footage. This especially helps when the spark effect has been positioned far from the camera or scaled down until edges become visible. Wherever you position your effect, you will have confidence that it will just work with no hassle.

Some assets are designed to fill the entire screen as overlays, whose borders have not had feathering applied. This can easily be re-applied by adding a mask around the edges and feathering the edges to achieve a soft blend.

Complex chemical reactions and the black body spectrum cause real-world sparks to radiate a vast array of colors. It is fair for anyone to assume that sparks simply glow a hot firey yellow. But once observing the pyrotechnic explosions taking place up close, Chris decided it was important to preserve the unique oranges, reds, greens and yellows in the final assets. The imperfections in how sparks are illuminated offer unprecedented realism that is difficult to achieve digitally. However, it is possible to use the tint effect to easily adjust the color of your sparks to match a red sci-fi laser blast or a green magic spell.

During the production of these assets, several categories were produced, each featuring a diverse range of spark behaviours. ProductionCrate aims to meet the requirements of any scene imaginable, and so ambitiously build the largest variety of spark asset styles to date. These include:

Spark burst VFX

These spark explosions are perfect for impactful energetic events. Typically beginning with a sudden expansion of red hot embers, before rapidly decelerating from dragging through the air, the dynamic character of these spark VFX assets make them a favorite of the collection.

Careful adjustments were made to these spark burst stock footage elements to ensure that they worked as modular effects. The timing of all the bursts synced with the first frame, allowing mashups of several spark burst effects to be as easy as stacking the clips together.

Large aerial variations are available that have the iconic appearance of the classic death star explosion. These may also be used for various air-burst effects, such as helicopter explosions, asteroid collisions or electricity pylon destruction.

Ceiling spark VFX

Featuring falling sparks and embers, the ceiling sparks give artists flexibility in the placement of their pyrotechnics. Perhaps an incandescent light bulb is exploding due to a power surge, or chaos is unfolding on the engineering deck of the USS Enterprise. Use these spark video effects to add drama to your music video; saving the need to purchase expensive pyrotechnics and follow complicated safety requirements.

Various ground interactions have been included in several of these spark special effects. Sparks bouncing and breaking apart as they collide with these surfaces create a spectacular appearance that once again is very difficult to replicate in a digital simulation. The illumination cast onto the ground by the sparks has also been retained, helping artists seamlessly blend the falling sparks into their footage.

Bullet impact VFX

Quick and easy to composite, these bullet impact VFX stock footage elements are the go-to for building an action scene. These bullet impact effects feature sudden explosive bursts of sparks that rapidly dissipate in the air as they spread out, providing a visual punch that elevates the intensity of a shot.

These can be used for far more than just bullets; artists can creatively insert these into sword clashes, car crashes, robot fist-fights and laser impacts. With over 100+ bullet impact effects available on ProductionCrate, compositors will never run out of variety when using this in a climatic thriller setpiece.

Constant sparks effects

Perfect for factories filled with heavy industrial machinery, these constant spark effects feature a constant directional stream of sparks. Rapidly discharging from their source, the constant spark stock footage is perfect for creating train-derailment wreckage or intense rocket thruster flames. Multiple durations of these are available to download, ranging from one to ten seconds.

Wild sparks effects

Miscellaneous setups were recorded, often purely experimentally to see what interesting things would happen. One pyrotechnic had the idea to hang a spark gerb on the end of a loose rope. The thrust created caused the spark emitter to fly around wildly, creating a chaotic and exciting effect that Chris decided to keep. Another shot saw a firecracker let loose, detonating several times around the ground. Various setups such as these were processed and included in this spark VFX bundle to offer fun options that can not be found elsewhere, and ProductionCrate is eager to see how these are used in projects.

Charges

These speciality spark effects feature a rapid discharge of an explosive fuse. Useful in planned demolitions, heists and SWAT ambushes, these charges often follow the geometry of interior surfaces, such as floors and doors.

How to add spark VFX to your video

ProductionCrate promises to provide assets that are compatible with the most diverse range of video editing software. Multi-layer compositing software is recommended for the best experience, such as Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Hitfilm, Nuke and Davinci Resolve. These VFX editing programs allow anybody to perform a vast range of creative adjustments to meet your artistic vision.

For this tutorial, we will be using Adobe After Effects, although the principles can be replicated in any editing software. Begin by adding the background image or video to the composition, with this particular background being sourced from Pexels.

Once you’ve browsed ProductionCrate’s collection of 4K spark VFX assets and found your perfect pyrotechnic, download the effect and import it to your project. From here, you will be able to insert the effect onto your footage simply by layering it over your background.

If you have downloaded a pre-keyed version of a spark effect, you’ll immediately see the results. You may experiment with different blending modes, such as Add, Lighten and Screen, each affecting the behaviours of colors differently. David used Lighten, allowing the darker red tones in the sparks to remain visible against the bright background.

Depending on the geometry of your scene, you may need to mask out any objects that should be obscuring the sparks. In David’s case, the platform of the train station confines the spark explosion to a smaller size, and so with two subtraction masks, we can account for this.

At this stage, you may already be happy with the quality of your spark VFX! The process of adding Hollywood-grade spark VFX only takes a few seconds with the power of pre-keyed stock footage elements. You’re now free to combine the sparks with even more elements, such as smaller bursts, falling embers and explosions. Additionally, you can color correct your sparks to match the tone and temperature of the scene.

If you’re working on a commercial or professional film, you may want to elevate the quality of your work with an additional reflection layer. If you’re unsure whether this is worth it, check out the comparison down below. Reflections offer an additional layer of scene interaction that visually integrates your spark stock footage into the environment. While most composited VFX requires a shadow, illumination effects such as sparks require the opposite, as their light is expected to illuminate surfaces in close proximity.

Begin by duplicating the effect, and flipping it vertically. Already you’ll see that we’ve taken the first step in creating a fake reflection.

Clearly, this does not look correct – in the real world, we expect reflections to be darker on rougher surfaces. We will need an additional layer to inform the reflection layer on how bright it should be, otherwise known as a Matte. Copy the background footage, and name it something appropriate. You may precompose any layers if you need to perform additional masking or positioning.

In your spark reflection layer, add an exposure effect. This helps you adjust the strength of the reflection. A color filter effect will allow you to intensify the coloring of the reflection, as the washed-out white colors in a spark effect may in reality be really bright orange. The final ingredient is the Set Matte effect. When using the background matte layer’s luminance values, we’re approximating the brightness of the reflection based on the brightness of the background. A great example of this in action is on the metallic rail tracks – its bright appearance in the photo indicates that it is a reflective surface, and so we want this to greater influence the opacity of the spark reflection.

Depending on the roughness of your ground, it can be useful to blur the reflection sparks before these effects are applied. This helps evenly distribute the intensity of the light, simulating the  the bumps, crevices and dented surfaces that break up the reflected light.

Those are the main principles that create an incredible spark explosion effect. You can improve this effect even further with the addition of glow effects, smoke, lingering flames and debris. You can find these additional effects and thousands more in ProductionCrate’s library of 10,000+ assets.

ProductionCrate is excited to see what content artists around the world are able to create with this new collection.

Download ProductionCrate’s media kit for the Spark VFX collection here.

Download the free photorealistic 3D castle kit for your 3D projects here.

For a limited time, you can access an incredible 3D castle kit to use in your projects with no price at all. With over 60+ unique modular 3D assets, this pack provides an unlimited degree of freedom to create the perfect medieval empire.

We value the countless benefits of modularity for packaged 3D content. This takes away the tedious time-consuming work of creating every single wall, doorway and window by hand. Instead, you’re provided with easy to use inter-compatible assets; leaving you only with the task of piecing together your artistic vision. Do you need a tall castle? Just duplicate the available modules and stack them up! Do you want your castle to circle around your kingdom? Pick your module and duplicate it with an array! The possibilities are endless.

The kit includes three main categories of content, each featuring a diverse range of incredible 3D models to help you construct any castle imaginable.

Castle Structure 3D Models

These are the backbones of your fortresses. Spanning from small humble homes to enormous palaces, you’re in total control over the composition of your kingdom. Each of them carries a unique style to offer you the freedom to go down any direction you wish to take. You can combine the large circular kingdom with the irregular sprawling tower to create an even more sophisticated arrangement; there’s no limit to how far these castles can grow.

Churches, cathedrals, manors and mansions are part of the medium-scale structures found in this category. These fit perfectly in the areas surrounding your castle, however, you are free to seamlessly merge these with the main body of the castle for further customization. Despite them being smaller in size, you’ll find the detail in the geometry and textures are of unbelievable quality for a free asset.

This collection has been pre-built using the 3D models found in the Castle_Components file, which features a large array of various components such as castle windows, castle doors, chimneys, balconies, rooftops and walls. By using the highly detailed premade castle structures, you’ll be saving yourself the trouble of assembling the 3D castle models from scratch.

For maximum flexibility, these buildings have been designed to appear special from every angle. This allows you to rotate, scale and position multiple copies of the same castle structure while avoiding introducing any visual repetition. No longer are you faced with the artificial appearance seen in many 3D renders, your castles will feel natural and built from the ground up with originality in every corner.

Not only are we including the most impressive large-scale castle structures, but to cover the surroundings of your kingdom we built out several small 3D medieval homes. Fit for a peasant, these 3D medieval houses feature wooden doorways, a selection of windows, a tiled rooftop and even a chimney.

From the beginning, we understood the importance of designing these to be friendly towards procedural city generation. By following a style that found the perfect balance between uniqueness and similarity, these medieval homes can be instanced thousands of times and produce a city that feels truly authentic. The minimal geometry combined with the high level of texture detail makes this the perfect model to use in your medieval city; maximising visual quality while minimising the impact on performance both in the render and while using the viewport.

Scattering and instancing is a common practice found in many 3D software, such as Blender, 3ds Max, Cinema4D and Maya. This takes in a selection of objects and duplicates them on the surface of another. In the case of a 3D digital medieval city, we would want the surface to be a large landscape in the form of a 2D plane. Setting your desired number of feudal houses to a high value such as 3,000 will immediately and automatically place this many buildings around your scene.

Advanced implementations such as Blender’s geometry nodes will provide a multitude of precise controls to fine-tune your scattering. You can control the variation in size, rotation, scale and even introduce advanced filters to break up the uniformity by adding clusters of large-scale buildings, or even trees. All of the exposed parameters can immediately change the way your city is generated, allowing you to identify the perfect settings for your artwork’s vision.

Castle Wall 3D Models

No kingdom is safe without an impenetrable range of defences around it. Taking inspiration from real-world castles walls, we’re offering the most versatile medieval castle wall kit you’ll ever need.

The castle wall category features three different styles of walls. Firstly, a plain and minimal wall featuring a basic walkway across the top, providing suitable defence for any small town or village. Additional wooden fortifications are the highlight of the second option, making it a great choice for a new settlement or a town in the middle of a forest. The closed roof gives this wall extra height and stands out from the rest. Thirdly, a reinforced medieval wall with strengthened columns of brick lining the outside. Shadows cast by this depth-filled wall structure make it the perfect companion for large scale castles and kingdom walls. Each theme then itself has a counterpart that includes a castle entrance, such as wooden gates or a metal portcullis.

Along the top of the castle wall 3D models are an array of parapets, strategically placed for soldiers to hide behind when sheltering from projectiles. Your army of archers can line up along the top of these walls and fire their arrows down into the oncoming army. Additional battlements, such as arrowslits, are textured into the walls to offer phenomenal realism and detail into your 3D castle siege diorama.

Piecing these together has been designed to be an effortless process akin to building a model railway. Simply slot together the tileable castle wall 3D models, and duplicate your pieces endlessly to create any perimeter required. Each vertex of the 3D medieval wall assets is targeted precisely to match the adjacent piece, leaving you with a perfectly sealed model. Each theme features a set of three angle variations: a straight wall, a 45-degree bend and a 90-degree bend. This delivers exceptional flexibility when it comes to expanding your castle walls to perfectly fit your landscape.

We recommend duplicating the straight castle walls into a long array, and using a modifier to force this long structure to procedurally bend and follow a spline. This spline, unlike the discrete angle variations, can twist, turn and arch with an infinite degree of freedom. Changes made to the spline instantly update the deformed wall structure, making it a powerful solution for medieval map creators.

Castle Tower 3D Models

Add scale to your castle with these versatile castle tower 3D models. These fortified 3D castle turret models come in all shapes and sizes, and help your structures stand out from their surroundings with their immense vertical size. These can be placed inside your kingdom, or even on the walls themselves. Whether you need a dungeon, beacon or watchtower, your needs will be met by choosing from the huge selection of castle tower 3D models.

The free castle turret models come in 3 main categories. Square shaped towers offer brutal sharp minimalistic corners that create impressive shadows in your 3D renders. Round towers offer similar proportions in a circular shape, creating a beautiful gradient between the lit and shaded parts of the tower thanks to the incredibly realistic brick textures. Finally, the largest towers are three times as wide as the others, making them ideal for the central towers within your castle walls.

For maximum blending into your scene, the base of these towers and many other 3D models in this free castle kit are textured with a dirty surface. This helps you integrate it into your scene and not worry about setting up custom decals or ambient occlusion. You only need to worry about the composition of your castle, instead of any technical maintenance.

Texture Variations

To immediately make this pack 4 times greater, we’ve included a set of material options to use in your castle. Immediately change the entire appearance of your 3D castle by swapping in the textures from your favourite set. We’ve included light bricks, brown bricks, dark bricks and old bricks. Each option was photo scanned and processed into photorealistic materials, all featuring metallic, roughness and normal maps at an incredible 8K resolution. The distinct differences between these options make them perfect for establishing a different setting, time period and tone for your 3D artwork; whether you need to portray your castle as a prosperous empire or a dark fortress.

USD Compatible

A new industry standard is arriving that promises to become the next innovation in file sharing. USD, initially developed by Pixar, aims to become the most powerful file format by encoding all the necessary information important to maintaining the integrity of a 3D asset. This information includes scale units, orientation, materials, textures, hierarchy and countless others properties. While USD compatibility is still in development for most 3D software, it’s rapidly evolving and improving in software such as Blender, Cinema4D, Maya and 3DS Max. You’ll immediately notice the benefits of importing through USD by how quickly the process makes your workflow. Just hit import, and your 3D castle will have all materials and textures automatically linked – no need to import a million files by hand!

ProductionCrate endeavours to provide the highest quality 3D models for artists worldwide, enabling unlimited creativity for all. Releasing this incredible castle kit for free is a chance to thank our community for supporting our mission to change digital art forever. We would love to see how you use these, so make sure to tag us on Twitter and Instagram with your artwork.

If you would like to see more 3D model kits, check out our 3D city road kit.

*THIS PLUGIN IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED

Download Crate’s Face Relighter for Pro users here* Windows Compatible Only

When compositing VFX into live-action footage, one thing is absolutely essential to get right – lighting.

This is the most powerful and crucial aspect of blending visual effects into video. When done correctly, replicating the real-world behaviour of light helps convince your viewers that what they’re seeing is real. Because light bounces, scatters and casts shadows in a specific predictable manner, it’s very easy for anyone to identify lighting that doesn’t follow the properties of reality. This is especially the case on human faces, which almost always becomes the focal point of any shot. That is why it’s so important to get it right.

Crate’s Face Relighter aims to revolutionize the face-relighting workflow. We’re offering a powerful AI-assisted After Effects tool that provides a creative new way to illuminate your actor’s faces. This can assist VFX artists to create better muzzle flashes, magic, fire, explosions, holograms, lightsabers and more.

Element3D, a powerful 3D rendering plugin for After Effects, is required for this to work. By leveraging Element3D’s extensive range of creative controls, such as materials, fully-adjustable lighting and pixel-perfect camera integration, we’re able to offer a user experience that you’re already familiar with. You can purchase and install Element3D from VideoCopilot here.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can use Crate’s Face Relighter in After Effects.

Lightsaber VFX

The much-loved iconic plasma blades have always presented the challenge of casting illumination on the hero or villain’s face. Without LED lights lining the length of the laser using an expensive prop, it is notoriously difficult to fake the bright light shining on an actor; a task typically requiring many hours of tedious keyframes and masking.

By using Crate’s Face Relighter, we’re able to represent the laser with a simple After Effects light. You can adjust the properties so that it matches the brightness and color of your desired effect perfectly. From there, our tool will handle the complex illumination of your actor’s face, automatically tracking both the position, orientation and facial structure with near-perfection.

Magic VFX

Magic VFX are some of the most visually spectacular effects that can be produced. Not only is it fun, but it’s as easy as adding our magic stock footage from FootageCrate over your background using a screen blending mode. Combining particles, flames, smoke and plasma can let you produce any imaginable sequence of magic powers: telekinesis, portals, superpowers, teleportation and spells. Once you’re happy with the special effects, you’ll usually need to perform some final compositing corrections, one of these being simulating realistic lighting in your environment.

A great example is if your wizard is summoning a ball of fire. We want this to be an emissive effect, and so it’s imperative that we help improve our compositing by creating fake lighting in the footage. This After Effects extension provides an effortless solution; delivering a responsive and realistic facial light that interacts with the shape of the actor’s face. You can combine lights and color them differently to produce multi-angled illumination for more complex scenes – we aim to avoid any restrictions on your creativity in any way.

Fire VFX

As the VFX industry has grown, using digitally composited fire has become the mainstream choice for most producers in their video projects. Not only is it safer to keep actors away from pyrotechnics, but it is also less expensive and provides the VFX artist with the ability to control the look and behaviour of their fire in post-production. These are highly important benefits to filmmakers, and so you’ll need to be prepared and know how best to create convincing fire. We recommend taking a look at our extensive collection of professional fire stock footage to help you achieve any scene, ranging from small embers to raging infernos.

Ensuring that your digital flames illuminate your footage environment helps elevate your VFX closer to reality. Being able to utilize Crate’s Face Relighter means that the complex shadows from the nose, eyes and lips are correctly produced on an actors face. You can even use After Effects expressions, such as “wiggle(5,30)”, to cause your After Effects lights to flicker, delivering a dynamic lighting setup that can’t be replicated with standard LED lights.

Muzzle Flashes

Muzzle flashes are some of the first steps any VFX artist takes when compositing with live-action footage; and are deceptively difficult to do correctly. While quick muzzle flashes can often be achieved by simply layering some muzzle flash assets in the correct position, a realistic effect fit for a film would typically require the additional effort of illuminating the face of who is firing the gun. By using this tool, you’ll be able to do this quickly – simply animating the opacity of the illumination layer from 0% to 100% every time the muzzle flash is visible. This provides an effective way to speed up your workflow, especially when considering that some muzzle flashes may require hundreds of frames to be relit. You’ll be emphasising the impact and power of the muzzle flash with the light that it emits.

How to relight a face in After Effects for VFX?

To get started, you must have Element3D installed into After Effects, as well as a Pro ProductionCrate membership. Please be aware that this tool is highly experimental, and we cannot guarantee that it will work on your system. We are in no way affiliated with Element3D, and will not be able to provide support for Video Copilot’s product, our face-relighting tool simply uses it for the rendering process.

Once you’ve run our installer, simply open the tool by navigating to Window -> Extensions -> Crate’s Face Relight. We’ve done as much as we can to simplify the workflow using this After Effects extension, and so you’ll only need to perform a few steps!

Input Video – First, select your input video. You’ll require an MP4, MOV or ProRes4444 file.

Output Folder – The tool works by converting an input video file into a 3D OBJ sequence. This contains a 3D mesh of the actor’s face, including their position, orientation and posture, each stored in an individual file for each frame. As you can expect hundreds of files depending on the length of your project, we recommend you create an empty folder to deposit the sequence of files.

Launch App – Once you’re ready, hit “Launch app”. The tool will begin processing your footage frame-by-frame. A black console window may appear, but that’s expected due to how the tool works. You can even look at the files being generated in real-time by visiting your Output folder! If the conversion process gets stuck, it’s likely that no face was detected in a particular frame, in which case you simply click “Force Quit” on the interface.

Element3D – In most cases, this should remain checked. This will simply optimize the output mesh in a way that best works with Element3D.

Cinema4D – Checking this will enable a unique mesh generation mode that keeps each vertex-index consistent on the face. This means that in 3D packages such as Cinema4D, 3ds Max and Blender, it’s easier to attach objects to vertices in the face mesh. To retain the index consistency, the polygons are un-welded. To optimize in C4D simply merge your OBJ sequence, set proper frame-rate, select OBJ mesh and enter Polygon Mode, and with all your polygons selected right click and select Optimize. Download the C4D Template here to have your camera pre-calibrated.

Setup Scene – Once the files have been generated, clicking “Setup Scene” will produce a new composition with several layers included, kickstarting your relighting adjustments.

Before we relight the face, we must first open Element3D. Select layer 7 of your composition, and hit “Scene Setup”.

Once the Element3D interface has opened, hit File -> Import -> 3D Sequence.

A file dialogue will open, navigate to your chosen Output folder, and select the first frame of your sequence (for example, “0000.obj”).

An import preferences panel will appear. Here, you must change “Force Alignment” to “From Model”. This helps the face mesh align itself with the footage. You’re now safe to hit “Ok” and close the Element3D scene editor.

You should now be seeing results!

If your face mesh doesn’t line up quite perfectly, we recommend adjusting the “Zoom” parameter in the composition camera.

We know that artists don’t like being restricted, which is why we’ve ensured that the default preset is as open to interpretation as possible. By clicking the Shy switch above the timeline, you’ll be displayed additional layers which can be adjusted to fine-tune the blending of the light with the face. This includes the luma matte (which sharpens the details of the light), and the feathering system (which gradually blurs the edges of the face illumination layer). Feel free to adjust these however you feel works best for your project!

We’re looking forward to seeing you make use of this face relighting tool in your After Effects VFX project! If you’re interested in our other plugins, scripts and extensions, check them out here.

Download the 3D City Road Models here.

Along every 3D modeller’s journey, there is an attempt to create a 3D city.

Several fatiguing hours later, it becomes clear that this project is no walk in the park. One of the most time-consuming steps in such a project is creating the roads, where everything from pathways, streetlights, curbs, lanes, props and markings have to be taking into consideration. Building a 3D city is a time-consuming endeavour!

We’re offering the most comprehensive solution to 3D roads for your city scenes. This bundle contains over 60+ road modular tiles that can be pieced together instantly, allowing you to construct your cities foundations within minutes instead of weeks. Whether you are producing blockbuster VFX, architectural renders or games, this 3D road kit is for you.

City roads are complex, which is why this bundle contains a vast variety of road types. These come in 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 lane variations, giving you the flexibility to piece together everything from bustling city centres to suburban alleyways. Changing from a 6-lane road to a 4-lane road is as simple as inserting a lane conversion module.

Lanes can also intersect with our 3D crossroad tiles, helping you construct the iconic grid of cities such as New York and Los Angeles. These come with every possible combination of road types on offer, such as 2×2, 3×4, 3×6 and more.

To save you even more hassle, these 3D road tiles have also been constructed with low-poly props such as streetlights, road signs, traffic cones, bus stops, bins and more. This introduces instant depth and detail to bring your city to life.

These are provided in FBX format, helping retain the real-world scale and easy-to-setup materials for your project.

How to use the 3D City Road Kit

After downloading the bundle, import the “RenderCrate-Road_Tiles_Individual_Detailed.FBX” file to your 3D scene. Make sure that your Up direction is set to the Z-axis. If your objects come in flipped at a 90° angle, no worries! Just flip them back upright.

We’ve designed this road kit to fit together seamlessly. You will need to set your 3D scene to “snap” objects into position at units of 3-feet. This is so that when you move your road tiles, they will slot into place at discrete intervals, similar to toy bricks. Just remember to set your units to feet, and your grid to 3-foot spacing. Here are some useful tutorials that cover this in Blender, Cinema4D, and 3ds Max.

The entire collection contains 3 basic materials (Road, Path and Objects). Slot in the photorealistic textures we have provided, and within a minute you will have the entire collection of 60+ tiles sharing the same consistent appearance. This means you can adjust the darkness, reflectivity, glossiness and displacement of the road and have the changes conveniently apply to the entire city.

You should now be able to start copying roads from the neatly arranged collection of modules and piece them together.

3D City Road Preset Models

It doesn’t end there! We’ve included 4 various pre-built city road templates to save you even more time. These come with “building seeds” that can be used to easily scatter buildings in the correct positions. This can be done using a proxy instancer or a particle system, whatever you feel most comfortable with.

To further expand your virtual world, you can check out our highway road modules and various street props.

We’re proud to be building the most comprehensive collection of VFX, sound effects, graphics and 3D models to help you build the impossible. With constant updates to our library of over 10,000+ assets, you can become part of the growing community of creatives improving their projects by joining ProductionCrate today.

Download high-resolution VDB clouds, wisps and atmosphere effects here.

Part of our growing library of 3D assets includes VDB files. But what are VDB files anyway?

Developed by DreamWorks, VDB’s are the CGI industries’ solution to storing three-dimensional grids of data. Each grid cell can contain a range of information, such as temperature, density, velocity and more. This makes it possible to efficiently store complex atmospheric phenomena such as clouds, explosions and even interstellar nebulae.

We’ve created several bundles of professional VDB assets that take your art to the next level. These allow you to join the many artists that are already utilising cinematic atmospheric effects in their projects. In addition to this, you can access our library of over 10,000 VFX, Sound Effects, Music and 3D Models.

This unique file type is not to be confused with polygon-based files, such as OBJ and FBX, which store solid 3D geometry – however, it is possible for these to accurately match the unique appearance of volumetric objects. In CG rendering, when light hits a solid object, the raytraced-path can easily be processed as a single interaction as it reflects from the surface. When entering a cloud, light can scatter erratically, requiring non-trivial approaches to simulate the appearance of the final image, such as ray-marching.

Due to the many ways that these can be rendered, different software and rendering engines have their own implementation of VDB’s. Once you know your software and rendering engine, click on the appropriate link below for their official documentation on how to use VDB files. If your software isn’t listed, there’s a good chance that they have information about VDB’s on their website.

Blender

• Cycles
• Octane

Cinema4D

• Arnold
• Octane
• Redshift
• Vray

3ds Max

• Arnold
• Octane
• Redshift
• Vray

Maya

• Arnold
• Octane
• Redshift
• Vray

Houdini

• Houdini
• Arnold
• Octane

We’re excited to see what you create with our cloud VDB assets. If you want to spice up your renders even further, check out our 4K Dust Overlay stock footage.

Download 3D Missile Models here

Your 3D projects are about to get even more action-packed with these new 3D missile models.

These have been accurately designed to match real-world missiles as precisely as possible. The high-quality 4K textures give the models truly photorealistic detail, allowing you to get up close to the missile while retaining cinematic realism.

You can animate these along spline paths for full control over their motion, making these easy to use in all 3D software packages.

These are provided in .OBJ format with PNG textures to ensure maximum compatibility, whether you are using Blender, Cinema4D, 3ds Max, Maya, Element3D, Houdini and more.

Once the model has been imported to your software, simply add the provided textures to your renderer’s material for stunning photorealistic results.

You can utilize our aerial HDRI imagery to create 360° environments to illuminate your projects.

AIM-7 Sparrow Missile 3D Model

Harpoon Missile 3D Model

Javelin Missile 3D Model

Nuclear Bomb 3D Model

AGM-65 Maverick Missile 3D Model

All users can download the Sparrow missile 3D model for free at full quality. Pro members of the ProductionCrate community can access all 3D assets, as well as 10,000+ more VFX, graphics, music and sound effects from our content library, all at an affordable price. Our constantly growing range of assets is helping creators worldwide build the impossible, no matter what skill level you are at.

In addition to these missiles, you can download our grenade, turrets, bullets and other weapon models to create your ultimate 3D warzone. Combining these with our apocalyptic rubble assets and landscape set extensions provides you with unlimited creativity.

We’re excited to see what projects you create with these 3D missile models!

Sign up to ProductionCrate and start creating today.

Download 4K Explosion Stock Footage VFX here.

Explosion stock footage is the highlight of every artist’s asset collection. That’s why we have released our latest collection of exclusive professional 4K explosion effects for you to add to your video.

Over the 10 years that ProductionCrate has been helping visual creators, we’ve been figuring out what qualities make an explosion effect valuable for our users. We’re confident enough to say that this latest bundle blows our past explosion assets out of the water.

For those who are new here, ProductionCrate is a library of over 10,000+ assets for you to use in your creative projects. Our mission is to give artists the tools needed to realize their full potential. Pro members of the ProductionCrate community can access all of the 4K explosion VFX assets, while free users can access a wide selection of our content for free.

Adrian and Chris are here to give you the finest explosion compositing tutorial in ProductionCrate history.

We provide all of our explosion VFX in several formats.

• Quicktime PNG – Lossless, includes an alpha channel
• ProRes – Widely compatible, includes an alpha channel
• MP4 – Includes a green screen that can be keyed in many editing software
• PNG sequence – Each frame is stored as an individual image

This wide selection of options guarantees compatibility with most editing software, including After Effects, Premiere Pro, Hitfilm and many others. Simply drag and drop the explosion stock footage over the background video in your timeline.

These explosion assets have been designed to be as accessible as possible, so no matter if you are new to editing or a Hollywood professional, these are the right video effects for you. This has been achieved through careful consideration in how smoke and flames blend in with a background image. You’ll notice the power of this immediately when you test it in your projects.

Still to this day, it isn’t surprising when an explosion effect takes several hours to add to your project. You may run into issues such as clipping in the flames, inconsistent framerates, unrealistic appearances and lighting. We’ve eliminated all of these issues and more, so you can focus on making your explosion VFX as epic as possible, while also saving valuable time.

Ground illumination and shading is an essential part of creating an explosion effect. Interaction between the explosion and the ground is what makes VFX work. We’ve created a special ground blending add-on to compliment each new explosion effect.

To use them, simply overlay them over the effect. We recommend that two copies of the layer. One of them set to screen transfer mode, to act as the illumination from the fire. The second set to a multiply transfer mode to create the ambient shadow from the smoke. Adjusting the opacity of these gives you unlimited creative freedom in the look of your explosion.

You’ll be able to download these add-on effects by opening the asset preview and clicking the title on the top of the preview box, and finally clicking the download link.

We’re excited to see the action-packed videos you create with these explosion VFX assets. If you’re interested in more of our content, check out our grenade VFX. 

Download the fire font typography kit here.

Introducing your new favorite font, the Inferno Typekit! This tool is designed to help you create your own intense flaming title animations without any specialist editing knowledge required.

The characters from A-Z are free to download for all users. Pro members of the ProductionCrate community can access the full bundle of numbers, symbols and lowercase letters.

Each character is a separate video file, allowing you to combine them in any arrangement to create the fire text. This allows you to individually manage each letter, giving limitless animation potential.

The most impressive part is that these are all loopable fire video effects. So if your video is a 10-second commercial or an hour-long broadcast, this fire text can be repeated infinitely with perfect seamless transitions. All you need to do is duplicate the fire text and place it directly after the first, transforming them into one consistent animation.

Fire Text Tutorial

For this, we will be using Adobe After Effects. However, the process is incredibly simple and can easily be replicated in your own editing software, whether that’s Hitfilm, Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas. You’ll also need to download our Inferno Typekit here.

One advantage of using Adobe After Effects is that you can download and install our Typekit Script for Pro users. This tool automatically writes the correct text into your composition, however, you can easily drag and position each layer manually. You can run this script by navigating to File -> Scripts -> Run Script File -> TypeCrate.jsx.

Hit the ProductionCrate logo at the top to open your preferences. Here you can press “choose” to navigate to the folder where you have installed your fire Typekit.

You’re now free to type in the text you want to be generated, here I’ll type “Inferno” and press Generate.

It’s as easy as that!

From here we can stylise the effect. I’ll be adding some of our new ember VFX assets which are easily composited with a screen blend mode.

Another effective bundle of assets are the new mini smoke plume video effects which I will once again use a screen blend for. I’ll make a circular mask and feather it so that it appears that the flames are illuminating the smoke.

Adding plenty of glow effects before applying our final colour corrections to the contrast will complete the look of the shot. I used Crate’s Heat Radiation to create the final grading of the flames, as well as some sharpening to enhance the details in the flames.

ProductionCrate’s mission is to help you create the impossible. Join our growing community today to check out over 10,000+ exclusive VFX, sound effects, music, 3D models and tools.

If you’re interested in our other typekits, check them out here!

Ocean Visual Effects

Compositing underwater ocean scenes similar to Aquaman, Jaws and Finding Nemo has become effortless with our range of VFX assets.

Ocean Sound Effects

Enhance the immersion of your ocean scenes with ambient sound effects.

Ocean 3D Models

Bring physically-accurate photorealistic 3D models to your ocean environment for ultimate creative control.

And much more!

Bring physically-accurate photorealistic 3D models to your ocean environment for ultimate creative control.

This diverse range of digital content allows anybody, whether you’re a studio professional or a solo indie developer with little experience, to be able to create the impossible. Your very own ocean scenes are now only a few clicks away. So sign up, and start downloading!

To prove the power of ProductionCrate assets, we put them to the test by creating a large-scale city destruction VFX shot.

ProductionCrate is a library of over 10,000+ professional video effects, stock footage, sound effects and 3D models. You’ll be happy to hear that a lot of these assets are free to download, while Pro users can access the entire library, including 4K assets.

We’re constantly updating our library with new and exciting creative content, such as our most recent bundle of 4K dust and smoke accents.

These have been built in with alpha-mattes using a Quicktime PNG codec so that you simply need to drag and drop this into your project. This, with the different file formats available for you to download, means our VFX assets are compatible with After Effects, Hitfilm, Premiere Pro and more.

Another brand new asset that we used in the shot is our 3D alien spaceship model. This is provided in OBJ format, the most widely supported file type, compatible with Blender, 3ds Max, Cinema4D, Element3D and more.

GraphicsCrate provided a huge level of control for the look of the environment. While video assets are good for explosions and lasers, static graphics can give us the power to add cracks, scorch marks and rubble to our scene.

Here’s the full list of assets we used in this video:

FootageCrate

• Fire Burst VFX
• Smoke Plume VFX
• Smoke Burst VFX
• Laser Bolt VFX
• Ground Debris VFX
• Missile Launch VFX

SoundsCrate

• Explosion Sound Effects
• War Ambience Sound Effects

RenderCrate

• Spaceship and Drone 3D Models

GraphicsCrate

• Crack Textures
• Scorch Mark Textures

You can learn exactly how we built this shot by watching our latest tutorial, which covers several valuable compositing techniques that will improve your skills. Enjoy!

If you’re interested in some fantastic new sound effects for your cinematic trailers, take a look at them here.

No disaster movie is complete without an apocalyptic meteor effect. This Davesplanation breaks down the steps we went through to create our very own asteroid impact using VFX!

This was built using a variety of software and ProductionCrate assets, including:

3D Photoscanned Meteor Model – A high-quality photorealistic asteroid that had been digitally scanned from the real world. You can learn more about these assets in this excellent breakdown video.

Dust and Smoke VFX assets – These were essential in completing the look of the effect, creating a realistic volumetric appearance to the meteor’s impact. Tinting them to match the ground, as well as stacking them several times is all that is required to professionally polish your compositing.

Explosion and Fire Sound Effects – ProductionCrate’s huge selection of sound effects means you will be able to pair the correct audio to your visuals. We layered together several of these to create a dynamic and exciting audio track.

Feel free to check out our 2-minute information-packed video to learn some of the techniques we used.

If you’re interested in learning about how you can create some incredible magic VFX, check out the assets we have recently made for you here. 

Download loopable COVID-19 backgrounds, overlays and effects for your videos here.

We have recently received many requests to help editors create their videos covering the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

In response, we created a brand new collection of assets and stock footage that will help you create your information videos, PSAs, news reports, infographics and more. We have also created 2 unique 3D models of the COVID-19 virus.

These digital assets have been built to save time, as you only need to drag and drop them into your project. This can be done in almost any editing software, such as Premiere Pro, After Effects, Sony Vegas, Hitfilm, Final Cut Pro and more.

To maximize detail, the assets are provided in resolutions ranging from 1080p to 4K, ensuring you maintain a high-quality professional look in your project.

Many of these stock-footage elements are even loopable, meaning they can repeat for an unlimited amount of time without any “cuts” at the end.

3D Artists can access 2 unique COVID-19 virus models here

You can also download the coronavirus videos in 4 different file formats to maximise compatibility including:

• MOV – Maximum quality, with pre-keyed alpha backgrounds for instant application
• .MP4 – Compatible with most software, with a built-in green screen
• ProRes – Best format for Apple devices
• PNG – Individual frames in a file, with pre-keyed alpha backgrounds.

ProductionCrate is a collection of over 10,000 stock video elements, VFX assets, sound effects, 3D models, graphics and more, helping over 700,000 creators like you. Feel free to explore our huge collection of content!

With the help of these stock footage elements, we hope you’ll be able to level-up your projects. We ask you kindly not to spread any misinformation related to COVID 19. Remember to stay safe!

You can also enjoy our recent interview with ShutterAuthority here.

Organise your assets, instantly.

Download 4K Grenade VFX assets for your action movies here.

Grenade props are expensive, especially if they’re only going to appear in your video for a few seconds.

ProductionCrate is a growing library of over 10,000 professional digital assets, here to help save you time and money.

Our newest bundle includes 50+ 4K grenade VFX assets, all ready for you to download and add to your projects without any hassle.

The full range of grenade types included are:

• M18 Smoke Grenade VFX
• M67 Grenade VFX
• M84 Stun Grenade VFX
• Type 97 Grenade VFX
• WW2 M24 Stick Grenade VFX

Several animation types are available in these video effects. This gives you the flexibility to create consistent continuity by editing together several shots from multiple angles.

Grenade Fly-by VFX

These stylish action-packed assets are perfect to create a slow-motion effect.

Their built-in light wrap and adaptive lighting allow them to easily be composited. Contrast and colour correction can then be applied to seamlessly blend the object into your scene. You’ll be amazed at how simple it is to create such an epic shot!

Grenade Landing VFX

A huge portion of this bundle aims to help your VFX interact with the scenery. Realistic lighting and matte-shadows allow effortless integration into your footage. Our large variety of camera angles lets you pick out specifically which one meets your requirements.

Grenade Looping VFX

For unlimited possibilities, these looping grenade video effects give you full control over the speed, position and animation the grenade follows. Feel free to animate them in any direction using keyframes, a tool available in most editing software.

You can also use these to extract still-frames that can be edited into your scene, replacing any need for a real prop.news

How to add grenade VFX to your video

• After downloading the grenade asset that best fits your video, open up your preferred editing software that supports multiple layers. Some examples include After Effects, Premiere Pro, Hitfilm, Nuke and Sony Vegas Pro.
• Import your background footage, which can be a video or still image. You can then position it on the timeline of the video editor.
• Now import the grenade effect, and insert it to the layer above the background. You’ll see your result instantly. With ProductionCrate assets, it’s that simple!

From here you can perform any further colour corrections, such as adjusting the contrast, in order for it to blend into the background better.

We’re very excited to see what action-packed visual effects you can create with these grenade assets. If you want even further control, you can create your own customised animations by downloading our grenade 3D models. 

Download the 4K particle shockwave VFX assets here. 

We’ve expanded our collection of particle shockwave effects, all ready to download and import to your video.

These stylish assets feature sudden radial bursts of wispy smoke, being a perfect addition to your visual effects and motion graphics.

To maximise the detail, the particle shockwaves are available in up to 4K resolution. This allows you to scale and position these effects anywhere in your composition while maintaining high quality.

These are best composited using a screen or additive blending mode. In some of our file formats, the particle shockwaves have the alpha channel built-in. speeding up your compositing workflow.

We provide these in 4 file formats:

• Zipped PNG sequence
• Zipped ProRes
• MOV (PNG)
• MP4

This will allow you to import these particle shockwave effects into almost any video editing software, including After Effects, Hitfilm, Nuke, Vegas Pro and more.

Not only can these be great for motion graphics, but also for visual effects, such as in meteor impacts, sci-fi weapon muzzle flashes, or explosions!

Download these particle shockwave VFX assets today, and access the thousands of other assets available from ProductionCrate’s digital asset library.

If you’re interested in our similar content, check out our magic power accent VFX.

THIS PLUGIN IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects here.

ProductionCrate is releasing a free plugin for Adobe After Effects – Heat Radiation.

We’ve lost count of the number of times that we have added any fire-based effect to our VFX. Maintaining realistic colours is always a challenge for artists, as different fire VFX assets often have different styles that are inconsistent with each other. This is where our After Effects plugin comes in!

This tool is a powerful colouring plugin to help you composite your fire, explosions, lava, stars and anything else that glows hot.

It creates consistent colours which accurately follow the rules of black-body radiation, which defines the properties of light emitted from hot objects.

The results created from plus plugin can then overlay the background footage using a screen or add blending mode.

Here’s how it works:

• Create the input layer. The brightness of the pixels will represent the temperature you believe it should be (for example, a fire input will be brighter than its surroundings).
• In most cases, using a solid-composite effect to avoid the background emitting any light will create desirable results.
• Apply Crate’s Heat Radiation effect! The default values should instantly provide stylish results.
• From here you can further adjust the parameters until you’re happy.

We wanted to design this plugin accurately represent the real world, and so the temperature-based parameters are in Kelvin. This means that you can input measured values and be given colours that you will expect to see.

We’ve extended the limits far enough to reach the surprising phase where the light emitted from a hot object turns blue. This can be useful for plasma, stars, jet-exhausts and more.

Here’s a breakdown of the most useful parameters you will come across in this After Effects plugin:

Max Temperature

This controls the temperature that a white pixel in your input will represent. The minimum temperature will also perform the same, but for the black pixels. You should aim to use temperatures that you expect the scene to have in the real world.

Temperature Offset

This shifts the entire minimum and maximum temperature output by a specified value. It can be useful if you want to increase the overall temperature of a scene.

Gamma

Creates additional contrast and intensity in the result.

Yellow Influence

We recognise that not all black-body emitting objects are perfect, and have included this to allow you to adjust the intensity of the yellow in the output. This is especially useful in flames and explosions.

Black Falloff

The value of the black falloff will define the temperature of a pixel that is at 100% brightness. Anything between this and the Black Point will be linearly interpolated towards 0% brightness.

A useful tip for using this plugin is to apply a curves adjustment before the Heat Radiation effect. This will allow you to precisely control the intensity and contrast of the inputs for quick manipulation of the final output.

Windows Installation

To install the plugin, simply navigate to your Adobe After Effects folder (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC 2019\Support Files\Plug-ins) and insert “HeatRadiation.aex”.

Mac Installation

To install the plugin to a Mac device, locate your Adobe After Effects folder (/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore/ProductionCrate) and insert “HeatRadiation.bundle”.

We hope you enjoy creating even more spectacular projects with this free After Effects plugin. If you’re interested in more content, check out all of our scripts and plugins for Adobe After Effects here.

Download the new bundle of 3D Grenade models here

RenderCrate is making an explosive entrance to the year with the release of 5 grenade 3D models. These include:

• 3D M18 Smoke Grenade model
• 3D M67 Grenade model
• 3D M84 Stun Grenade model
• 3D Type 97 Grenade model
• 3D WWII Stick Grenade model

These have been carefully crafted for immediate realism through the immensely powerful 4K textures built into them. This allows you to get up close to these assets while also maintaining a photorealistic render.

The assets in this bundle are provided in FBX, as well as OBJ format, meaning these objects will be compatible in Blender, Cinema4D, 3ds Max, Maya, Element3D and many other 3D editing software. Using the FBX format will allow you to import the 3D grenade model with most of the material-setup already complete, simplifying your workflow and saving you valuable time.

Texture maps we have included are:

• Grenade Albedo/Diffuse texture map
• Grenade Ambient Occlusion texture map
• Grenade Height/Bump texture map
• Grenade Metallic texture map
• Grenade Normal texture map
• Grenade Roughness texture map

This utilises PBR based materials, ensuring that the result is as high-quality as possible.

We have also split the mesh up into its individual components. This gives you the freedom to individually animate the different segments of the grenade, such as the safety-pin and lever.

RenderCrate is our collection of 3D assets to help artists create better digital environments. Our growing library is here for you, so feel free to explore the rest of our 3D weapons category!

We’re excited to see what you create with these 3D grenade models. If you’re interested in learning about more content, check out our fully rigged shark model. 

Download the HD/4K Debris VFX Elements here.

Destruction is one of the cornerstones of action VFX. While destroying things in real life may be fun, the movie-making industry has been shifting towards the CGI approach. We’re here to help you do exactly that.

ProductionCrate has just released a collection of professional-quality 4K debris explosion assets. These action effects are packed full of detail, ensuring you’ll be able to create the finest VFX instantly!

These destruction assets all include an alpha channel and built-in shadows, meaning that no green-screen keying is required to achieve transparency. This allows you to drag and drop the effects onto your project and have it blend in for unbeatable results.

They also all stay completely within frame. This means you can scale, position and rotate these debris VFX assets anywhere in the scene without any visible borders, an issue which is often seen from other stock footage sources.

Compositing destruction and explosion effects digitally allowed us to do things that practical effects cannot, such as being able to precisely control the final look even after we’ve shot our footage!

So how do you create and use the debris VFX? In a mini tutorial, let’s take a look at an example of how you can use these to achieve Hollywood level special effects instantly:

Our background (from Pexels.com) is an example of what scenes work best with these assets. We recommend a concrete surface as the ground, but you can easily use other surfaces such as brick, sand or dirt.

You’ll then want to pick your debris VFX assets from our effect library. Try to select ones that best match the lighting and perspective of your scene. For example, the one we are going to use will match the sunlight coming from the side in our background image.

If you know you need even more content in your scene, feel free to also explore the wide range of content we provide that will also help you composite your VFX. We have over 10,000 to choose from, ranging from fire, smoke, explosions and more… (A lot of them are also free to download!).

In your preferred editing software, such as Adobe After Effects, Hitfilm or Premiere Pro, position your downloaded content onto your background. I recommend you also flip the assets horizontally if needed to precisely match the shadows of the scene.

Incredibly, the only step left to do is to colour correct the asset! This is important as it will allow the chunks of rock in the debris asset to look like they come from the ground being obliterated.

A powerful tool is to use a curves effect. Cycle through each of the RGB channels, carefully adjusting the controls until the colours match perfectly.

Did you notice how easy that was? This should prove just how effective our high-quality debris assets will be in your VFX editing workflow.

From here, you can further make enhancements such as masking out the foreground to fully integrate the effect into your scene.

We are really excited to see what you create with these! If you’re interested in more compositing tutorials, check out our helicopter VFX assets.

Download the Photorealistic Office Furniture and Equipment 3D models here. 

We’ve built an exciting asset library of 18 high-quality 3d models designed to help you create digital office environments.

Many 3D artists may need to create an interior scene, but face the tedious task of creating each accessory that fits inside. That is why these 3D models are the ultimate time-saving bundle to instantly push your project forward, so you can spend more time working on what really matters in your scene.

Free members of the ProductionCrate community can download a selection of these models, while Pro members have access to the entire library. On top of this, Pro users can download 10,000+ assets from our entire library of content, including more 3D models, visual effects, graphics and sound effects.

Each office 3D model is built with versatility in mind, ensuring each of the designs are generic enough to seamlessly integrate with your scenes.

Included in the office collection is:

• 3D Office Chair model – black, red, blue
• 3D Desk model
• 3D Filing Cabinet model
• 3D Whiteboard model
• 3D Desktop Computer model
• 3D Computer Monitor model
• 3D Keyboard model
• 3D Computer Mouse model
• 3D Mug model – red, white, filled, unfilled
• 3D Paper Coffee Cup model – 4 variations

These model’s have been scaled to real-world size. This will allow you to easily integrate these into your scenes with instant realistic proportions.

Our 3D office furniture models have been thoroughly tested to ensure maximum realism and ease of use. Simply apply the textures provided in the download to your material, and make any further customisations to reach your desired look.

If you’re interested in more 3D models, we invite you to explore the rest of our RenderCrate library, a growing collection of premium 3D models that will help propel your art to the next level!

Download ProductionCrate’s Updated EASY GLOW Plugin for After Effects & Premiere Pro

(NO LONGER SUPPORTED) Download the Free After Effects Glow Script here

Believe it or not, there’s a lot that goes into a good glow effect! I’m overly passionate about this particular topic, and would happily spend hours fine-tuning each little pixel of my glow to make sure it makes my VFX absolutely perfect – and ProductionCrate wants to help you do the same.

Except it won’t take you hours… Instead, just a few seconds!

We have built out a powerful glow extension for After Effects, capable of producing the most stunning optical effects for your compositing projects with a single click. We’ve tested this tool to its limits, and are insanely proud of what this can do for VFX artists like you. Additionally, we’ve made this free to download for everyone!

So why did we make something that After Effects can already do? Those who have already used After Effects built-in glow effect already know the answer – it’s pretty ugly.

That leads us to our next question; what makes Crate’s Glow any better? Our script has been carefully designed to follow the natural physical properties of light, allowing the final result to imitate the realistic gradient-based falloff that we see in the real world. This eliminates the artificial look that After Effect’s built-in glow generates and instead gives us an incredibly aesthetic result.

Each parameter has been fine-tuned to create the best result with one click. You can easily make further adjustments with user-friendly parameters. These can be changed even after the glow has been created by using the sliders in the “Glow Controls” null layer.

Threshold                              – Minimum brightness for an area of the image to begin to glow

Intensity                                 – Brightness of the glow

Spread                                   – How far out the glow reaches

Flicker Intensity                    – Increase this to have the intensity shift over time

Flickers Per Second             – How often the flicker fluctuates in a second

Tint Strength                         –  When increased, the glow will match the chosen color more

Tint Colour                            – The color used for the tint

Vibrance                                – If you’re losing color in your glow, you can use this to boost the saturation

Usually, the glow effect will work without any extra squabble, but I’ll quickly go through how you can take full advantage of the features available.

Here’s an example of an explosion VFX shot that needs an exciting glow effect to give the fire some further intensity.

Since we’re organised (most of the time), we have the robot-explosion VFX layer separated from the background. Using keying tools, we can isolate the orange flames in a new layer.

Selecting this layer, and clicking “Generate” on our glow script will have the glow effect only applied to these flames, adding an extraordinarily epic glow to our fire VFX.

And it’s as simple as that!

To download and install the script, open up After Effects and navigate through File -> Scripts -> Run Script File. Find a folder you wish to keep the script stored, and extract “Crate’s Glow.jsx” to the new location. Double click the .jsx file and the script window will open.

If you’re looking for even more scripts to add to your workflow, check out our incredible Hologram extension!

Download HD Magic Spell Beam VFX assets here.

ProductionCrate has launched a brand new collection of magical assets, inspired by the VFX from the Harry Potter franchise!

These incredible effects can be used in most editing software, with our top recommendations being After Effects, Hitfilm and Premiere Pro.

Using a screen blending mode is the easiest way for you to apply these effects with minimal effort.

These intense effects have been built with several different varieties, meaning each of your characters can have their individual styles. So whether you want an electrical theme or a fiery blast, this new effect bundle has you covered!

If you’re an After Effects user, applying a solid composite + puppet pin to the beam will give you control over the origin point. This creates the epic fluid appearance that we see in the movies.

You can also adjust the colour, brightness and speed of each effect, giving you unlimited variety.

Additionally, we’ve included some mind-blowing magic clash VFX assets. These are the explosive effects seen when two opposing forces collide in a dangerous wizarding duel.

This is the spectacular value of the magic effect bundle shine, as these can be blended on top of the magic beam effects to create an incredible composition. We’re especially proud of the liquid variety, which are an iconic visual from the Harry Potter movies.

To complete the pack, we’ve included an essential mix of magic flashes. These can be used when a wizard is casting a spell, or even deflecting one.

The quick yet detailed effects are perfectly designed to not look overdone, making it incredibly easy for them to blend into your action sequence.

Some of our effects work best when using auto-orient, which keeps layers pointed towards the camera when in 3D space. This can be accessed via Layer -> Transform -> Auto-Orient -> Towards Camera. When using this, combined with standard 3D beam layers, you can create the most incredible effects that are easy to customise and composite!

We hope you enjoy using these magic VFX assets. All of these are available for our Pro members, while free users can still access handpicked content!

If you want to learn even more movie-making magic, check out our Thor lightning VFX collection!

After Effects scripts are a powerful way to automate and accomplish tasks that would have otherwise taken far longer.

For example, many popular scripts automate the way that you animate, automatically adjusting keyframes in an instant to save you valuable time and get better results.

If you haven’t tried any out yet, you can browse our library of exclusive scripts and plugins. Many of them are free to download, while Pro members of the ProductionCrate community can access the entire collection, as well as over 10,000 other creative assets.

Thankfully, installing these scripts is an incredibly easy process, and works the same on both Windows and Mac. We also ensure that our tools are compatible with the most recent versions of After Effects (CC 2018, CC 2019).

Our example today will be walking through the installation of our free Hologram generator script which has just launched!

1 – Extract the script to “/Adobe After Effects CC 2019/Support Files/Scripts”

If you don’t have any .zip file tools, you can use WinRaR.

Using this software to open the .zip file that you download will allow you to then drag the files to a new location. Make sure that you extract all of the content from the zip file.

Our destination is usually found in the Program Files folder. In most cases the full directory is:

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC 2019\Support Files\Scripts

But if you are using any other Adobe CC version, feel free to place it there instead.

2 – Create your After Effects composition

Most of our tools won’t work if there’s no footage for it to work on!

3 – Click File -> Scripts -> Run Script File

From here you can then navigate to the place you extracted the files to. Clicking on the “.jsx” file will then launch your chosen script.

Fixing Errors

There’ll always be the chance that something goes wrong. We’ve compiled a list of steps you can take to troubleshoot these issues

Double-Check

Take a moment to quickly look back in the zip folder, and check if all of the contents are also in the After Effects script folder. If it isn’t, simply drag it all over again!

Settings

Go through Edit -> Preferences -> General. A window will open with a bunch of checkboxes, where you can enable “Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network”.

Call for backup

If all else fails, you can ask on the forums, the comments below or contact us at Support@ProductionCrate.com, we’ll happily try our best to help out!

Download Crate’s Free Hologram Script here

This Script has been updated for AE CC2021 on 12-17-2021

Create a Free or a Pro account, then simply click the link above to download! This script was built with an older version of After Effects, but is completely compatible. If you have errors appearing, please go to File > Project Settings > Expressions and change your expression engine from JavaScript to Legacy ExtendScript

Creating holograms in After Effects is about to get a lot more fun with the release of our latest script.

These effects are one of the most requested on ProductionCrate, our library of thousands of digital assets to help build your creative endeavours. We know that often you will need to control what’s projected in the hologram, which is why we released this tool to help you do exactly that.

Not only can you download it for free, but using it to create your After Effects hologram is a one-click process!

Every feature that you could possibly need was built into the script. This includes:

• Color
• Glow
• Projection Rays
• Chromatic Aberration
• Scan Lines
• Displacement
• Flicker
• Signal Interference
• Framerate
• Pixelate
• Blur
• Sharpen

All properties are fully customisable, meaning no matter what style you were aiming for, you’ll get there.

If you wanted to save your customised hologram, you can also click Animation -> Save Animation Preset to be able to apply it to any other shots you may have.

And if you wanted to save time, you might be interested in checking out the presets that we have built into the script. You can navigate through these by clicking the arrows on the pop-up window. These have been built to mimic some of the most recognisable movie holograms, referencing Star Wars, Iron Mans HUD, Aquaman and more.

To download and install the script, open up After Effects and navigate through File -> Scripts -> Run Script File. Find a folder you wish to keep the script, then extract both the images folder and “Crates Camera Script.jsx” to the new location. Double click the .jsx file and you’ll be ready to create your holograms in an instant!

If you’re wanting to save even more time, you can download these HD hologram VFX assets for your video.

So you’ve embarked on a video editing project at 60fps? Here’s a little thing you might want to know!

For those who need an introduction, the “fps” refers to how quickly a video will switch between individual pictures to create the illusion of a movement, which begins at roughly 15 frames per second.

So why would you want to create a 60fps project if most video formats are at a standard 24-30fps? For one simple reason: it’s satisfyingly silky smooth.

Other than it’s an impressive visual effect, it can also help out for a variety of purposes. For example, gameplay videos are often recorded at 60fps since the games strive for immersion, and so this smooth playback helps gives the game a more natural look.

Another case is for motion graphics, where a clean art style compliments the fluid framerate. This is common in infographics, such as a personal favourite from the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt.

So what do you need to do to your ProductionCrate workflow to make the assets you download fit into your scene? As you may know, most of our FootageCrate elements are 30fps, so here is what we suggest to make it work.

Introducing a much-loved technique, time interpolation! This handy tool is the computer taking a guess at what is happening between two images. From the guess, it then creates an image which is what it predicts the image to look like halfway between the first and the second image. This means you can convert a 30fps asset into 60fps, as the software will create the 30 extra frames out of thin air. We need to apply the interpolation to the 30fps asset to convert it to 60fps.

Most mid-tier editing software supports this. Here’s how you’ll find them:

After Effects

– Right-click on the ProductionCrate asset, go through Effects -> Time -> Time Warp.

– Set the speed to 50%, and make sure your project is in 60fps.

Premiere Pro

– Right-click on your ProductionCrate asset, and select “Speed/Duration”.

– Adjust the speed parameter to 50%.

– Choose Optical Flow as the Time Interpolation method.

Congratulations, your video is now as smooth as butter!

If you’re interested in levelling up your compositing skills, you might also be interested in our recent rotoscoping course!

Download the Mk2 Grenade 3D  Model here.

Every action movie needs a grenade, and our asset library is the perfect resource to help you out with it!

Our recent launch of RenderCrate, a collection of production-ready 3D models, now features a wide collection of weapons. One of our favourite additions is the high-quality photorealistic grenade model for our Pro users.

Whether you’re wanting a slow-motion flyby, or just don’t have a grenade prop, a 3D grenade model is perfect for filling in what practical effects cannot.

The model has been built with a careful balance between a high level of detail as well as a clean adjustable mesh. A benefit of this is that you can use this model in simulations while keeping the processing time at the lowest possible. If you want to tweak the model in any way, that will also be a hassle-free task!

The model is provided in a .obj format, which is the most widely accepted 3D format. Almost all programs support it, with Blender, Cinema4D, Element3D, 3ds Max and Maya being just a few. In most cases, you will just need to drag and drop the .obj grenade into your program viewport, and the software will handle the rest!

This comes along with a .mtl file, which will automatically create a basic material for the grenade. However, if you look in the maps folder provided with all of our 3D content, you will often find there are even more textures for you to make use of. For this model, we provide:

• Diffuse
• Ambient Occlusion
• Height
• Reflection
• Roughness

These are a powerful set of texture maps that can bring your render to a photorealistic level, with each coming at a 4096 x 4096 resolution.

Each segment of the grenade, such as the pin, have also been separated into their own object elements. This means that you will be able to detach them if needed and animate them however you wish.

We’re excited to see what incredible renders you can create with this grenade model! If you’re looking for more 3D content, check out our amazing rock models.

Download Ocean VFX Matte-painting assets here

We’re proud to see our matte-painting library help artists create stunning landscapes for their movies to take place in.

Most of our set-extension resources come from GraphicsCrate, a collection of over 1000 professionally built images that can be stacked together to build whatever comes to the imagination. Combining these matte-painting assets with FootageCrate effects creates a unique combination that brings your scene to life, especially with the introduction of our newest ocean assets!

These are a powerful tool that can make adding the sea to your VFX shot a simple one-click process, helping streamline your compositing workflow and save you time.

To ensure that these ocean effects are flexible, there are several variations to choose from. From here, you find the asset which best fits your setting, whether that is a sunset or a clear day.

One exceptional highlight is that these HD ocean effects are loopable. This means that no matter how long your shot lasts, the waves will continue to move in a natural seamless motion without any visible stutters. Just take a look at it in action and see if you can figure out where the cut is!

We’re excited to see what you manage to create with these ocean effects. If you want to see what else you can create with GraphicsCrate, check out our latest Nebula collection.