NEW CONTENT:

4K Dancing Skeletons
4K Paint Color Bursts
Advanced Warfare SFX
3D Arcade Cabinet Model

SOFTWARE NEWS:

3D Character Creator (Business Suit Outfit)
Crates Glass Plugin
LaForge Suite Version 1.4.3

VFX CONTEST:

Theme: Close Race

Prizes: 1 Year ProductionCrate Pro Membership

Adding Effects to your Project

To get started, add a LaForge effect to your layer in After Effects. Then activate the panel by clicking “Start Panel”.

Once the panel is loaded, you will see all the presets at your disposal! These are all plugins that we built during the development of LaForge.

Select a preset, and add it to your layer by clicking “Apply preset”. You’ve just loaded in your first LaForge plugin!

You can change your preset by repeating the same action, LaForge will override the effect’s selected preset. 

LaForge – Advanced

The code editor is the backbone of LaForge. Using this, you can create your very own programmable effects. We will be taking our time to develop a cohesive, user-friendly and knowledge packed guide on how to do this, but for those with enough motivation, here’s some useful information.

All Forge Shaders are processed using compute shaders. You can define the workgroup size of the shader in the options. Each workgroup has a number of iterations which is limited to 1024 on most of the GPUs, (calculated by multiplying the x * y * z sizes). Do not go over this limit. Workgroups are dispatched randomly, so don’t expect items to render in order.

If you want the results of each invocation to work with each other, (in analysis mode), use atomic operations. For more information, you can read:
https://www.khronos.org/opengl/wiki/Compute_Shader

Effect Mode

In Effect Mode you can create an Effect Shader. Shaders return an array of pixels. A hidden part does the job. The main function is this mode is

mainRender (in vec2 fragCoord, vec4 outColor);

An effect can use stepBuffers to use multiple buffers in one effect. See the fidelityFx preset as an example. LaForge does not yet support recursive passes (these buffers render at frame -1), but it is planned for the future.

Analysis Mode

An Analysis shader returns a 1d (float) or 2d (point) or 3d value (color). It can access the same parameters as a standard effect except for stepBuffers.

Camera and lights
Camera And lights are available in After Effects only. If a preset use one of these parameters, Premiere Pro will lock access to the shader

If you want to create 3D ray tracing or ray marching, LaForge has two functions to help you load the camera:

forge_getCamOrigin() -> Returns a vec3 with the camera position
forge_getCamRayDirection() -> Returns a vec3 with the camera ray direction.

Sometimes you may have to invert the Y coordinate of the camera, especially if your shader’s up direction is Y+ (AE’s upward direction is Y-).
Vec3 rd = forge_getCamRayDirection();
Vec3 ro = forge_getCamOrigin();
rd.y = -rd.y;
ro.y = -ro.y;

Some Shaders may have a different scale value of the camera data. You can take a look at the fractal or aurora presets for real implementations.

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.

There are a variety of ways to connect Premiere Pro and After Effects. Premiere is used primarily for editing video and audio in a clean timeline. After Effects is most often used for Visual Effects and Motion Graphics. They are both available in the Adobe Suite and are essential tools for any video editors.

1.  Replace with After Effects Composition

File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Create New After Effects Composition

This replaces a clip with an After Effects Composition.

Use this option for long-form video, when you need to do something to a clip(s) that Premiere Pro can’t do, like 3D space, tracking, After Effects only effects and scripts, and difficult Warp stabilizer jobs. Both apps have Warp Stabilizer, but After Effects can remove tracking points that cause issues where PP doesn’t.

When using “Replace”, Duplicate the clip to the track above (option/alt and drag up) as the AE composition will replace the PP clip and this way you have the original clip if you change your mind. It is very difficult to go backwards later in your workflow, so this redundancy can prove extremely useful.

If you are looking to add an overlaid graphic then we suggest using a Color Matte in your Premiere timeline and stretching it to the length you need before replacing with a dynamic linked After Effects clip. You can right click it from your timeline and replace from there. Save your After Effects project and see it auto-update in Premiere!

2.   New After Effects Composition

File > Adobe Dynamic Link > New After Effects Composition

This creates a blank linked Composition in the project panel. Anything you create in AE will show up in PP. If you create text, it is now automatically editable in PP.

Let’s say you reopen PP for a new editing session. To edit the linked AE Comp, sect it in the project and press Command/Control + E, to edit the original AE file.

3. Import After Effects Composition (Dynamic Link).

File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import After Effects Composition

This is useful when you want to use an animation or titles created in After Effects as a clip in Premiere Pro.

4. Import Premiere Pro project into After Effects.

File > Import > Premiere Pro Project

A dialog box opens with options: bring in all the sequences, select a sequence and whether or not you want to import audio.

This workflow is handy when you are doing short promo style videos in Premiere Pro, and want to finish in After Effects using third party plugins/scripts and features Premiere Pro doesn’t have (3D, tracking and advanced VFX for example).

It is easier to work with audio in Premiere Pro, and your audio markers for sequences and clips will be sent over to After Effects.

5. Create Templates in After Effects and Modify in Premiere Pro

Select Composition in Project, then Composition > Open in Essential Graphics.

You can also use the Essential Graphics Workspace.

In the Essential Graphics Panel, select the Composition that you want to create a template from.

Click “Solo Selected Properties” to add properties you want to be able to modify in your template.

Drag them to the Essential Graphics Panel. Name your Template, and click “Export Motion Graphics Template”.

You can now open the template in Premiere Pro and modify it there.

In this QSG, we look at working with audio for filmmakers, editors, and mograph artists.

Here are the essentials you need to know to quickly create high-quality audio in Premiere Pro.

Clipping is Bad

Premiere Pro measures audio in decibels. The audio should never hit 0 decibels on the meter, which causes clipping. Clipping is bad and causes the distortion of your audio.

Recorded music often comes in hot (clipping) so I generally reduce the volume in the project before putting the clips into a sequence. Put all your music clips in one bin (its a folder, all the other Adobe apps call them folders). Press G to bring up Audio Gain, so you can change the loudness/gain for all the tracks at once. Experiment with this, but generally setting your music to -20ish is a good starting point if you have narration/dialogue with it. If you are just cutting to music, you could pick “normalize max peaks to -6, ensuring the music a good level but that it won’t clip. As a general guide,  you want your main audio to average around -12 and not peak above -6.

Clipped Audio in Premiere Pro

Audio Gain in Premiere Pro

Changing the Volume of a clip in a sequence.

The line on the audio waveform shows you the clip volume.

I can drag the line up and down to change the volume, but its not a very exact way to work. Press the left and right bracket keys to lower/raise the volume 1 decibel.

Adding Shift will lower/raise the Audio 6 decibels. (this can be changed in Preferences > Audio)

If you want to manually keyframe the audio volume, Hold Command/Control and click on the line to add points.

Audio keyframes on a clip

Clip vs Track Audio

There are 2 types of Audio adjustments in Premiere Pro: clip level and track level.

Clip Level Adjustments – Dragging the clip audio line up and down,  the Audio Clip Mixer, the Essential Sound Panel.

Generally, you are working with audio on a clip level. To work on a track level, use the “Audio Track Mixer”.

If I move the fader for a track in the Audio Track Mixer”, I’m changing the volume for the whole track.

You will need to change the view to track from clip keyframes to track keyframes to see the audio changes you make in the track mixer.

Changing track volume

The track mixer is handy if you want to apply an audio effect(s) to all the clips on a track, and when you are doing a submix (grouping tracks like multiple SFX tracks so all the tracks are treated as one).

Applying audio effects to a track

Essential Sound Panel

The Essential Sound Panel was added in 2017, and offers a unified interface for working with audio.

Adobe has done a similar thing with graphics and color correction, adding the Essential Graphics and Lumetri Panels.

To get started, switch to the Audio workspace which automatically brings up the sound panel.

Then select the”Audio Type”  you want to adjust in the sequence.  Selecting the appropriate audio type

then allows you to pick from a variety presets or to manually make adjustments.

If you are new to audio, the presets are the best place to start. Experiment with them till you get a sense of how they work. Unchecking the boxes in the presets is a good way to hear what each setting does.

One of the features I use the most is the automatic ducking feature. This drops the music’s volume when you have narration, dialogue, SFX with the music clip. Select a music clip, pick the Music Preset, then one of the ducking presets. If I have multiple audio clips above the music (narration, dialogue, SFX), I start with the “duck against everything’ preset as it will react to all the audio clips.

The Noise Reduction Preset is essential when recording video/audio in an uncontrolled (not a studio) environment. Select a narration or dialogue clip, pick the Dialogue “Audio Type’. and select “clean yo noisy dialogue preset.

Loudness “Auto-Match” will set the “perceived loudness” of all the selected clips to be the same and is a quick way to make multiple clips sound even.

Using the essential Sound Panel will allow to quickly tweak your audio mixes, and production crate has a large selection of royalty-free music, SFX, and ambiances with new collections released often. If you have any questions, post them in the comments or in the forum.

Reduce Noise Preset

Easily learn all these steps in this video!

If you want to learn some advanced techniques using Apple’s Logic Pro X consider reading this article.

Welcome to the Newsroom Carlos! What can you tell us about yourself and the work you do?

I’ve been making short films since I was 14. I love what I’m doing and I do it with passion. My love for art is what keeps me going. I’m as fascinated as frightened by the world I narrate. I’ve recently become a self-taught VFX artist, I’ve studied visual effects to be able to cover as many roles as possible inside of a movie production since I always try making new short films without the backing of sponsorship and with little to no budget.

As a kid I wanted to be an astronaut, maybe a firefighter, perhaps a pilot… basically what every other kid wanted too! As teenager I thought about being a medic, or a policeman or even a lawyer: but then, a sudden flash of inspiration – I understood that none of those jobs would have fitted me, I liked all of them, but all in the same way, I realized I didn’t like the jobs themselves but rather, the way movies depict them. I understood that I would have been satisfied only by bringing to life all of these jobs, all of those ideas and thoughts, nothing would have fitted me more than the job that creates it all.

The pleasure of leaving beautiful and strong memories inside of people’s hearts is the thing that makes me want to tell my stories. Being an artist is a duty to the soul.

You’ve had quite a bit of experience in the past- what has been the most insane (or fun) project of your career?

I had so many fun experiences in my career but surely the most insane was the most recent one: my fantasy short film “Shine” shot with only 550 euros. That required 6 months of work.

I obviously used many ProductionCrate assets including the wizard magic VFX and skull clouds, lots of dust and particle effects such as lighting, fire etc and even some mountains from GraphicsCrate for matte painting. Matte painting is the thing I love to do the most.

There are basically no productions in Italy that would be willing to support and provide a decently high budget for sci-fi or fantasy movies, so I decided to make this short film to prove that there are many young artists out there who are able to work and produce high-quality content with a budget as low as 550 euros.

What software do you use most often in your projects?

I like After Effects a lot and it’s so sad that the cinema industry doesn’t use it very often for compositing.

I think that the tool doesn’t make the artist, after all, the final results are important, not how you get there, that’s why I think any artist should be allowed to use any program they may please.

How has ProductionCrate helped you in the past? Is there a favorite category you regularly visit?

ProductionCrate was a great discovery. It totally changed my workflow and spurred me into improving myself. Actually, I’ve been improving my VFX skills only recently, it’s been around 10 months now since I’ve started getting some actually good results and it’s also thanks to ProductionCrate that inspired me to do great stuff especially on matte paintings. ProductionCrate’s assets opened my mind. I like the GraphicsCrate category, but to be honest I like pretty much all of them.

If you had an unlimited budget and all the time in the world, what creative project would you embark on?

Like I said before I’ve always had very little budget for all my project but what I realized is that I am ready to direct a movie from start to finish and if I really had an unlimited budget I would direct More that one movie but they would all be sci-fi, because I want to re-evaluate science-fiction in my country; for some of them I already have the basic concept down.

Do you have any projects you are currently working on?

I recently completed my short film Shine. I plan on shooting a sci-fi almost entirely in CGI but for now, I haven’t done anything other than the script

I’ve been hired as VFX supervisor for a film here in Italy and for some time I will dedicate myself to that

Is there any advice you can give to VFX artists just starting there career?

Many ask me where I’ve studied and how much time does it take to master VFX skills. Less than a year ago I knew close to nothing about advanced compositing and 3D. I started studying the works of VFX artists who were much better than me, through tutorials on youtube and I didn’t attend any VFX school; I was simply lucky enough to be born in the internet era.

Only a year ago I didn’t even know the basic of camera tracking!

I spent days and nights practising, I was really close to losing my mind but in the end, I realized that the only way to improve oneself is to keep a curious and always very self-critical attitude. The advice I can give is to never give up even if everything seems difficult; study and apply what you have learned and don’t forget to use the program you are most comfortable with.

I think that in VFX you never stop discovering new things so you should never stop; For all of this, a passionate willing is needed.