Tag Archive for: after effects

Download Crate’s Toolbox – After Effects Extension

in , , /by

We have amazing scripts, many of them completely free, for After Effects. Crate’s Camera Shake, the Hologram Generator, Crate’s Chromatic Aberration and tons of other useful tools are available for download on ProductionCrate.

Accessing these amazing products is now easier than ever before. With our free Crate’s Toolbox, you can download and install our After Effects scripts from inside of After Effects!

Remember, you don’t have to Log-in every time, you just need to log-in to download the scripts. Click the Offline Button if you don’t want to log in but still want to use the AE scripts you have already downloaded.

Watch the video below to see how it works.

First, if you have any ProductionCrate Scripts already installed, delete them! This will ensure Toolbox can launch the most recent versions and locate the files without issue.

If you are on a Mac, run the .DMG installer, if you are on Windows, run the .EXE

Restart After Effects if you have it open

To locate the Extension if After Effects, go to Window > Extension > Crate’s Toolbox

You’ll need to select 2 Download folders:

  • The first folder is likely your default Downloads folder. This is just where all of your downloaded items go to when you download from Chrome, Firefox, Safari or any web browser.
  • The second folder is for storing your Crate Scripts. This can be anywhere on your computer. Don’t delete it, this will be where all the script files will be referenced! You can create a new folder and call it anything, ProductionCrate Scripts, for example.

You will only have to do that step once!

After that, log in to ProductionCrate using Toolbox and download any Scripts and tools you want to use. Hitting Install will launch your browser to install the script, make sure it downloads to your Downloads Folder, or whatever folder you chose as your first folder (see above)

The scripts will be automatically copied over to your store folder, the second folder mentioned above!

Texture Mapping Trick for AE

in , /by

David came up with this fantastic trick for texture-mapping in After Effects! This is a powerful technique which will allow you to utilize the power of our high intensity simulations and renders in your composites at a whole new level.

 

Check out his quick tutorial showing you can pull off this technique.

3D Scale Lock – Matte Painting Script for After Effects

in , , /by

If you’ve ever done matte painting in AE, you may have come across this annoying issue.

All your layers are looking great, your matte painting is some of your best work ever, and now all you have to do is position your layers in 3D space to add a little camera movement. Then comes the tedious, annoying, laborious process of moving layers in Z space, scaling them to fit the correct framing, moving, scaling, moving, scaling…

No more of that. With our latest free AE script, we’ve come up with a technique so you can get your matte painting layers set in 3D space faster, without having to re-scale! Make sure you are logged in with your Basic or Pro account then click to Download the Crate’s 3D Lock Script Here

Learn how to use the script in detail in this tutorial! This script would be useful for 2D to 3D painting as well, working perfectly with our Free Projection/Camera Mapping Script

Free Camera Projection Script for AE

in , , /by

Projection mapping is a powerful and extremely useful trick for motion design and visual effects. While the concept is relatively simple, the execution can be extremely difficult with native After Effects tools. That is why we built the Crate’s Camera Projection Script. This Free Adobe AE script allows you to easily follow the guided steps to creating your camera mapping and projection mapping scenes.

To download, just sign in to your Free or Pro ProductionCrate account and click here

This technique is useful for tracking a clean plate into your scene and animating 2d stills to appear 3d.

Check out our step by step tutorial here

 

If you’re looking to use it for 2D to 3D images, check out this tutorial

HUD Generator Extension for After Effects + Premiere

in , , /by

We’re happy to release our latest extension, the HUD Generator from ProductionCrate! Make sure to log in to your Pro Account to download this tool.

4-13-20201
Our HUD Extension has received an important update! This includes UI improvements, an option to reset where your HUD elements are located, 20 new HUD Assets, and a plethora of bug fixes that will make your experience smoother than ever! If you have already installed this extension, simply run the installer file again to overwrite the previous version (.exe on Windows, .dmg on Mac). To include the new HUD Assets, simply merge the “HUD Graphics” folder with your currently used one.

Check out this video to learn how to quickly and easily install and use the HUD tool in After Effects and Adobe Premiere.

 

Updates 4-13-2021

Light Sampler – Powerful AE Script

in , /by

Practical lights have always made visual effects far more believable. We use them all the time. As fantastic as they are, we’ve never been able to use them like this before.

Our latest After Effects Script will let you measure color and luminance values in your shots. Whether it’s the sun, scene lights or effects you can use luminance values to drive reactions in your project. If you have a strobe light going off, you can have automatic muzzle flashes, if you have the sun flashing by a fence, you can add in lens flares that will automatically go off, if you have a practical light that changes color over time, you can drive color to any other effect. All of these shots were built with the Free Light Sampler Script.

Needless to say, this script is packed with potential. We look forward to seeing how you use it. Download it here

 

Here’s how you use it

 

Download 4K Grenade VFX Assets for your Action Video

in , /by

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!

Download 4K Stun Grenade VFX Assets

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. 

 

Crate’s Heat Radiation After Effects Plugin – Free Download

in , , /by

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.

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

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

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

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.

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

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.

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

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.

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

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.

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

Gamma

Creates additional contrast and intensity in the result.

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

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.

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

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.

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

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”.

 

Download the free Heat Radiation plugin for After Effects

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.

Crate’s Shape Script – Our Most Feature Packed Tool

in , /by

Sign in and Download the Crate’s Shape Script Here

Place the script into your Adobe > After Effects> Scripts Folder, and the Images into Adobe > After Effects > Scripts > Images, if you already have an images folder just drag the images from Crate’s Shape Script .ZIP into that folder. Please report any bugs you may find in the comments below, we will continue to update this script.

We love After Effects. What other software offers you so much creative flexibility? Whatever your project calls for, from Visual Effects to Motion Graphics, this software gets the job done.

That being said, we do have some gripes.

Why is it so difficult to create some of the most basic shapes? Why are all the shape controls hidden, requiring toggle-down menu after toggle-down menu?

You’ve probably run into these annoyances yourself at one point or another. We definitely have, and we were fed up. That’s why we created Crate’s Shape Script. This feature-packed script addresses our most common issues and solves them with just a few clicks.

There are a lot of features to unpack here. Your first option is a Shape Layer or  Solid Layer. Solid Layers have the shaped masked out of them while the shape layer is made specifically to be that shape. We suggest Shape Layers, but each has their Pros and Cons. Shape Layers also allow you to generate Strokes instead of Fill shapes.

Next you can pick your shape, use the left and right arrows to scroll through all your shapes or simple click the question mark to see them all on the drop-down.

Next, pick whatever color you want. Personally I just leave this as-is, since I can change it later with the eyedropper tool. I also leave the size at 500 and adjust it later, but that is just my preference.

The anchor point will automatically set to be centered (yay!) but if you want to move it to any other axis you can do so after you have generated the shape.

We have built Control Nulls so you don’t have to toggle down menu after menu to change basic features of your shapes. This is helpful in the obvious ways but if you want to adjust basic features the old-school way you can uncheck the Control Nulls box to generate shapes that have no built in parent features. Alternatively you can Alt-click whatever parameter you would like to adjust without using the Control Null.

The randomization powers can be utilized to take one asset and create unlimited variations. Duplicate whatever layer you have for as many duplicates as you want, you can then randomize the start time, the end time, the opacity, the color (or tint), scale, and rotation! This is fun to mess around with, which I encourage you to do. If you want the specifics I’ll list them below.

Last of all choose the number of layers for whatever shape you have chosen and hit Generate.

Enjoy!

How the property randomisation works

Default Random (Random slider checkbox unchecked)
Pos– randomize based on the comp width (comp wide distribution) [x, .75x]
Rot– randomize between 0-360
Opa– randomize between 0-100
Scale– randomize between 0-500 [x, x, x]
timeIn– randomize between 0-comp length (in seconds)
timeOut– randomize between 0-comp length (in seconds)
Tint– randomize r, g, and b values of a tint effect between 0-255 (applies to “Map Black To” property)
3D– randomize Z Position between 0-15000

Slider Random (Random slider checkbox checked)

Pos– randomize between 1-slider value
Rot– randomize between 1-slider value
Opa– randomize between 1-slider value (0-100 limit)
Scale– randomize between 1-slider value
timeIn– randomize between 1-slider value (seconds)
timeOut– randomize between 1-slider value (seconds)
Tint– randomize r, g, and b values of tin effect between 0-slider value (0-255 limit)
3D– randomize Z Position between 0-slider value

How the keyframe section works:

Fade Keys (two sets of key frames at the beginning and end)
Creates two group of key frames, one starting at the beginning of the selected layer, the other finishing at the end point of the layer. In and Out are optional, so you can apply the keyframes to just the beginning, just the end, or both. You can set how far apart the two possible sets of keyframes are, by changing the textbox labeled “frames” next to it. (ie, if you select In and 30 frames, it will apply a keyframe at t:0, then t:0+30frames)

Continuous Keys (a keyframe at the beginning and end)
Creates a keyframe at the inPoint and outPoint of any selected property

Download Debris and Destruction VFX Assets

in , , /by

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:

Download Debris and Destruction VFX

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.

Download Debris and Destruction VFX

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.