Tag Archive for: free

How to export Images from Adobe After Effects – Free Script

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 Light Wrap Plugin for After Effects

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.
  • Free After Effects Light Wrap Plugin Comparison Background Blur
  • Wrap Width – How far into the foreground the light-wrap extends
  • Free After Effects Light Wrap Plugin Comparison Wrap Width
  • 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
  • Free After Effects Light Wrap Plugin Comparison Tint
  • Luminance Bias – Use this to control how much influence the foreground’s luminance has on the intensity of the light wrap
  • Free After Effects Light Wrap Plugin Comparison Luma Bias
  • 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.
  • Free After Effects Light Wrap Plugin Comparison Premult

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

Software:
  • AE CS6 and newer
  • MacOS 11.3 or newer
  • Windows 7 or newer
Hardware:
  • 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 Free Godrays Plugin for After Effects

Log in to your Sample or Pro ProductionCrate account then click here to download the free Godrays Plugin from ProductionCrate.

If you don’t have an Account, you can register here. Donations for the sample account are optional, you can sign up without any payment!

This plugin comes packed with features. Simply drag and drop the Crate’s Godrays plugin onto your footage to see it in action. Godrays is brought to your by ProductionCrate. You probably know us best for our free video effects. We’re now making VFX tools to bring you even more creative power!

  • Select your Threshold mode. We generally recommend leaving it on the default Luma mode, but you can also try Chroma for unique results.
  • Adjust the Threshold amount to select the visible range that the rays will emit from. Increase it to make sure the darker parts of your footage are not emitting any rays!
  • Threshold smoothness will make your light rays sharper or smoother.
  • Length controls the overall distance your light rays travel.
  • Exposure controls the overall brightness of your light rays.
  • Decay is a falloff control for your light rays, increase or decrease depending on the effect you want to achieve.
  • You can choose the direction of your light rays for various effects, like holograms or god-rays.
  • Pick from a variety of chromatic aberration settings to add unique colors to your light rays.
  • We have four different quality modes. While this plugin is extremely fast, you can speed it up by dropping it down to draft. If you need to increase the quality, try high or even extreme!
  • In the compositing settings you can change the blend mode from Screen to Add to make your light rays more powerful.
  • If you want to add additional effects to your light rays, we suggest changing the View setting from Final Composite to Rays Solo. You can then add a solid composite effect, change it to black and add any blurs, curves, levels or other effects. Make sure to change your Rays Solo layer to a Screen or Add blend mode!

create volumetric light rays with this free AE plugin


How to Install the Plugin

Unzip the file

Windows: Move Plugin to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects\Support Files\Plug-ins
Mac: Move Plugin to Applications/Adobe After Effects/Plug-in


Spec Requirements

Software:

  • AE CS6 and newer
  • MacOS 11.3 or newer
  • Windows 7 or newer
Hardware:
  • GPU required (integrated GPU such as Intel Iris supported)
  • Apple Silicon native. Older mac’s (~2013) with Nvidia cards may not work

If you have any issues, email us directly Support@ProductionCrate.com

Download Free 3D Models for your Epic Scenes

A few months ago we released the free 3D Castle Pack. Since then, over 10,000 creators have used it in their projects. We knew we’d have to go even bigger for our next free 3D assets kit. So we did.

Download the free 3D Models in the Industrial Kit and gain access to hundreds of amazing assets.

Download Free 3D Models

This pack contains tons of prefabricated builds to save you time and effort. Build your own mega-structures in minutes. Our prefabs are extraordinarily easy to use. Everything is modular. Constructing detailed scenes has never been so fun!

Download free 3d warehouse model

All downloadable 3D models are compatible with Blender, Cinema4D, Maya, Houdini and 3DSMax. The Unreal Engine Kit is reserved for our Pro Users, and is perfect if you’re looking for 3D Assets for Games, however you are free to convert the 3D Models to Unreal yourself.

Choose from 3D platforms, pipes, trusses, power supplies, ladders, buttons and lights. Build out your worlds in your program of choice to make some high-quality free 3D renders!

Download Free 3D Kit Assets

Find and download the best free 3D assets from RenderCrate and tag us in your projects!

Dropbox link below for media and press purposes only. Contact Niko@ProductionCrate.com for Access

Download High Resolution Images and Video of the Industrial Kit

Free Castle 3D Model Kit – Download Now

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.

Download Epic 3D Castle Models for Free

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.

Create massive 3D Castle Models for Free in Blender Download Large Medieval Castle Models for Free

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.

Download Medieval Home 3D Models for your 3D Projects

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 Empire 3D Model - Free Download

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.

Download castle wall 3D models for freeDownload castle wall 3D models for free

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.

Download free 3D Medieval Tower models for FreeDownload castle towers and spires for freeDownload 3D Castle Towers for Free for your 3D Projects

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.

Photoscanned Castle Model Texture Materials

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.

Texture Flow – Free AE Script

Sign in to your account and download our free TextureFlow Script here!

Projection mapping to flat, non animated objects is pretty easy. It’s even easier if you use our Projection Mapping Script (also free!) But what do you do if you want to map on to an animated surface? This is something we’ve struggled with in the past. For compositing pre-rendered VFX assets, the ability to do this would be extremely powerful.

Luckily, we have some pretty smart people working here at ProductionCrate. David came up with this clever technique using the Content Aware Fill tool in AE.

To simplify things even further, Nate built us a script! This script will save you time while approaching this technique. I suggest watching David’s video above to have more control over the script’s results. The entire process will take you less than a minute to set up.

Here is how you can use our Free Texture Flow Script

 

Free Camera Projection Script for AE

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

the Best Free Software for VFX

We know how expensive adding visual effects to your films and videos can be. ProductionCrate started because utilizing VFX  was a difficult and costly process. In our journey to bring you professional and accessible assets for your projects we have come across software that shares a similar vision. Here is our list of the top free software options for video effects.

 


Hitfilm Express

If you’re not familiar with Hitfilm then you’re in for a treat. Hitfilm Express is an easy-to-use professional editing software, free for anyone to download. It’s packed with features, allowing any creator to build complex scenes with convenient tools. We gave Hitfilm Express the #1 Spot because of the overall flexibility and functionality it provides. If you’re looking for one software to add video effects to your projects, look no further.

Hitfilm Express is great for compositing, tracking, masking, transitions, and more. The Hitfilm community is fantastic, and you’ll have no trouble finding plenty of tutorials to get you started. You’ll also notice regular updates to the software, keeping it modern and up-to-date. It’s our favorite free VFX software. Check out this color grading tutorial for getting started.


Blender

Blender has always been the go-to software for free 3D work, but with recent improvements it has become so much more than just the “free-alternative”. Since Blender 2.8 has been released we can comfortably say that the software is as capable and functional as most 3D software out there. The user-community is absolutely massive, with a hardcore following and thousands of helpful artists. You can find tons of tutorials online if you’re just starting out and get on your feet fairly quickly.

We primarily use C4D and 3DSmax for most of our 3D projects, however the exciting updates in Blender were too good to pass up. Adrian decided to see how much Blender he could learn in just one month, see how he did in the video below.


GIMP

Whether for story-boarding, matte painting, graphic editing or concept art you’ll need a good 2D image editor. When it comes to a free option, there is none better than GIMP. GIMP has be around for decades. It is open-source, so you will see a lot of plugins and assets built and provided by the community. They have basic tutorials to get you started, but we always suggest searching on Youtube for the best educational content.

The learning curve is considered somewhat difficult, but once you’re used to the functions and interface you’ll be cruising. We use Photoshop at ProductionCrate, but GIMP is considered the best free alternative, and it’s always awesome to use open-source software. Here’s a great video to get you going.

 


Unreal Engine

We were a little hesitant to add UE to our list, since the software is primarily used for game development, but with the recent advancements we’re seeing from the Epic Games team we had no choice! UE offers the amazing abilities to create hyper-realistic scenes, live in-engine compositing, set extensions, particle systems, dynamics, and entire worlds. The learning curve is far more difficult than any of the previously mentioned software, but there are more tutorials showing up to get you started. Since launching RenderCrate we’ve been diving deeper and deeper into the 3D world, so grasping Unreal Engine and utilizing it for our projects is something we’re hoping to tackle.

Check out this insanely cool video for UE4’s virtual production abilities below (also this mind-blowing demo for UE5)

 

 

 

 

Download ProductionCrate’s Free Extension

Organise your assets, instantly.

 

Say goodbye to messy folders. This free browser extension automatically sorts your ProductionCrate downloads into categorised folders.

Download ProductionCrate Connect

Step 1

Install the free extension in a few clicks.

Download ProductionCrate Connect

Step 2

Download your ProductionCrate assets.

Download ProductionCrate Connect

Step 3

Enjoy automatically organised file management for your assets.

 

 

Need any help? Contact us through Support@ProductionCrate.com

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)

Creating callouts for your video can often be a complicated and time-consuming process, though all that is about to change…

We’ve created a free powerful script for Adobe After Effects that can do all the work for you in seconds: Crate’s Callouts!

Download the Free Callout Script here.

 

Callouts are the small infographic labels that overlay a video, highlighting an important feature to inform the viewer of a name, statistic or the anatomy of a seal:

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)

The script is packed with a huge bundle of presets, all fully customizable and ready for you to composite onto your video. This means that if you work for an organization or run a YouTube channel, you will be able to match the branding by adjusting the colours of the templates with one click!

To get started, you’ll need to first use a Null object to mark the position of what you want to be featured by the callout. The best part about this script is that it can be completely animated, so if you need the callout to follow a moving subject then this is the script for you.

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)

For the next step, we’ll need to install our script. Extract the files from the download, and drop the “productioncrate-callout-script.jsx” file into your After Effects > Scripts folder You then can run the script by heading through File -> Scripts -> Crate’s Callout Script.jsx.

Now let’s take a look at what features we have at our disposal:

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)

 

 

 

 

 

Arrows: Navigate through the presets to find the one you want.

 

Track Layer: Select the Null object you want the callout pointer to follow.

Title + Subtitle: Here’s where you input the text you want to be displayed.

Animation direction: Which way would you like the callout to come in from?

Color tools: Adjust the look of the preset to match your brand.

Smart Color Change: This nifty feature will automatically adjust any other colours that can be controlled to match your theme.

In/Out: What period (in seconds) do you want the callout to be on screen?

Base Point/Outline: Control the shape of the feature mark.

 

F: Click this to open up the text composition after creation, so you can adjust the font manually.

 

Once you’re happy with all the settings, hit “Create”, and you’ll save hours of time while the script creates your dream callout card within seconds!

Each preset has been carefully designed animated to give it the most professional appearance possible, helping you increase your production value at no extra cost!

If you want to control and customise the callout card after it has been generated, that is no problem! There will be a control null generated in your main composition window, clicking on this will reveal all of the various colour settings that you can adjust instantly in the effects window.

We’re excited to see how you make use of these free After Effects callout presets. If you’re interested in how else you can boost your workflow, take a look at our Lower Thirds script.

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)