We have 30 New Hand-Drawn Text and Word Assets available for download. These are in 4K resolution and are some of the most requested text assets we’ve ever created.
Yes way!
We have Call to Actions like Follow Me and Subscribe. We have reactionary words like Yikes, Phew, Gahh and Arghh. You can also download the comic-book inspired words like Bam, Boom, Bonk, Boing and Bang.
There are 30 for you to choose from, see them all 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:
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.
I came across Jared’s work not so long ago and was instantly impressed by his style and skill. Jared was kind enough to take the time to answer a few questions for us. If you’re looking to enter the field of Visual Effects or Motion Graphics then this interview is a must-read. Jared’s answers were enlightening and honest, and are helpful whether you’re just starting out or have been working in the field for as many years as I have.
Chris:
Thanks for doing this Q&A, Jared! Love your portfolio and all the work you’ve been doing. What software do you tend to use most often for your VFX and Motion Design work?
Jared:
Thanks, Chris! Stoked to be noticed and share my story.
Adobe After Effects is my compositing tool of choice, complemented with various plugins and scripts. All depending on the project I’m working on, of course.
If we’re talking my favorite workflow, that usually starts with either Cinema 4D or a similar 3D application which I use to create my main scene work – then finish with compositing and effects in After Effects.
I’ll admit though, I’m a sucker for experimenting with a wide range of software types. I even used the Unreal Engine recently for a big Esports client! With Unreal I was able to compile a 3D environment, which I then transferred to After Effects. I mixed in a barrage of ProductionCrate compositing effects, together with some of my own that I’ve created over the years. The final product turned out pretty awesome. The video below gives you a brief look into the making.
Chris:
A lot of our users are interested in pursuing a career in this field. Any tips for getting started?
Jared:
Especially for new artists, there is an overemphasis and over-reliance on tools. I remember early on in my career, many in the community determined ‘skill’ by the software you used or the conferences you attended. I’ve seen this trend diminish recently, but there is still this expectation that you are required to have a specific application or plugin to be the best at what you do. This is false.
For me, the greatest teacher hasn’t been a course, or a mentor, or a YouTube tutorial. My greatest teacher has been failure. Don’t get me wrong, there are some incredible resources out there for learning to master specific effects and techniques. But there is no ‘one way’ to do anything in this field.
The best way to build real-world skill is to get out there and just do it. You’re never going to be any good until you’ve tried and failed. And I mean failed a lot. You need to fail in your own unique way, on your own unique projects. And no tutorial is going to teach you that.
Here’s a fun anecdote to illustrate my point. I once worked on a project for Disney, where I needed to pull off a dynamic water effect on a super-quick deadline. I wouldn’t have the time for liquid simulation, so I needed to think resourcefully. I decided to take my iPhone and go out to our office sink. I turned off the lights and recorded a simple setup, recreating the intended water movement. I recorded the scene in slow motion, using only the light on my camera. Little did I know that this simple solution would far exceed expectations. After compositing the capture into my scene, the end result was even better than any water simulation would have been.
I like to share this story because we learn best in these resourceful moments. And it is going to take a few big moments like these in your career to build your arsenal and confidence as a visual artist. My advice is to try your best to pull off a big idea, whether you know how or not. In doing so, you will figure out a way. At first, it may not seem like the ideal ‘way’, but over time these experiences will add up and lead to mastery.
Chris:
Did you go to school, or are you self-taught?
Jared:
A mix of both. I suffered a football injury in high school which left me on crutches for a long time. That free time gave me an opportunity to focus on video editing, which was my favorite hobby and eventual career path.
I began as an intern at a local access television station, then continued my education at the Valencia Film Program back in 2005. At the time, my passion was cinematography. In particular, I loved using scene lighting to tell a story, through setting, blocking, and practical light solutions. It was an incredible experience being on set for 36 hours and witnessing a film set in action. I really learned to appreciate everything that goes into film production.
It was my film experience that inspired me to branch into animation and motion design. I came to a realization; telling a story in the film industry was incredibly complex, with lots of moving parts. You need a LOT of people working simultaneously to turn your vision into a reality. On the other hand, I was finding that motion design allowed me to bypass a lot of these complexities. I started dabbling in CGI environments and animation, telling my own stories that were just as effective as those on set – only made in a fraction of the time and with more creative freedom. It quickly became my favorite art form of storytelling and expression.
From here my skills became almost entirely self-taught. The passion was there and I saw my talents improving rapidly. I became obsessed with improving my techniques, soaking up every bit of knowledge I could. I imagine this is a natural progression for most motion artists. No matter your formal education, at one point or another you’ll experience that ‘lightswitch’ moment. The ‘self-teaching’ instinct suddenly takes over out of passion and a desire to master your craft.
Chris: I love what you and the people at Visuals by Impulse are doing. Were you freelancing before working at VBI?
Jared:
Thanks, Chris. It’s been a wild ride for VBI. To date we’ve worked with over 60,000 streamers, gamers, and creators. Across Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming, VBI is raising the bar on branding and visual presentation. Internally, we’re lucky to have an incredibly talented team and strong leadership. What impresses me the most though, is the company culture. It’s one of the most unique and strongest I’ve ever experienced in a remote team (and an international one, at that!).
Personally, it’s been many years since my last freelancing experience. For the past 15+ years, I’ve been partnered with my brother, Derek Alan Rowe. Together we founded the company Doctrine Creative, a creative team focusing on VR/AR and interactive experiences.
More recently, I spent four years with Eezy as their Director of Video. There I worked to build Videezy’s libraries of free stock videos and After Effects templates. It was a dream come true to give back to the design community; a community that I had learned so much from over the years. But then VBI showed up and offered me the role of Marketplace Director. I couldn’t say no.
It’s all been history since then. With VBI it’s an opportunity to innovate and – essentially – reinvent the world of broadcast design. The timing couldn’t be much better. Live streaming and esports gaming is growing faster than ever before. I count myself very fortunate to be part of that movement.
Chris: Any big projects on the horizon?
Jared:
Big time. 2020 is going to be a big year for Visuals by Impulse. We have ambitious plans to take streaming into an entirely new space; a next level. No spoilers yet, but it will be big. And it will affect both our graphics library and custom design services.
Over the years, VBI has been lucky to team up with some of the biggest celebrities and brands in the game. This January we unveiled a new collaboration with 100 Thieves, the legendary organization founded by Call of Duty legend Nadeshot. You can check out some of our work in their new studio tour below! Stay tuned – there’s much more in the works that I’m stoked to reveal.
On the flip side, my brother Derek and I have been working on an exciting new project. We were recently awarded an Epic Games grant for our WildEyes project – an initiative focused on connecting people to the natural world through technology. The goal is to produce an immersive new VR experience using the Unreal Engine. It’s a daunting task for sure, but something we’re both stoked to see through.
Needless to say, it’s going to be an exciting year for myself and the entire VBI team.
Chris: I first came across your work after noticing you were using ProductionCrate goodies. Do you have any favorite assets?
Jared:
Some time ago, I stumbled upon ProductionCrate while working on an experimental project. I was looking to achieve some very specific effects, without having to invest time creating them from scratch myself. Some lightning and magic assets, if I remember correctly. ProductionCrate had exactly what I was looking for, and much more. I immediately saw the potential for my workflow; not only for this project, but for future projects as well.
I’ve spent enough time in this industry to understand the importance of a high-quality effects directory. Over the years I’ve developed a lot of my own baked effects and backgrounds, for use in compositing over time. But ProductionCrate dwarfed my own library, and I’ve kept coming back ever since that first encounter.
For me, the real beauty of ProductionCrate is the impact on my efficiency. I can achieve my overall scene without having to reinvent the wheel, saving me loads of time and energy. This allows me to focus on higher priorities, like the overall direction, composition, and feel of my work.
It’s also an excellent tool for previsualization. I often use ProductionCrate assets during early project stages, inserting placeholder effects to sell the overall idea of my pieces. It’s a win-win; clients and teammates can easily grasp the story, without requiring massive time investment on my part. For this fact alone, ProductionCrate is essential to my creative pipeline.
Chris: Thanks, Jared!
Download the Crate’s Text Animator script for After Effects here
All ProductionCrate members can now download the exciting Text Animation script for free!
This exciting addition to the range of tools gives you the power to create fun animations for your text – with a single click.
With 25 hand-made presets to choose from, you’ll never run out of a fresh way to liven up your videos, commercials or presentations! The presets include glitches, fly-ins, slides, spins and more.
Without the script, to create a text animation graphic in After Effects, you may spend hours manually adjusting countless keyframes and meticulously modifying their speed, opacity, motion blur and many other parameters. This script puts an end to the suffering, doing all of the work for you within seconds!
To give you even more control, our script creates a Null object that contains adjustable parameters, so you can tweak your design to perfection even after generation.
Let’s take a look at the After Effects script:
Choose Animation – This opens up the range of presets that you can choose from.
Eye Icon – Generate a preview that helps you see what the animation looks like.
Text – Enter what you want to be displayed!
Preset Parameters – Once you’ve selected a template, a number of sliders will appear that lets you customize each preset to meet your expectations. These are also accessible through the Null object that is generated with the preset.
Create New Comp – Enabling this creates the new text in a new composition. Disabling will generate the text in your selected composition.
Preview All – A handy tool that creates a grid previewing all the available presets
Create – Once you’re happy with your settings, hit this and let the script make your text come to life!
The script has been built to balance simplicity with function, so whether you’re a Vlogger wanting to spice up your editing skills, or are building a title card for a blockbuster movie, this script is for you!
To install the script, extract the files from the download, and drop “Crate’s Text Animator.jsx” folder into your After Effects > Scripts folder. You then can run the script by heading through File -> Scripts -> Crate’s Callout Script.jsx.
We’re excited to see what you create with this script! If you’re interested in our other After Effects scripts, extensions and plugins, check out this page here.
Anime FX are some of the most fun assets you can use in your projects. They can be used in animations, films, and motion-graphics projects. Our Anime FX are great for exaggerating motion or adding impact. They can be used subtly or deployed in a spectacular fashion. We just added 20 New Anime FX to our libraries, ready for you to download!
Check out this example from our latest show, VFXperiments where we utilize some Anime FX in the title animation.
If you were tasked with creating a similar title card you might not think to use Anime FX but with some simple coloring and texturing Adrian was able to make them appear like a more retro-cartoon animation. Notice how the dust elements exaggerate the motion of the letters, the bubbles add to the vibe of the UFO and the liquid gives the end of the animation an extra touch of fun? Find how you want to animate your titles and then add these effects on afterwards, blending the two, and you will have an amazing project.
Think outside of the box when you use these! You can add on to pre-existing animations, like our Lower Thirds Script or in tandem with some Text Animation like this Bouncy Text Effect in AE
However you choose to utilize them, you’ll have a fun time. Enjoy!
Ever wanted to know how to make bouncy text in After Effects, per-Character, as quickly as possible? It’s really easy! The Text Animator in After Effects is actually quite easy to customize, with tons of hidden features. This is a great introduction if it is your first time using it.
First off, type in your text you want to bounce with the Text Tool (Ctrl + T)
Toggle down the arrow to the left of your text (Box 1 Below) so you can see the Animate button.
Toggle the Animate Button (Box 2 Below)
Select the Position Parameter from the Drop Down (see left)
Note all the other different parameters you can animate here!Opacity, scale, skew, rotation can all be animated independently or all together. For us, we will just use the Position parameter for this tutorial.
After selecting ‘Position’ you will see the Animation Controls (see below image). There you will see ‘Add’ with an arrow similar to the ‘Animate’ arrow. Click that. ‘Property’ and ‘Selector’ will appear, scroll over and click selector and choose ‘Wiggly’. If you are familiar with the Wiggle Expression this is a similar tool specifically for Text Animation.
For now, just select Wiggly, let’s get that text bouncing.
This is another great place to explore around if this is your first time trying the Animator tool for text! Notice the Expression option? There is a lot of powerful uses there, we will return to it in another tutorial.
Notice the Wiggly Selector (1 Box Below) You will see the familiar Position parameter and stopwatch. Next to that you will see the X and Y coordinates. We want this text to bounce up and down on the Y Axis. Let’s Increase that number to something low. 18 Works for our purposes.
If you hit the spacebar and preview you will notice that your text is already bouncing! If you want to customize further, that’s easy. Notice the Range Selector (Box 2, see right image) You can control the End or Start of the bounce on your text.
Use the stopwatch to create keyframes. You can have your text bounce Left to Right or Right to Left easily.
Drop down your Wiggly Selector (see below) for even more parameters you can customize. Change the speed of your bounce by increasing or decreasing your Wiggles/Second. Change your correlation if you want less, more or all characters to bounce together or completely independently. There are many settings here, the best way to learn is to do, find the right animation for your project!
Pro Users can download this awesome Hand Gestures Extension here for Mac and Windows
(Mac is the .dmg installer, Windows is the .exe)
This extension comes with 50 Animated Hand Gestures, compatible in AE CC
If this is the first extension you have downloaded from ProductionCrate, a warning message may pop up. Your OS just wants to confirm it is standard and safe (it is!)
The installer is built in, so simply double click and follow the installation guide.
The Crate’s Hand Gestures extension is built in with your needs in mind. Toggle through over 50 different animated hand gestures to find the one that is right for you.
We have options for phone screens, thumb swipes, finger taps and so much more!
Customize the skin color and sleeve color of your animated hand, flip the X and/or Y, and choose whether or not to have the motion shapes enabled.
Lastly, simply select the dimensions you want from the 3 most popular and hit Create! Just like that you have saved yourself hours of tedious labor.
If you want to use one of the many Phone Screen options simply create new compositions (File > New Composition) and make sure the settings for the dimensions are 615×1040 to fit perfectly into our animated phone screens.
Depending on how many swipes in your selected animation you will be able to choose 2-3 screens.
Follow the same steps as before and generate! You can toggle the Shy switch for more control, if you want to make any adjustments to the animation. Jump into your phone screen comps and adjust the timing if needed.
This is perfect for all your explainer videos, promos and commercial content. Enjoy!
Want to see our other Scripts and Extensions? Check these out
Download HD Christmas and Winter Holiday video effects here!
Find Christmas and Holiday themed sounds and Music here!
Happy Holidays!
ProductionCrate is here to help you celebrate the season with some festive and fun video effects for your projects. Here’s a peek at some of the wonderful assets we have wrapped up for you.
Edit in our looping snow effects with no time at all thanks to it all being pre-keyed. Our snowfall assets range from realistic blizzards to gentle cartoon snow. You can edit these snow effects into Premiere Pro and any other editing suite.
Give your video cuts a merry makeover with our animated Christmas themed transitions. ranging from snowmen, Christmas trees, gifts and more. Place these effects over two clips at the point where they cut in an editor such as Premiere Pro or After Effects.
Use an exciting Christmas backdrop for your greenscreens or presentations. We’ve made sure that these backgrounds loop, meaning you can have them endlessly play without any visible seams or cuts where the footage repeats itself.
We hope you enjoy editing your festive videos over the holidays!
Interested in becoming a part of our growing community? Take a look at our forums!
One easy and quick way you can make your presented videos more exciting is to have a great background!
We’ve built out one of the largest libraries of HD backgrounds you can find, all ready for you to download from our motion-graphics category today, with some of them even being completely free!
Use them in your green-screened presentation videos to give it a more dynamic look. Our low-poly backgrounds are perfect for these, as they keep your video fresh without distracting your viewers.
One of our low-poly backgrounds
We have plenty of themes, styles and variations to fit any look you’re going for, even backgrounds fit for holiday seasons such as Christmas, Halloween and Valentines day!
Using these backgrounds has been massively helpful in our videos on our YouTube channel, especially for our title sequences. Here we used the “That’s All Folks” from the Toon and Anime category for our Saturday Morning Tutorial shows!
Pro Users Only
We have new HUD Visual Effects for you to download
20 New 4K HUD elements, animated and ready to download on FootageCrate.com
For Pro Users who use After Effects, we are also supplying the Modern HUD Elements AE Project File so you can have more control of your VFX!
