3D Extruder is a script that makes light work of creating high-quality 3D extrusions in After Effects, using the time-honored method of stacking 2.5D layers (all automatically of course). The benefit of this is your 3D extrusions are part of your real After Effects 3D space so they interact properly with other 3D layers.

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Features

Familiarity

To build 3D extrudes using a standard After Effects precomposition structure, making it familiar and intuitive for After Effects users to go into and customize.

Speed

Traditionally, extrudes created by stacking 2.5D layers have been rather cumbersome to work with. 3D Extruder deals with this by having a built in "edit mode" which temporarily simplifies the structure at the flick of a switch. Used in combination with draft 3D it means that you can often scrub back and forth on the time-line in real-time or near real-time, leaving you free to worry about getting that animation just perfect.

Quality

3D Extruder makes a highly convincing 3D extrude, emulating specular highlights, shading and reflection that respond dynamically to a controller light and reflector. Move or rotate your extrude and the shading and reflection change appropriately. Similarly, moving the light or reflector will cause the shading, specular highlights and reflection to respond too.

Ease

3D Extruder has 10 presets that create great results at the click of a switch. With a bit of extra customization, you can create results that it's hard to believe came out of After Effects.

Usability

3D Extruder is not just for creating one 3D extrude. It also contains tools to make your life easier while working on projects. You can save and manage your own presets using the pop up preset box and the Current to UI tool. "Duplicate" allows you to make new versions of your extruder and even copy extrusions to other comps. "Center Reflection" will save you lots of time lining up camera, reflector and extrude and "Fix Expressions" is there to put things right if something goes awry in the engine room. All told, 3D Extruder makes 3D extrusion quick to set up and easy to work with, while adding a level of detail that takes 3D extrusion to a whole new level.

Easily animate offsets in space and time for multiple layers

UPDATE!

There is now a version 2.4 of Layer Repeater. 

This version no longer needs administrator access when installing!

After unzipping the file, you will have:

• Layer Repeater v2-4.jsxbin
• A folder called layer_repeater_effects

Instructions:

1. Run the script from the Windows menu
2. Select the layer you want to duplicate
3. Choose how many layers you want to make a copy of
4. Choose if you want the layers to have 3d properties or not
5. Click Layer Repeater GO!!!
   
   • There will now be a composition in place of the layer you wanted duplicated
   • There will also be a null added to your composition with controls to affect the duplicated layers

After running the script, you will be able to animate offset and random parameters of many layer properties. These include:

Anchor Point

Position

Rotation

Scale

Opacity

Animation through time with a frame offset

Included in the download are full descriptions of all the properties that Layer Repeater can control.

Friction 2.0 is the new and improved animated typeface based on Friction. It's is a distorted geometric typeface that intentionally puts emphasis on it's graphic appearance. The minimalistic core of the typeface is built around geometric shapes. Two secondary layers of graphic elements create more abstract letterforms. The many small moving parts create a fluttering, organic feeling.

Designer: Jesper Bolther

Friction - New features

• Friction Core
  With a simple click on a check box in the control panel you can activate a minimal typeface that has the same fluttering animation as Friction Regular, but with all the secondary graphic elements animating off, leaving just the core of the characters.
• Layer Separation
  By controlling the opacity on each of the 3 layers you can separate them to e.g. use the secondary layers as graphic debris in your design.
• More Glyphs
  The font now holds 102 symbols, numbers and characters.
• FREE Static Typeface
  The font has been built as an OTF font with the different layers acting as weights. This enables end users to have 3 colors in the final layered typeface. Available for free at Friction.dk

Friction - Customizable Features

• 3 Colors and opacity
• Animate secondary elements out (checkbox)
• Optimized to work with Font Manager

Bundle Offer

Order 4 or more Animography Animated Typefaces and save 25%
Discount automatically applied in shopping cart.

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Amelie is fresh and vibrant animated typeface by Shabello. The typedesign is very neutral making it suitable for a lot of different uses. By setting the line width you can easily change the feel of the typeface to your liking. Roll your mouse over the image above to see animation

Designer: Shabello

Amelie - Customizable Features

• 2 line widths
• 2 colors
• Optimized to work with Font Manager

Bundle Offer

Order 4 or more Animography Animated Typefaces and save 25%
Discount automatically applied in shopping cart.

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Okomito is a sans serif inspired by the classic typefaces that were imbued with a sense of functionality, boldness and industrial strength.

Designers:
Hanken Co.
Jesper Bolther

Customizable Features

• 9 weights & styles (dropdown)
• 4 colors / 2 optional gradients
• secondary elements (2 checkboxes)
• diagonal bullet direction (up/down/random)
• random seed
• mask distortion
• Optimized to work with Font Manager

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Pixelar is a modular animated pixel typeface with separate static OTF font. The characters are constructed from 50 unique animated squares. These animated squares can also be used to construct your own typography, pixel-art or transitions. The animated typeface includes uppercase, lowercase, numbers, accents, punctuation and special characters. 8 customizable colors give it a nice and vibrant look. The vector shapes stay sharp at any size.

Designers:
Pablo Balcells
Jeroen Krielaars

Pixelar - Customizable Features

• 8 colors
• Optimized to work with Font Manager

Bundle Offer

Order both the animated and static typefaces and save 10%. Order 4 or more Animography Animated Typefaces and save 25%
Discount automatically applied in shopping cart.

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Mobilo Regular is the companion typeface to Mobilo Bold Animated which is a project by Animography to explore the balance between randomness and a systematic approach in type-design and animation.

The animated regular weight and static font are the perfect companions to the free bold version and are sure to deliver some visual balance to your project. You can download the free Animated Bold version from Animography.

Designers:
concept: Jeroen Krielaars
type design: Alfredo Marco Pradil (Hanken Co.)
music & sound design / Clark Rhee

Mobilo Regular - Features

• Optimized to work with Font Manager

Bundle Offer

Order 4 or more Animography Animated Typefaces and save 25%
Discount automatically applied in shopping cart.

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Barbour is a classy & elegant stencil serif static and animated typeface. Its 213 animated glyphs are designed by Timo Kuilder and animated by Philip von Borries. With its luxurious feel and subtle animations it is very suitable for fashion and premium lifestyle brands.

Designers:
Timo Kuilder
Philip von Borries

Barbour - Customizable Features

• 1 color
• Optimized to work with Font Manager

Bundle Offer

Order both the animated and static typefaces and save 15%. Order 4 or more Animography Animated Typefaces and save 25%
Discount automatically applied in shopping cart.

{{video type="youtube" video_id="tbwhGJleiXs"}}

Type-36 is a clean, capsule-like and geometric typeface. The animations are applied to the ExtraBold weight and are a highly customizable glitch style reveal. Control color, distortion and secondary elements to tailor Type-36 to your project.

The static typeface is available in Thin, ExtraLight, Light, Regular, Medium, SemiBold, Bold, ExtraBold and Black weights.

Designers:
Hanken Co.
Vaidas Oi

Type-36 - Customizable Features

• 3 Colors Controllers
• 3 Stroke Width Controllers
• Horizontal & Vertical Displacement
• Optimized to work with Font Manager

Bundle Offers

Order both Animated and Static typefaces and save 15%. Order 4 or more Animography Animated Typefaces and save 25%
Discount automatically applied in shopping cart.

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The Pseudo Effect Maker gives you a simple, user-friendly interface that allows you to quickly and easily develop, organize and apply custom effect controls. These controls can then be used to drive expressions and layers within your After Effects project and be saved as presets so that you can quickly reuse them, or so that others can use the tools you create.

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What is a Pseudo Effect?

A pseudo effect is also known as a 'custom expression control'. After Effects has several expression controls built in, however, they are all individually separated. This means that if you need to use multiple controls for your project, each one will have to be added separately, which can quickly get messy and unorganized.

A pseudo effect allows you to create a custom group of controls that can be named and organized however you want and make your expression controls easier to work with and look more like built in effects.

Now that I have my Pseudo Effect, how do I hide the built-in effects that I am controlling?

You can't.

Any effects that you are using as part of your preset will always have to be present.

Pseudo effects are just simple controllers. They can be connected to other effects and properties through expressions and allow you to set custom limits and defaults, but they will not replace anything. Without the actual effects present, you control will not do anything, and at the moment, there is no way to hide effects in the effects panel.

Getting Started with the Pseudo Effect Maker

To get a general overview of how to use the Pseudo Effect Maker, check out the video below. You can also read the Help File to get all the details.

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Ever needed to animate isometric illustrations along a particular axis?

If that's your case, you might have found it a bit tedious to keep control of the alignment between different layers. If it's not your case, tell me your secret!

While playing around with some expressions I created a way to simplify this process. It's a simple script that lets you constrain movement in the 3 axes of the isometric drawing.

Just import your illustrations, select the layers you want to animate, click the "Rig" button and that's it, you get 3 sliders to control the position in the X, Y and Z axes in isometric 2D space for each layer. 

Promotional video

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See it in action (from 08:10)

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Download

If you find this script useful for your workflow and want to contribute, you can name your own price. This is my first script and I value all the support that you could give me financially or through feedback so I can improve over time.

Installation

1. Copy the included Isometric Rigger.jsx file to:
   Windows: \Program Files\Adobe\[YOUR ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS VERSION]\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels
   Mac: /Applications/[YOUR ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS VERSION]/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels
2. Restart After Effects if it's already running
3. Go to the Window menu and select Isometric Rigger
4. Dock the panel wherever you like
5. Select a layer (or multiple layers) and click on the Rig button
6. Aaand that's it, have fun!

I have only tested it in After Effects CC on my PC, but it should also work on MAC and be compatible with After Effects CS6 and previous CC versions.

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2017 Alejandro Sanclemente

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m's Halftone is an After Effects plugin that performs halftone processing. It's very easy to use: just add the effect to the layer without any need for layer maps.

Shape: Shape of halftone. Three kinds of Circle, Square, and Line.
DotSize: The maximum size of halftone and the size of the interval.
Rotation: Halftone arrangement angle.
Offset: Halftone starting position.
Alpha: Transparent white area.
Sampling: Calculation method of halftone size.

Example of m's Halftone effect only processing

Example of a combination of m's Halftone effect and standard effects (Curves, Fill, CC Composite)

Application ranges are various: such as creation of comic-like expressions and background patterns, creation of transitions using gradation.

AutoSway lets you easily make your layers sway!

Easy setup

• Puppet Pin Tool mode:  just apply pins
• Layer mode: multiple layers can be swayed in 2D or 3D

Usage instructions

Puppet Pin tool

1. Apply Puppet Pins from the start point to the end point on the layer you wish to sway
2. Select all Puppet Pins that you wish to have sway, click the [apply] button. 
3. Select the [SwayControl] layer and adjust the sway. 

Layer mode

This mode allows linking and swaying of multiple layers as opposed to the Puppet Pin Tool mode which can only sway one layer.
It can sway in 2D or 3D as well as bending and twisting. 
There are also tools to help divide and duplicate layers.  

1. Select the layers you wish to have sway.
2. Select the layer you wish to be the start point first, and the one you wish to be end point last. 
3. Click the apply button. 
4. Select the [SwayControl] layer, and adjust the sway. 

Now your layers can happily sway in the wind!

If you use an earlier version than AfterEffectsCC, please do the installation of PseudoEffects from the Option menu of AutoSway.

AutoSway sample project file

New future! v1.81

1. Bake function
   By converting AutoSway's movement into a keyframe, it can be put together into one layer. Besides looking a lot tidier, putting everything into one layer lightens the load on your system's resources by reducing the calculation time required for Expression. The properties that can be Baked are the Effects and Transformations (excluding Opacity) in the SwayControl layer added by AutoSway.
    
   
    
2. Unbake function
   This function restores your Baked layers to their pre-Baked state.
   This includes the values set in the SwayControl layer as well as the keyframe information.
   It is used when adjusting AutoSway movement a second time.
   
   
   
   
3. PseudoEffects
   The effect items that are applied by AutoSway have become much easier to see.
   
   
   
   
4. Decay
   Setting Decay single keyframe.
   From the position where the setting has been determined, Decay will be started.
   
    

ロープや髪の毛など、ゆらゆらと揺れる表現を簡単に設定できるAE用スクリプト「AutoSway」
パペットピンツールを使用してピンを打ち、スクリプトを適用するだけで簡単にセットアップできます。
また、レイヤーモードでは、複数のレイヤーを繋ぐことができ、２Dから３Dの揺れも表現可能です！

■使用方法(パペットピンツールの場合)

　1.スクリプトを適用したいレイヤーに始点から終点にかけてパペットピンを打つ。
　2.揺らしたい全てのパペットピンを選択し、[実行]ボタンを押す。
　3.[揺れ制御]レイヤーを選択し、揺れ方の調整を行う。

AutoSwayを適用していないピンがあれば、それを元に新たにAutoSwayを適用することもできます。

■使用方法(レイヤーモードの場合)

パペットピンを使用する通常のモードとは異なり、複数のレイヤーをリンクさせて揺らすモードです。
2D の揺れや 3D での揺れを表現することができます。
また、揺らす以外にもレイヤーを曲げる、捻る事にも使用できます。

　1.揺らしたいレイヤーを複数選択する。
   　始点にするレイヤーを最初に選択し、終点にするレイヤーは最後に選択してください。
　2.レイヤーモードの実行ボタンを押す。
　3.[揺れ制御]レイヤーを選択し、揺れ方の調整を行う。

　たったのこれだけでセットアップ完了！

また、レイヤーを分割するツールや複製するツールもついています。

※AfterEffects CS6以前のバージョンをご使用の方は、AutoSwayのOptionメニューからPseudoEffectsのインストールを行ってください。

New アップデート! v1.81

1. Bake機能
   AutoSwayの動きをキーフレームに変換し、1レイヤーにまとめる機能です。
   複数のレイヤーが一つになり、見た目がスッキリするのに加え、Expressionによる計算がなくなるため動作が軽くなります。
   なお、Bakeが可能なプロパティは制御レイヤー内のAutoSwayによって追加されたエフェクトとトランスフォーム(不透明以外)です。
    
   
    
2. Unbake機能
   BakeしたレイヤーをBake前の状態に復元する機能です。
   揺れ制御レイヤーに設定した値だけでなく、キーフレーム情報も復元します。
   再度AutoSwayの動きを調整する時に使用します。
   
   
   
   
3. PseudoEffects
   AutoSwayで適用されるエフェクトの項目がすっきりと見やすくなりました。
   
   
   
   
4. 減衰
   減衰にキーフレームを一つだけ設定すると、
   設定した箇所から減衰が始まり、揺れが徐々に停止します。
   
   

The Pixel Cloud plugin for After Effects is a powerful compositing tool that allows you to relight a 3D generated image, make 3D aware selections or displace the pixels in 3D space. Combine the use of a Position Pass and a Normal Pass with the power of After Effects' 3D lights and cameras and change the lighting of your composited 3D graphics.

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This native plugin for After Effects can use the coordinate information from a Position Pass or depth map to generate a Pixel Cloud in 3D space. This Pixel Cloud can be viewed from all angles using AE's own cameras. With a Normal Pass, the Pixel Cloud can be relit using After Effects' own lights or using an image as an Image Based Light. There are a number of uses from 3D compositing to motion graphics!

Features

• Relighting with 32-bit passes
• Use AE Lights and Cameras
• Support for falloff lighting in CS5.5 and CS6
• Diffuse
• Specularity
• Image Based Lighting
• Reflection
• Alpha Lights for matte generation
• Support for falloff in CS5.5 and above
• Pixel Cloud generation with 8bpc to 32bpc
• 3D Displacement
• Pixel Texturing
• Lo-res Preview modes
• Multiprocessor compatible

Generating the position pass can be done in various 3D software packages. In Cinema 4D you may use the PointPosition C4D plugin.   For Maya, you may use the Point World output of a samplerInfo node connected to a surface shader and render an EXR using mental ray and the 32-bit framebuffer. There are also a variety of tutorials available.   For 3DS Max, you may add the XYZ Generator shader to the surface slot of a mental ray material. Set its Coordinate System to 3 and render to an EXR using the floating point framebuffer.

Tutorials

Relight tutorial
Depth Map displacement tutorial
Export PPass from C4D to use in Pixel Cloud
Alpha Lights in Pixel Cloud
Animating a Photo

Pixel Cloud Render Only License.

This license can only be used on headless render machines using the command line renderer: aerender and you must own at least 1 full license of Pixel Cloud in order to purchase them.

Where can I purchase a normal full license?

You can purchase a normal full Pixel Cloud license here.

Font Previewer Lite plugin allows you to preview fonts in After Effects. Windows & MacOs compatible.

Check the Pro version with more features: Font Previewer

 Features:

- Font preview (3 sample text mode)

- Search font by keyword

- 3 color themes (dark/default/light)

Projection makes light work of camera mapping onto 3D planes in After Effects CS6 and CC. It was created with the release of After Effects CS6, which introduced the 3D Camera Tracker, a built-in matchmover. But Projection works equally well with imported match-move data from programs such as Syntheyes, Boujou and PF Track.

Projection makes a variety of compositing tasks much easier. Once arduous tasks, like floor replacements, tracking mark removal and set-extensions are made much easier with Projection.

By projecting the camera's view onto a match-moved surface, Projection effectively creates a plate from a moving shot - a static overhead view of part of the moving image. That makes altering that part of the image child's play. For instance, tracking marks in a shot can now be removed with a single quick paint stroke, taking seconds instead of hours.

Projection is also great fun for other motion graphic orientated tasks. For instance, have some fun and create funky parallax tricks and other trick shots, create believable reflections on Ae geometry objects and even create tilt / shift effects.

Some of these applications are demonstrated in the two Projection demos. Don't forget to check them out.

Download Projection User Guide

Light and shade are subtle things. They allow us to perceive a scene in all manner of different ways - it conveys a sense of position, of placement and closeness of objects to one another, of time of day, and of atmosphere. When you look at an image, it's hard to put your finger on all these subtleties, but you can be sure of one thing… you miss them when they are not there!

In CG, good illumination can simply mean the difference between things looking real and things looking unreal. Control of the lighting is a must for making a scene look good and it's a double-must for believably compositing CG created stuff into shot footage.

Illumination adds a new dimension of lighting control to After Effects. By automating the creation and control of banks of point lights, Illumination brings a new type of lighting to AE - the softbox. Soft lights mean soft shadows, making objects feel much more believable.

Illumination's softbox lights are centrally controllable from 3D layers - not only their positioning in space is controllable from the control layer, but also brightness, shadow darkness and shadow diffusion. What's more, the lights take their color from the underlying layer, so you can create amazing gradient lighting, soft ambient shadows and daylight effects easily. You can also curve your light banks to wrap your lighting around a scene.

Illumination is great on its own or as a basis to build on, adding combinations of other After Effects lights, to amazing effect.

Download Illumination User Manual

3D Extruder is a script that makes light work of creating high-quality 3D extrusions in After Effects, using the time-honored method of stacking 2.5D layers (all automatically of course). The benefit of this is your 3D extrusions are part of your real After Effects 3D space so they interact properly with other 3D layers.

{{video type="youtube" video_id="-5ocPhzg9HU"}}

Features

Familiarity

To build 3D extrudes using a standard After Effects precomposition structure, making it familiar and intuitive for After Effects users to go into and customize.

Speed

Traditionally, extrudes created by stacking 2.5D layers have been rather cumbersome to work with. 3D Extruder deals with this by having a built in "edit mode" which temporarily simplifies the structure at the flick of a switch. Used in combination with draft 3D it means that you can often scrub back and forth on the time-line in real-time or near real-time, leaving you free to worry about getting that animation just perfect.

Quality

3D Extruder makes a highly convincing 3D extrude, emulating specular highlights, shading and reflection that respond dynamically to a controller light and reflector. Move or rotate your extrude and the shading and reflection change appropriately. Similarly, moving the light or reflector will cause the shading, specular highlights and reflection to respond too.

Ease

3D Extruder has 10 presets that create great results at the click of a switch. With a bit of extra customization, you can create results that it's hard to believe came out of After Effects.

Usability

3D Extruder is not just for creating one 3D extrude. It also contains tools to make your life easier while working on projects. You can save and manage your own presets using the pop up preset box and the Current to UI tool. "Duplicate" allows you to make new versions of your extruder and even copy extrusions to other comps. "Center Reflection" will save you lots of time lining up camera, reflector and extrude and "Fix Expressions" is there to put things right if something goes awry in the engine room. All told, 3D Extruder makes 3D extrusion quick to set up and easy to work with, while adding a level of detail that takes 3D extrusion to a whole new level.