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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/839
114 MacDirectory
REVIEW | PRODUCTIVITY
Video filters can be grouped into two
categories: practical and fun. Excellent
examples of the two are found in Red
Giant's Composite Wizard and Trapcode
Horizon. On the practical side is
Composite Wizard 1.4, which provides an
outstanding set of filters for seamlessly
stacking layered visuals in creating photo-
realistic composites. The fun side is
brilliantly represented by the seemingly
simple but stunningly effective 3-D tool,
Trapcode Horizon. Designed for Adobe
AfterEffects, these filters are definite
candidates for the must-have list of any
motion graphics pro.
Composite Wizard
While After Effects has a nice selection of
compositing tools, Red Giant's Composite
Wizard provides nearly two dozen filters
that makes green screening easier than
ever. Among others, its includes excellent
tools for finding and adjusting edges,
light wrapping (for a realistic color spill),
an alpha cleaner for removing noise
between frames, an excellent Z-buffer
tool for applying a depth of field blur to
imported 3-D animations, a re-matter for
combining multiple matte creation
effects in a single pass, excellent feather
and feather/sharp tools, a fast and easy
wire/rig zapper, a super compound blur
for adjusting blur by luminance or
individual RGB channels, and HLS tools for
matching and or restoring colors.
Its smooth screen effect provides an
excellent starting point for green screen
shots, smoothing variances in the screen
before keying. The miracle alpha cleaner
tool is a great tool for reducing or
eliminating the need to manually retouch
mattes. The super blur tool provides the
quality of a Gaussian blur but at up to five
times the speed, saving a great deal of
rendering time.
Composite Wizard works equally well on
video assets and text. It also provides an
excellent complement to Primatte keyer
and works wonderfully with AE 6 through
CS3 and beyond.
Trapcode Horizon
The 3-D tools and effects in AfterEffects,
while impressive, are not genuine 3-D but
flat planes in 3-D space. In order to
achieve a genuine feel of true 3-D the
background should be both spherical and
have a direct relationship to the position
and angle of the camera. This is the
purpose of Trapcode Horizon.
While Horizon started out as a way to
generate 3-D gradients and blends
between spots of color in a 3-D space, its
capability of projecting a full 360º x 360º
spherical image adds a dynamic quality to
an otherwise average animation. An easy
example is to grab a deep space photo
from NASA and apply Horizon, then attach
a looping fireball effect to a circular object
in the center of the scene, and then orient
the camera and object to one another. A
simple spin of the orbit camera tool
makes the scene leap right off the screen.
Taking things further, you can take a
generated particle smoke stream (from a
filter such as Trapcode particular), attach
this to a path and have the camera follow
the resulting animation through 3-D space
for a stunningly realistic chase sequence.
To achieve the fullest effect, one needs
a spherical panoramic image. These
images are available from various sources,
and tutorials are available from such
sources as Gnomon Workshop