February 6 2010
An interesting (but not terribly surprsing) message was posted on Twitter a couple of days ago:
“@chad_perkins Back from Adobe. Finally can tell you that the next version of After Effects is a WEAK upgrade (IMHO). But PS and AI will be GREAT upgrades!”
(via AE Portal)
The original statement has since been retracted because apparently the poster was under an NDA and spoke too soon… luckily I am bound by nothing of the sort, so I get to “retweet” (as it were) whatever I want.
No official word on new features yet, but judging by the rumors making the round it looks like After Effects CS5 is going to be the second lackluster upgrade in a row, 64-bit support notwithstanding.
Maybe the company that is no longer in the Flash business needs to spend a little less time coming up with cheesy feel-good marketing slogans and instead focus on what they used to be good at:
Making tools that just let their users get their damn work done.
Hint: Homebrew installers that take more than an hour to complete and require one to shut down their web browsers, upgrades that lay waste to all existing plug-ins and the oh-so pretty “Flash-y” but increasingly non-standard GUIs are not things that make artist’s lives any easier. Nor do they “help people communicate”, to put it in Adobe’s terms.
February 5 2010
Some downloads from this site are currently broken. Sorry, I can’t be arsed to fix it right now.
On a side note, it’s fascinating to see how many people contact me about my plug-ins when they cannot download them as opposed to after they did…
Edit: Fixed.
January 18 2010
A quick note as I’ve heard this this question come up a lot lately from people reading my earlier post and in discussions on various forums on the topic of AE CS5 being 64-bit only.
Will Normality / Atlas / Generator be ported to 64-bit for After Effects CS5?
The short answer: No.
Longer answer: Adobe has made the business decision to deprive me (and all other professional AE users) of a significant investment by removing support for 32-bit plug-ins, e.g. all existing third-party plug-ins, in AE CS5.
Again, this was not done for technical reasons, it was purely a business decision.
Along with my invaluable collection of third-party plug-ins I also lose the functionality I require to do my daily work. Now I need to go out and find replacements for stable and time-tested tools and in some cases even develop new ones to replace custom software I do not own the rights to.
AE’s main strength IMHO was the sheer number of third-party plug-ins that are not available for other platforms. In a way Adobe has leveled the playing field.
In light of this predicament I in turn have also made a business decision: I’m simply taking my business elsewhere.
As I’ll have to replace all my plug-ins anyway, this is the perfect opportunity for me to ditch After Effects for a more powerful solution. One that, ironically, manages to run in both 32– and 64-bit. And in Linux!
A word to the After Effects community
I’m not doing this out of spite or to harm the AE community in any way and I apologize to all users that have come to rely on my plug-ins for their daily work.
Updating my software to run in CS5 means I myself would have to invest in the new version, and I’m sure you understand that’s not something I’m prepared to do just to support some free plug-ins.
Just like Adobe’s, mine is purely a business decision.
December 7 2009
guess how I know you have a problem with your telecommunications market? I’m being asked by the monopolist market leader Telstra to pay nearly 400$ in extortion “setup fees” to get my land line setup. A land line I don’t even want, because all I need is an internet connection.
And the kicker? I’m limited to 50GB a month. No, this is not a cell phone plan… this is a proper internet connection.
November 15 2009
Generator is a simple and free plug-in for Adobe After Effects which can be used to create normal maps from alpha mattes, such as text and shape layers.
It is based on some of the same algorithms as my more versatile Celulight plug-ins, but is comparatively simple and offers none of the advanced customizations its more feature-rich brother offers.
Generator is designed to run in cooperation with the free Normality re-lighting solution to create shading and lighting effects for text and arbitrary shapes without the need for pre-rendered 3D normal passes.
Usage
When using Normality to add lighting and shading effects to motion graphics, sometimes you’d wish there was a quick and easy way to create a normal map from text or shapes instead of relying on a complex 3D renderer… that’s where Generator comes in!
Just drop this plug-in on your text, shape or any other layer with a clean alpha channel and you will instantly see a normal map based on the layer’s shape. Generator is kept intentionally simple with very few options and hence little room for error — in fact, there is only a single parameter to adjust.
The automatically generated normal map can be used by Normality to add shading and lighting effects even without a pre-rendered 3D normal pass.
Note: Due to a bug in Normality, you must pre-compose your generated normal map before applying Normality.
Download Generator Beta 0.2
Download
Generator for After Effects is a free download for Microsoft Windows.
Download Generator
Generator is a free After Effects plug-in for Microsoft Windows.
Donations
Developing free software costs time and money. If you appreciate my work and use it in production, please donate.
I will be more inclined to release cool stuff in the future if I see that my work is appreciated.
Donations
Developing free software costs time and money. If you appreciate my work and use it in production, please donate.
I will be more inclined to release cool stuff in the future if I see that my work is appreciated.
November 5 2009
I am thrilled to announce that I have accepted a position at the Oscar-winning studio Animal Logic in Sydney, Australia. Knowing the quality of their work and the cool projects they work on, I am very proud and excited to be part of their incredibly talented team.
Being more of a summer-than-winter-guy, I am also happy to skip the harsh European winter this year and head straight back into a warm summer Down Under. Last Christmas I spent a couple of great weeks touring Australia and I cannot think of a better place to be.
Sunset near Mildura, Victoria
What this means…
For Studio Lampion
Not much, really. In fact my partners will continue to run the studio I helped build up without me. They are very supportive of my decision and I’m leaving on amicable terms.
For my plug-ins and shaders
I will probably have less time to spend working on them than I did in the past months. Expect updates and new releases from me to slow down.
For myself
Personally, I am super-happy to be moving to Australia along with my girl! Our visas have already been approved and flights are booked… nothing can stop us now :)
