Play.on

 
I’m currently working on a plugin for Adobe Animate CC and Adobe After Effects which I have nicknamed “Play.on”. It will allow you to build interactive HTML5 based media using visual programming. This media can be used for things like playable ads, mini-games, interactive web apps, banner ads, the list goes on. You can choose from a library of templates and customize it to suit your needs. The cool thing about this workflow is that you will not need to be a computer programmer to create a robust interactive experience.

The concept is to use a node-based network to build and visualize an interactive experience. You design the experience using a series of nodes along with simple logic streamed together in a graph using Adobe Animate CC and Adobe After Effects.

The nodes refer to animations that can be triggered as the user travels through the experience funnel. After you have created your network, you can output an HTML5 web ready file that is not only responsive and polite loading but adapts to server environment, including being able to preflight for Google’s DV360, Facebook Playables, all while MRAID compliant. The plugin will output all the necessary code for you as JavaScript and HTML!

And as the platform grows, you can extend the plugin by simply adding more nodes. I am also working on building a node for supporting dynamic content so that one can use third party data feeds for things like keyword contextual targeting, geolocation, and campaign data can be fetched and used to determine what kind of experience will be delivered on the fly.

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Maya AE Live Link

I’ve been using The Maya-AE Live Link feature that was recently added in Maya 2017 Update 3 and it is a marvelous solution for motion graphic artists and animators who use a Maya and After Effects workflow. Whereas you had to use a hacky workflow of scripts and baking keys to go back and forth between apps, this new workflow gives me just the right amount of control and ease of use.

Although it doesn’t give you 3D rendering inside AE, and honestly you don’t want to be rendering Maya scenes from After Effects, it gives you the ability to exchange cameras, lights and transforms with which you need to match your render sequences with the composite. I am currently developing Pixel Cloud 2.0 and using Maya-AE Live Link in the workflow. Hope to show it off real soon!

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Pixel Cloud updated to 1.7 and Compatible with CC 2015

Pixel Cloud

Pixel Cloud has recently been updated to unify the licensing scheme with the AEScripts framework and it is compatible with After Effects CC 2015. Also, the plugin has been removed from the installer. It does require the user to manually install the plugin into the plug-ins folder, but it will make releasing updates easier and therefore will ultimately be better for the user.

If you have purchased a license before, you will need to uninstall the previous version of Pixel Cloud before installing the update. Mac users can simply move the plugin from the plug-ins folder into the trash. Windows users will need to uninstall the plugin from the Programs and Features category in the Control Panel. The plugin has been tested and is compatible After Effects CC 2015. If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment on the product page‘s Comments section or submit a ticket and I will get back to you asap!

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Pixel Cloud Updated for After Effects CC 2014

Pixel Cloud version has updated its installer for After Effects CC 2014. It will install the plugin with the correct file paths for After Effects CC 2014. You can download the new version from AEScripts.

Version 2.0 is still in the works. Extraneous events have delayed but not halted development. I still intend to have this version available later this year! I will be keeping you all posted!

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Pixel Cloud updated for After Effects CC

Pixel Cloud Demo
Pixel Cloud version 1.0 has updated its installer for After Effects CC. The plugin itself is the same between CS6 and CC actually. However, since the file path conventions are different because it is “CC” and not “CS6” the installer was updated to accommodate this. You can download the new version from AEScripts.

In related news, I am currently working on version 2.0 of Pixel Cloud and will be happy show off what’s new with this update! Version 2.0 will be a free update for version 1.0 owners! A new tutorial video is in the works as well as some new scripts and other goodies. At some point in the near future these updates will be coming quick so stay tuned!

Michael

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Duplicate with Connections Script Updated!

The Duplicate with Connections script has been updated and be downloaded at AEScripts + AEplugins. This update adds an option to use the property index instead of the property name. This can be useful in which multiple properties may have the same name and therefore can confuse the expressions engine. I understand this could be of help with those of you using expressions in Element.

In other news, I have to apologize for the lack of communication for a while. It’s been a busy few months at work and with a new baby at home! But I’ve got a video tutorial I am working on and an update for the Pixel Cloud plugin as well as a brand new plugin on the horizon!

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Introducing Pixel Cloud!

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. 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! Find it at AEScripts.com!

Features:
Relighting with 32-bit passes
Use AE Lights and Cameras
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 from AEScripts.com. There is also a tutorial for doing this here: http://youtu.be/yfoT7bxbBwo

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 it’s Coordinate System to 3 and render to an EXR using the floating point framebuffer.

More tutorials coming soon!

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Demo: Pixel Cloud Relight

The Pixel Cloud plugin effect for After Effects has several nifty features including the ability to relight a 3D rendered scene using separate passes. With this feature, you can drastically change the light source, direction of light and mood of a scene as well as the specularity and reflections in an image. Here is a demo/tutorial of how this can be achieved in After Effects with the Pixel Cloud plugin!

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Pixel Cloud Relight Demo Coming!

The upcoming Pixel Cloud plugin for After Effects can be used to relight a source image affecting the diffuse and specular properties. Coming soon I’ll be posting a revealing demo of how easy it is to take a static image from a 3D package and use Pixel Cloud and After Effects’ own 3D lights to create a dynamic and believable composite with moving lights, shadows, and reflections. Here’s an end product of what it will look like!

3D model courtesy of Stanford 3D Model Repository

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Demo: Alpha Lights in Pixel Cloud

One of the nifty features in the upcoming Pixel Cloud plugin for After Effects is the ability to use After Effects own 3D lights to “relight” the alpha of an image according to its depth/position information. This can be done using an additional position pass or height map pass. Here is a quick little demo of how this can be achieved!

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Pixel Cloud: Alpha Lights Demo Coming!

Pixel Cloud has a robust set of relighting tools. These include relighting tools for diffuse, specularity, reflections and the ability to relight the “Alpha” of a 3D displaced image using After Effects own lights. In Pixel Cloud we can specify lights that only affect the alpha channel of an image. Since the image is a 3D displaced Pixel Cloud, this means we can easily separate parts of an image according to their depth information. This is a powerful tool and a normal map isn’t a prerequisite, meaning you can relight non-CG generated images like photos and video. The video isn’t up yet but as a taste here is a preview of what the upcoming demo/tutorial will show how we can utilize this tool to relight the alpha of Jack, our cute little dog from the previous demo!

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Recreality: The Future of Cinema?

I just received my Lytro and have been having a blast taking photos with it. It’s absolutely brilliant. If you’re unfamiliar with this camera, it allows you to focus the picture after it’s already been taken. The move from in-camera to in-post is certainly being lead by technology and economics. My Pixel Cloud plugin is also trying to bring more of those capabilities into After Effects. Just look at the Microsoft Kinect and how innovative pioneers are using its ranging features to recreate environments from recorded point clouds. And Samsung has developed a sensor that not only records RGB but Depth pixels as well! These are amazing innovations for effects artists.

Imagine a future where we can record whole rooms as animated environments. Think 3D scanners that scan whole rooms at one time and at 24fps. We could completely eliminate conventional camera motion control and create everything in-post. We could change the lighting setups, create digital camera rigs all after the video has already been shot. Not as CG but as recorded pixels in 3D space; An accurate representation of reality that we can manipulate to our choosing. This opens up possibilities for interactive story-telling, not to mention subjective 3D stereography. I could imagine a dozen more uses.

This isn’t just virtual reality but recreated reality, “Recreality.”

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Pixel Cloud Demo: Animating a Photo

[CORRECTION] Although we use the term depth map, the correct term for usage should be height map. The main difference being that a height map denotes distance from a flat surface and a depth map denotes distance from the camera.

I’ve shown how we can use a CG render and a Position Pass in After Effects to animate and relight a 3D displaced Pixel Cloud. But not all 3D programs can produce a Position Pass and photographic sources obviously do not come with specialized passes. Pixel Cloud can still get around these limitations.

Although not yet released, this demo/tutorial gives a quick look at how simple it is to use the Pixel Cloud plugin to create a realistic camera animation with a simple photograph. Pixel Cloud can use not only Position Passes but Depth Map passes as well within an 8-bpc project.

So keep an eye out for more updates on how close we are getting to release Pixel Cloud!

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Animating with Depth Coming Soon!

After a brief hiatus from postings, we’ll soon be coming back with a demo/tutorial on how to use the upcoming Pixel Cloud plugin to animate a photograph using depth maps and 3D displacement! It really is an amazing difference from just using flat 3D layers to simulate parallax. We’ll also be coming out with a couple of new tutorials with integrating this with a camera projection workflow as well as tips on how to get the most out your composites!

Here’s a look at the finished product looks like!

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Tutorial: Learning at the Playground

At school there were always teachers who in all honesty were experts in their field simply because they knew 10% more about it than 10% of the students they were teaching. But if I took the chance to look beyond my own “pretentiousness”, I would find there was always something invaluable to learn from them. It may not be what I was expecting and it may be completely different than what I was studying, but it was always beneficial and always unexpected. And that’s what learning is about, right?

So here is my first tutorial on Blurrypixel using an often overlooked particle effect in After Effects, Particle Playground. Which takes a bit of effort to learn compared to the plethora of turnkey particle generators out there, but I think it’s a good start for a tutorial since it encapsulates so much of digital compositing. So even though you might be saying, “I can make this effect happen in Particular in 5 minutes,” keep in mind there’s always another 90% out there.

It’s a video tutorial. I hope you find it invaluable. Please let me know how I did and if you have any tips or corrections please leave a note. I want to get better! So watch my first tutorial and let’s Learn at the Playground!

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What is Relighting?

What is Relighting for After Effects?

For After Effects and compositing in general, relighting is the process of changing the perceived shading of an already rendered 3D image. This includes the diffuse shading and specularity of the 3D image. One could drastically change the perceived position of the sun or whether an object is shiny or not. In other compositing packages this may also include cast shadows.

Relighting is actually a commonplace process in many node-based compositing packages like Nuke. Until recently, this was not possible within After Effects. The fact that After Effects had a 2GB memory limitation as well as limited support for 32bit footage certainly limited its capability to relight a shot.

32bit images can take up a lot of memory and processing power. Take your heaviest comp and turn on 32bit. Your comp may take up all your memory and most of the effects aren’t 32bit ready making your output simply 8bit images with a decimal point on the end. Imagine relighting a 4K video in CS4. You couldn’t and the process would still be very sluggish on CS5 but the possibility is there. And that’s what Pixel Cloud will do. Extend that potential. And make that opportunity available.

The truth is, After Effects was never meant for this type of compositing. Node-based solutions filled a market that AE simply could not. But CS5 and above is changing all that. 64bit and no memory limitation means that After Effects is just beginning to compete in a market of film-quality compositing and special effects. After Effects and Premiere can help open up a world that is filling with digital filmmakers. Technology just continues to become more powerful and even cheaper.

After Effects has a bit of ways to go in order to become a compositing standard. It could still be faster. It should have stronger tools for customizing workflow or at least more education on the scripting interface. And why not create a more node-like interface for the flowchart for the many users who come from a 3D background? But for the price, a regular production cycle, pages of tutorial information and legions of users, CS5 already is the de facto standard.

Passes

To light a scene, you basically need 3 bits of information from the 3D package. The position of the surface and the direction that the surface is pointing. Lastly you will need the camera information which was used to render the scene in the first place. This would be the camera position, direction and focal length. The light information is provided by the compositing program.

The position information is rendered into a position pass. Some people call it a “P” pass but I prefer position pass. The surface direction is provided by the normal pass. The position pass takes the x,y,z coordinates of the points being rendered and saves them in a 32bit image as r,g,b color information. The normal pass takes the vector coordinates of the normals of those points and saves them the same way. The images have to be 32bit as these images can handle floating point values greater than 255 and can even be negative. These values also have to be in the same coordinate system. In other words, if the position pass is in camera coordinates then the normal pass must also be in camera coordinates.

Given these 2 passes and the camera, the compositing program can then use a bit of trigonometry and some fancy mathematics to simulate what the lighting would be at those corresponding screen coordinates with any given light.

Why would you do all this when you could simply go back into your 3D software and re-render the scene? Because that could mean hours of rendering and since compositing is generally much faster than re-rendering, if you could just fix it during compositing why not try that? By rendering extra passes during the rendering stage you could end up saving yourself tons of time instead of wasting hours trying to make sure the sun’s highlights are on the right side or your character’s nose is shiny enough.

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Pixel Cloud Relighting Preview

Here is a video of some of the relighting features available with the Pixel Cloud plugin for After Effects with a side by side comparison from the original footage to the Pixel Cloud effected footage. You can see the practical utility of not having to go back into the 3D process just to re-render a shot.

The voice track is from Shakespeare’s To be or not to be soliloquy from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s film Hamlet portrayed by David Tenant.

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Pixel Cloud Relighting and Alpha

Sorry it’s been a while to provide updates but there’s been so many changes to the plugin so far. Wonderful Changes! We have continued providing more functionality for relighting and selective masking using AE lights. Lots of bugs were fixed and for the moment I am working on getting user guide and tutorial information together. One of which is the following demonstration video for some of the basic relighting uses for the plugin!

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Relight with Pixel Cloud

I’m excited to say that there will indeed be relighting functionality built into the Point Cloud plugin. Still in Beta, I’m happy to show off a little bit of what this relighting capability can do for your workflow! I’m still looking for a couple of beta testers who are serious and will be committed to helping me bring this plugin to release. In particular, I’m looking for Windows CS4 and CS5 After Effects users who use 3DSM and/or Maya and will be able to help me provide animated examples of relighting 3D renders in an After Effects workflow. You should be familiar enough to provide a workflow for generating position as well as normal passes. Please reply to betaprogram@blurrypixel.com.

 

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Beta Testers Wanted!

20110508-112400.jpg

The Point Cloud plugin has moved into the Beta stage and us nearing release! Update: Thanks for all the responses! We currently have enough testers now!

I’m looking for a few good beta testers to help me QA the current build. Broadcast, film After Effects compositors integrating 3D applications in their workflow. Maya, Cinema 4D and 3DS Max. Your help is wanted! Please write to betaprogram@blurrypixel.com for more information.

Update: Thanks for all the responses! We currently have enough testers now!

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