Red Giant Software on Wednesday unveiled updates to two of its products, while also introducing a new plug-in for Adobe After Effects called Trapcode Horizon. The new plug-in allows users to generate three-dimensional effects to create photorealistic backgrounds and QuickTime VR-like panoramas. Red Giant Software claims Horizon ties automatically into the software's 3D camera, ensuring that the background image is drawn from the active camera's point of view. Trapcode Horizon is selling for $100, available from the company's website.

Trapcode Horizon provides gradient or image map modes, which both offer unique background construction. Gradient point mode generates smoothly blended color regions from up to eight points on a virtual sphere, while line mode uses converging lines to generate sky gradients.

In addition to introducing Horizon, Red Giant has updated Composite Wizard 1.4 and Image Lounge 1.4, adding compatibility with Creative Suite 3, as well as support for Intel Macs. The updates are each available for $50.