September 30 - 1:25pm EDT   With Adobe Creative Suite 4 launching next month, Boris FX says it will offer free updates to compatible plug-ins for Boris Continuum customers. The full list includes Boris Continuum Complete 5 AE, Final Effects Complete 5 AE, Boris RED 4.x, Boris FX 9.x, Boris Graffiti 5.x, Boris Blue 2.5, or any Boris Continuum Unit. The company specializes in 3D compositing and vector graphic products for broadcast, post-production, film and multimedia markets. [full story]

September 23 - 1:50pm EDT   Adobe is calling the latest release of its ubiquitous Creative Suite a milestone -- but users expecting a radical change will probably disagree. CS4 is less about fancy new features, and more about workflow -- that is, making the products work better together. The Suite, officially unveiled Monday night, contains hundreds of refinements designed to "bring down the walls" in the creative process, by making it easier to move content between applications and by adopting a consistent user interface across the entire suite. Adobe has also added more web-accessible content and Connect Pro meeting software for instant communication between artists and developers. There are ... [full story]

September 5 - 12:45pm EDT   Noise Industries, in collaboration with Yanobox, has announced a new visual effects plug-in, Motype FxPack. Users working with After Effects CS3, Final Cut Express, or Final Cut Studio can implement Motype to create text or title animations. A Motion Mixer function allows the motion of the characters to be defined by geometric transformations or other properties, and random characters and symbols can be added as needed. [full story]

September 3 - 10:25am EDT   RE:Vision Effects has published Video Gogh 3, the latest version of its video post-effects software. The software attempts to simulate the look of various kinds of paintings and illustrations, such as oil, chalk and watercolor. The third edition adds a variety of features, most notably the option for animated and custom brush sets, with user-selectable brush images and render styles. [full story]

July 8 - 1:25am EDT   Synthetic Aperture is now shipping Test Gear 2.0, a new version of its video and audio monitoring software designed for Adobe After Effects CS3. Test Gear features a waveform monitor, vectorscope, and other diagnostic displays -- all of which are fully integrated into After Effects CS3's user interface. Version 2.0 also adds Universal Binary support for Intel-based Macs as well as enhances all of the test instruments by adding full support for 32-bit floating-point projects. Synthetic said that video footage imported into After Effects now properly displays values above 100 IRE and below 0 IRE on the waveform monitor, slice display, and histogram and a new Gamut Display ... [full story]

July 2 - 12:20pm EDT   Red Giant Software has launched Instant HD Advanced, its new plug-in for Adobe's After Effects. It offers higher quality than the scaler in After Effects or Red Giant's own Instant HD plug-in, which HD Advanced replaces, thanks to the super-resolution feature in the new plug-in. It also offers built-in deinterlacing and denoising controls that improve the quality of any interlaced material. It is available now for $400 and works with Mac OS X 10.4.11 and 10.5.2 and later. It requires Adobe After Effects CS3 on an Intel Mac with 1GB RAM. [full story]

June 23 - 12:15pm EDT   Red Giant Software has announced Radium Glow, a new 3D glow simulator that goes beyond simple blurring effects. Instead of just adding simple blur, the software gives pinpoint control over the glow effect and has edge effects, masking and output functions. The three included plug-ins add neon-style effects and can be combined with Red Giant's Trapcode Particular (the company's separate 3-D particle plug-in) and other plug-ins to give sparkle and shimmer effects. Radium Glow is available now for $100 and works with on Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later, on After Effects, Premier Pro, Final Cut Pro, Motion and Avid AVX. [full story]

May 28 - 4:10pm EDT   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. [full story]

April 10 - 10:50am EDT   Red Giant Software has announced it will show five new products at the upcoming NAB convention in Las Vegas, including Trapcode Horizon, Instant HD Pro, Radium Glow, Magic Bullet Steady, and Primatte Keyer Pro 4. Trapcode Horizon is a new plug-in designed specifically for After Effects users doing 3D work. Due in the second quarter of 2008, the plugin is designed to help video editors match the camera with any virtual background, enabling the generation of motion in 3D in a true 3D space. It is priced at $100. [full story]

April 10 - 2:05am EDT   Synthetic Aperture this week announced Test Gear 2.0, a new version of its video and audio monitoring software specifically designed for Adobe After Effects CS3. Expected to be demoed next week at NAB in Las Vegas, Test Gear offers a waveform monitor, vectorscope, and other diagnostic displays that are now fully integrated into After Effects CS3's user interface. Version 2.0 also adds Universal Binary support for Intel-based Macs. Version 2.0 enhances all of the test instruments by adding full support for 32-bit floating-point projects. Test Gear provides motion graphics artists and video editors with a variety of test instruments to make objective measurements of their ... [full story]

April 10 - 12:35am EDT   Ambric today unveiled plans to show its pre-release version of Am2045 GT on the Mac platform at this year's NAB conference. The Am2045 GT is a video reference platform that allows video professionals users to accelerate HD MPEG-2 and HD H.264 encoding for distribution on platforms such as Blu-ray, Flash, and DVD. The hardware also accelerates Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and After Effects CS3 via a plug-in. [full story]

April 7 - 11:35am EDT   Video plug-in maker Digieffects has announced two new plug-in series, Natural Forces and Simulate. The former will launch with "Vapor," which replicates fog, haze, clouds and smoke, and "Aqua," which imitates other forms of weather as well as various water effects. The Simulate plug-ins are more direct, adding lighting in the case of "Illuma," and namesake filters in the case of "Camera." [full story]

March 19 - 1:55pm EDT   Digieffects has begun shipping Damage, a new set of plugins for video and film post production professionals. Damage is a collection of four effects designed for post production professionals who want to create an extensive variety of digital and/or analog defects, errors and artifacts in their footage. It supports Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Autodesk Combustion and Boris RED. [full story]

March 6 - 10:45am EST   dvGarage recently unveiled updates to Conduit Suite and dvMatte Pro, its respective Conduit nodal composition tool and chromakeying software. Conduit suite brings with it Conduit Live, a new standalone nodal capture tool which offers users real-tie video compositing and analysis of any live digital footage. The Studio bundle also includes Conduit for Motion, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Photoshop, and After Effects. Conduit Suite is selling for $199, available from dvGarage's website. [full story]

January 25 - 3:15pm EST   Adobe is recommending that users refrain from downloading and installing the latest QuickTime 7.4, which was released last week following the Macworld Expo keynote. According to the company, QuickTime 7.4 introduces serious incompatibility problems with both After Effects and Premiere Pro, which can prevent both programs from working properly. After Effects and Premiere Pro users can reportedly resolve this issue by utilizing Leopard's Time Machine and reverting their systems to a previous state. [full story]