Red Giant have published an interesting tutorial showing how to generate normal maps using Trapcode Form. This allows for some pretty cool motion-graphics style effects when used in combination with my free relighting plugin Normality for After Effects, as the tutorial goes on to explain.
Motion 5
Apple’s Motion 5 is now available for $50… very, very intriguing. Did not see that coming at all. Definitely a bold move from Apple.
We may see some of my After Effects plug-ins ported to Motion in the future.
Good comparison of tone mapping operators
Fellow programmer/photographer Frank Dürr has created a nice comparison of tone mapping operators, many of which are available in Atlas.
This is a great resource if you’re just getting started with tone mapping and aren’t familiar with some of the eerie sounding names of the operators and their usage.
Also, here’s a photo taken last night from my balcony – tone mapped using the Ashikhmin and Reinhard ’02 operators in Atlas.
HDR photo of the Tokyo skyline
64-bit Atlas for After Effects CS5 is here
The Good
As it’s been requested by many users and I’ve found a little time to spare, I’m releasing the 64-bit version of Atlas today. I’ve also included a new simple tone mapping operator based on John Hable’s discussion of filmic tone mapping in games.
Atlas is a collection of tone-mapping operators for Adobe After Effects based on the open source PFStmo library. The plug-in is free software licensed under the GPL.
The Bad
Now before everyone gets all excited I also have some bad news: The tables have turned. Since the initial release of Atlas (which was Windows-only) I’ve gotten rid of all my Windows systems. That unfortunately means that I cannot develop for the platform and I can’t release any Windows software at the moment.
So this time around Atlas is available in binary form for Mac OS X only.
(At this point I could go on about how it’s free, open source, yadda yadda, and how someone else should step up and compile it for Windows, but it’s become rather clear that there is no real interest in open-source software in the AE community.)
… and the Ugly
With that said, I really do wish there was a better way to handle cross-platform development. I simply can’t be bothered to keep around and maintain multiple development environments just to compile and test free software on platforms I have no personal use for.
Sure, I could use Parallels/BootCamp on my Mac but even then it’s an inordinate amount of work for what at the end of the day results in the very little personal reward.
It looks like Adobe’s Pixel Bender might be a step in the right direction, but unfortunately the technology comes with its own set of issues… I’ll probably post about that another time.
Download
Anyway. Go ahead and grab the latest version of Atlas for CS5 on Mac OS X! Oh, and please donate if you do.
Normality in Ars Technica article
Wahey! Normality got a mention in Ars Technica’s brilliant and in-depth article on animation and rendering on the Mac!
As an avid Arsian — I’ve been hanging around their forums for more than 10 years — I feel honored to have my small contribution to the CG world noticed there.
Normality for After Effects CS5 (64-bit)
Right… yes, I know, I said in the past it simply wasn’t going to happen. Well, whatever. Finally here’s what a lot of users have been waiting for ever since Adobe released the latest version of After Effects: Normality for CS5 in its full 64-bit glory.
Thanks to a kind and very generous donation from the Troika Design Group I was able to compile the plug-in for the latest version of After Effects.
Download the new version and enjoy… and please donate if you do.
Ported plug-ins to OpenFX
Finally found a little time to port most of my After Effects plug-ins to the OpenFX format. So far I have Generator, Celulight, Occlusionist, Edgar, Floodgate and a couple more filters running in both 32-bit and 64-bit in Windows and Linux.
The port was fairly straightforward: Back when I was rewriting Normality for version 3.0 I’d designed a portable wrapper around the After Effects-specific parts of the code, so it would be easy to separate the graphics algorithms from the GUI side. My plug-ins also share many libraries with my 3D shaders, which were already designed to be cross-platform and 64-bit capable.
So this strict separation paid off for me as it made porting the software to the OpenFX format quite painless.
What’s this OpenFX business?
The OpenFX (OFX) format is, as the name suggests, an open standard for visual effects plug-ins.
For me as a developer there are a number of technical benefits as the API is open, reasonably modern and far more accessible than the proprietary, aging and convoluted After Effects API my plug-ins were originally written for.
The really great thing for developers and users alike is that OFX is supported by a growing number of compositing applications including Nuke, Fusion, Shake and Toxic/Maya Compositor. (Notice a prominent compositor missing from that list…?)
Anyway, that means the next time a software developer decides to arbitrarily end support for your platform of choice, you can at least take your collection of plug-ins with you.
Normality for OpenFX?
Currently not, unfortunately… as much as I like the OFX API, it does have some limitations which make a faithful port of Normality impossible.
I do have a solution in mind but it’ll take some time to design and implement. Without revealing too much at this point, I’ve been considering freeing Normality from the shackles of a host application altogether for quite some time now…
Atlas 0.3
I’ve added proper color-space conversion to Atlas, so you shouldn’t be getting any more over-saturated results.
The one remaining bug I’ve come across is the broken Reinhard ’05 mapping – please let me know if you find anything else broken or behaving unexpected!
Atlas 0.2
Well, that was quick! Thanks to user feedback I was able to fix two nasty little bugs in the original release of Atlas right away.
Atlas 0.1 is out
As previously announced, here’s the first release of my new tone mapping plug-in for After Effects, Atlas.
The release is buggy and probably not fit for production, but it’s open-source so I hope to get some help to bring it up to speed! Atlas is released under the free GPL license.
This release is Windows only for now… however, the full source code is included, which means that anyone with more time on their hands than me can feel free to compile a Mac version. I didn’t try it myself, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t run on Mac OS X.
To compile the code you will need to download and link with the After Effects SDK. For legal reasons I unfortunately cannot distribute these files with Atlas. The required pfstmo libraries are included with the download, however.
The code is not yet well documented, but the plug-in itself is just about as simple as it gets, so you should find your way around easily if you’re familiar with the SDK.
Hints on usage
If you’re not familiar with the concept of tone mapping, Wikipedia has a good introduction that should give you an idea of the use and functionality of this versatile technique.
Please note that for obvious reasons the effect is most useful in 32-bit color mode with 32-bit source images. It will work in lower modes but the resulting effect might not be what you expect.
Please go ahead and download Atlas and then let me know in the comments if you come across any bugs or have other suggestions!