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Trapcode Horizon is a camera-aware color gradient and image mapping tool. It is a fairly straightforward utility plug-in. It is meant to be used on the bottom layer in a 3D comp. It generates a background that corresponds to the camera’s viewing direction.

To get yourself started with the Trapcode Horizon Tutorial

Trapcode Horizon can be used for example when a 3D camera move leaves the viewer confused; Trapcode Horizon can help generating a background that corresponds to the camera move and thus help the viewer understand what is actually going on. Or it can be used just for fun!

Trapcode Horizon is a great companion to the other 3D plugs from Trapcode, such as Particular and Form etc.

Supported Hosts: Adobe After Effects 7.0 and higher (Mac OSX/Windows)

Earlier news: Trapcode Horizon - After Effects plugin (updated)

Trapcode Horizon costs currently 99 USD: Buy Trapcode

Give your compositions what they’ve been missing with this unique mapping tool. The Trapcode Horizon plug-in is a camera-aware image mapping tool that ties your After Effects camera to a 3D world.

By applying images or gradients to the inside of a giant sphere, Horizon creates an infinite background. No matter where your camera is directed, the simple controls make photorealistic backgrounds or sky gradients a snap.

Features of Trapcode Horizon:

Trapcode Horizon runs only in Adobe After Effects CS3, 7.

You can buy Horizon here

Update: Some early examples from the beta version: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3.

Jerzy Drozda Jr (aka Maltaannon) did release new After Effects Tutorials to help you to master After Effects CS3 even better.

• HS: Bad chroma key “Even at this small thumbnail image you can see how poor the quality of the footage is. How do you key out something as nasty as this? Watch the tutorial to find out.”
• High Pass and Coloring “If you’ve worked with High Pass filter before than you already know how amazing this tool is for sharpening, color grading, masking and many many others. I’ve seen many threads on many forums where people where asking how to move this wonderful Photoshop filter into After Effects, because it doesn’t come with one. Since I was also in need to use it several times in my video productions I decided to look into how it works and build one myself”
• Text Ramp “Ramp TextThis quick tip will show you how to apply a Ramp effect to Text Layers while avoiding common problems that appear when doing so.”
• Flashlight Titles “Trapcode Lux, Shine, Starglow, and my CE PixelSampler. See what you can do with this amazing combo and learn to create this cool title sequence.”

Cebas has release its new ThinkingParticles 3.0 Demo Version. Cebas tried to make your ThinkingParticles Demo experience as close to the full version as possible, but there are as you can expect some restrictions in a Demo Version. Cabas say’s about their product: “ThinkingParticles^TM 3.0 is the ultimate rule based particle system for 3ds max, offering unparalleled power to the user. ThinkingParticles^TM 3.0 is a completely new class of rule-based particle systems for 3ds Max. When this type of particle system is compared to an event-based particle system, (which works on triggers and time dependent events) you’ll find many unique advantages within TP3’s rule-based logic, which is free from normal time-based constraints and instead applies simple behaviors. These behaviors govern all aspects of a particle’s motion, life, death, and collisions in a true non-linear fashion. We hope you find that by using ThinkingParticles 3, you can create all the incredible effects you were hoping for, but have been limited previously by existing technologies. ”

Demo only Restrictions:

• Particles can’t be rendered
• Meshes are not created except for view port display
• Materials are not supported for rendering output
• Particle caching is not available in the Demo Version
• Physics Simulation caching is not supported
• ThinkingParticles Scenes can’t be saved
• Black Boxes can’t be saved
• 3rd Party Plug-In Support is not available in the Demo
• Particles can’t be exported
• External Particle is not available (Mesher/Snapshot)
• TD-Tool support for creating TP Particle Systems is not available

You can find the demo version of ThinkingParticles 3.0 here.

A short but great promo clip which was made with ThinkingParticles

maltaannon did release a new After Effects Tutorial in which you can learn how create 3D logos, texts and product shots. You can watch the Tutorial directly here or download it.

Trapcode and Red Giant Software announcing for the NAB 2008 their newest After Effects plugins.

• Trapcode Horizon is a plug-in designed specifically for After Effects users doing 3D work. Are you tired of figuring out how to get your camera to match your virtual background? Well, we have a simple solution for you. With the help of Trapcode Horizon, you can generate motion in 3D in a true 3D space. (Priced should be at $99 this product should ship in Q2 2008.)
• Radium Glow will be a new package of plug-ins to create glowing areas in an image based on the brightest parts of the frame. The four plug-ins are Glow EZ, a simple plug-in with limited controls, Glow with advanced controls and masking, Glow Edge for creating glows only on the edges of an image or around text, and Glow Depth which will create the Glow based on a secondary z-depth or depth buffer layer.
  Priced at $99 this product will ship in Q2 2008.
• Instant HD Pro is designed to deliver the highest possible quality conversion for SD to HD. Its advanced tool set offers sharp, motion-compensated de-interlacing and de-noising; advanced pan and scan; and a super-resolution algorithm for providing actual resolution enhancement in an editing application. All these features are combined into one plug-in with an easy-to-use preset menu for choosing the right HD and 2K output formats.
  Priced at $399 this product will ship in Q2 2008.
• Magic Bullet Steady will include two new plug-ins for Final Cut Pro 6 and After Effects CS3 (Mac and Windows). The stabilizer function removes unwanted camera movement and drift with a software-based 2D translation that is near real-time. Also, included in this set is a tool to reduce visible noise and grain in DV sequences produced by digital video cameras, camcorders, TV-tuners, digitizers of film or analog video.
  Priced at $199 this product will ship in Summer 2008.
• Primatte Keyer Pro 4 is a professional greenscreen tool that extracts keys from any color background quickly and easily. Version 4 brings new levels of power and speed to After Effects and Avid, and for the first time, Final Cut Pro. New features include easy-to-use Auto setup, which creates an almost-perfect key with one click. Powerful features allow Primatte Keyer to overcome keying challenges such as uneven lighting, compression artifacts, subtle shadows, and edge light contamination. Best of all, Primatte Keyer 4 works right on the timeline.
  Available now for $499 new or $199 as an upgrade.

You can save 30% on ANY product in the entire redgiantsoftware.com store. Shop now. This offer expires, Sunday, April 20, 2008 (12 am Eastern (New York). Enter Coupon Code NAB2008 to take advantage of this special offer.

Andrew Kramer from videcopilot.net did release another great After Effects Video Tutorial. This time he is guiding you through the creation of smoke on a footage and how to stabilize it. Andrew was inspired by the book Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Studio Techniques (Author Mark Christiansen) that we at StrongMocha.com recommend as well.  I did buy the book myself some weeks ago and learned a lot from Mark Christiansen’s book, of course not as much I learned from Andrew Video Tutorials or products videcopilot.net sells.

From Andrew’s announcement at videocopilot.net:

“In this new 2-part tutorial you will learn a great method for stabilizing footage in After Effects that smooths the result rather than freezes the tracking center. We will also create smoke flying behind a police car, which is as fun as it sounds.

This one tutorial has many great tips and techniques including, rotoscoping, expressions and matte blending.”

“I’d also like to thank Mark Christiansen for allowing me to demonstrate his stabilize technique in this tutorial. For more information about his great After Effects book” Click the book below

Some day’s earlier the same week videocopilot.net did release another useful Video Tutorial. The After Effects Video Tutorial “Smoke Screen” which teaches you how to use various compositig techniques to create these smoke designs in After Effects.

Please do not forget to support the work Andrew is doing. One great way to support videocopilot.net is to buy their products like Twitch. Twitch is available as a download version, buy Twitch here. Twitch from Videocopilot is a awesome After Effects plug-in. StrongMocha highly recommends this great plug-in.To learn more on Twitch you can read more here:

New Twitch (Vines) Tutorial @ videocopilot.net

Twitch - a “must have” After Effects Plug-in

Twitch After Effects Plug-in promotion video

Alternative you could start to stabilize and/or track footage with monet or mokey both from Imagineer Systems, however these products come with additional costs you may do not want to spend. View the product overview chart to see how Imagineer Systems products compare and what you are missing in your toolbox: Chart