2 minute read
It's not exactly a secret that if you work with VFX, Adobe After Effects is pretty much the industry standard, and while there are alternatives such as Blackmagic Design's Fusion, such software needs a lot of time and practice to learn well. FXhome has some very intriguing developments upcoming that may make you reconsider what you use.
FXhome has been producing easy to access VFX software for a long time now, and well regarded software such as HitFilm has given budding editors and VFX artists a very accessible and affordable way to produce high end looking effects and edits.
While HitFilm does have a lot of built in effects, FXhome has embarked on two new ways in which to make VFX and post production even more accessible to users.
The first is that the company has taken the step to partner up with Vegas Creative Software to produce Vegas Post. The software, which will be available in the third quarter this year, will be a viable alternative to Adobe's offerings, featuring comprehensive post production tools.
It can't really be underestimated how important this is. After Effects is, frankly, an amazing piece of software that has been honed over many years. Just like Photoshop it is the VFX software of choice for a majority of people. But the announcement of not only an alternative, but one that will be more accessible and with a much shallower learning curve can only be a good thing. After all in this industry time is literally money. And quite often we all need to do dual duties in a number of different disciplines. Learning complex software is time consuming, and so the announcement of Vegas Post is a very welcome one.
But it doesn't stop there, and neither does the involvement of After Effects. In a move that will open up a whole world of plugins, FXhome is making HitFilm Pro compatible with AE plugins. Yep, you read that right, you will soon be able to use After Effects plugins right from within HitFilm Pro.
As you can imagine this will open up a huge number of potential effects for HitFilm users. The ability to use them isn't just some band aid approach either. As you can see from the screenshots below the plugins appear as a fully integrated part of the software. As we understand it you won't be able to use all plugins just yet (as you can imagine, it's not a simple process to integrate them), but FXhome will listen to users as to which AE plugins they want to be able to use.
3D tracking
In yet further proof of HitFilm's VFX chops, users can now access Foundry's incredibly capable 3D camera tracker, originally from Nuke, within the software. This opens up all sorts of possibilities where the integration of virtual 3D objects into footage is concerned.
The Foundry camera tracker tracks the camera motion within a 2D sequence using a point cloud to enable perfect matching of the movement for the composition.
The perfect music
Finding the right music for a project is often quite a time consuming process, to the point where I wish I could bill clients for the time I spend searching through libraries for good tracks! Filmstro is a music library with a difference. Users can use sliders to find tracks with the right momentum, depth and power for the video they are creating. Control over the music extends to being able to use keyframes for music.
In practice this means that you can make the music build, speed up, or slow down according to precisely what is happening on screen
FXhome has taken this a bit further, and has teamed up with the company to make the entire Filmstro library available for unlimited projects for 12 months at $249 from the FXhome store. This includes access to all new tracks added on a weekly basis.
In a world focussed on the big hitters like Resolve and Premiere, HitFilm Pro is making some huge strides forward with some very high level capable effects and abilities. The recent version 12 release of the software made huge improvements with regard to speed and GPU use, and clearly development momentum is not slowing down.
FXhome's competitors had better watch out.
Tags: Post & VFX
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