Finding the reason to go out and create something awesome can kind of be a daunting task, what with our real life jobs that pay, families, school, responsibilities and everything else in the world that might make you hold back from taking that jump into head-on, gung-ho creativity mode. But sometimes all we need is a little incentive. There are hundreds upon hundreds of contests going on all the time, some might pay in gift cards, free gear, or quite possibly cash… either way, it is going to prompt you to get out there and get creative, make something sweet, and feel good about it too. We are going to look at a few sites that I watch, just to stay on the up-and-up in the contest world, in case there is something I might want to take a go at.
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I am just sitting here enjoying my morning 16 oz home brewed mocha when I see @ninjacrayon (Ko Maruyama) tweet that Wondertouch has just been acquired by GenArts, the creators of the Sapphire plugins! First thought… “well I am happy for Alan Lorence”, second thought… “crap, is the price going to go up now?” Well, upon further investigation, no it won’t be and it seems as though Wondertouch and its babies, particleIllusion and particleIllusionAE are in very good hands and are set on a December release date this year.
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I am continually trying to pimp out my home office, in any which way I can (when my bank account permits), and there are just so many cool accents and gadgets that you can get nowadays to either bump up productivity, or possibly lessen it, but overall make your working environment a little more enjoyable. In this monthly Awesomeness for the Officeness series I will be showcasing some of the awesome stuff I find throughout the net, and stuff that you guys send me to spread the word to other fellow office nerds to decorate our sanctuaries.
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Our “sister” site, AETuts+ has been hard at work the last month or so with the launch of Plus content to the site, more Plus tutorials, and just more content in general. If you haven’t been to AETuts+ yet, and you work in After Effects… well my friend, what are you waiting for? Get over there and check out the multitude of tutorials and articles loaded with inspiration (a lot by me, actually) to get your brain working.
Every couple weeks we will showcase the tutorials from the past weeks so you can brush up and hone your After Effects skills to learn some new tricks and broaden your horizons when it comes to our favorite application.
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News broke early last week at Adobe that After Effects CS5 is going to be 64-bit native, or in other words… you won’t be able to run the software on a computer running a 32-bit operating system. This might be good news for you, and it could potentially be bad news for you as well… either/or, we will cover the details after the jump, and analyze why Adobe has made this move heading into the future.
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This seems to be a big problem with some noobs as well as weathered AE artists alike. Sometimes you just can’t figure out how to get that motion blur to work. It might be as easy as a switch you didn’t turn on, and sometimes it get as difficult as applying plugins, precomping, adding adjustment layers and so on. If you don’t know what I am talking about, motion blur is an effect that you can simulate in After Effects to make your graphics seem like they were filmed by a camera by adding blurred artifacts to your composition depending on the speed and movement of your imagery.
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Hot off the press from the pages of CGTuts+, one of our newest sister sites here on the Envato Network, is the news that our newest marketplace 3DOcean, is accepting Beta Users (Beta Invite at the bottom of this article) to create content to get the launch off right! We all knew there was going to be a new marketplace around here sooner or later… but a lot of us didn’t know what the subject might be, but now it’s here!
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This is something that I struggled with when I wanted to upgrade from my dual CRT monitors to either LCD screens, or a 32 inch+ LCD television. There are quite a few different factors that it comes down to when it comes time to make the decision, and the pros and cons have to be weighed. I got some information for you to weigh before you shell out at least $500 bucks on something that you are going to be stuck with for a while (I am going on 3 years now), because this can be a big decision.
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It was just a matter of time. Yes, there is now an app for editing the video that you take with your iPhone 3Gs’ built in video camera, so now you can literally edit your home movies on the fly, sitting on the couch, without a computer, while the kids are screaming in your ears. Life is complete. It by no means can replace a true NLE like Final Cut, but we weren’t really expecting something like that now were we? We got the details on what this app has, what’s to come and what to expect from it… oh yeah and there is a usability walkthrough video after the jump… so get a’clickin.
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I was watching the Video Copilot quick tip on Andrew’s Vlog the other day, and he was messing around with the Clone Stamp tool. Looking a little closer, I realized that I didn’t really fully understand the Paint Panel, and all its functionalities, so naturally I did me some investigating, and realized that some troubles I had in the past could have been averted if I was only smart enough to poke around a bit more. Mainly the issues I had were the different Duration options, so here you guys go… to save you from time wasted, I give you another AE Quick Tip!
