Toolfarm’s Top 10 Plugin List Explained

Plugins can be expensive, especially for students and people who just like to make Youtube videos, but just like if you were to be fixing a car instead of making motion graphics, you need the right tools to get the job done.  A little bit ago, Toolfarm had a poll on their website and AEFreemart.com as to what your favorite plugins were for After Effects.  Over 1500 voted and the list is out… and I got the explanations for those of you who don’t have a clue what some of these are.

1. Trapcode Particular – Trapcode Particular is one of the most widely used plugins in the business.  If you haven’t heard of it, get out from underneath that rock you’ve been living under and smell the particles.  Particular is the one of the most versatile particle generators on the market, and gives you more control, precision, and options than After Effects’ built in CC Particle effects.  Particular has been the subject of many tutorials here on AEtuts as well as around the web, and if you are serious about becoming a skilled motion graphics artist, this is an absolute must have.
2. Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks – Developed by Stu Maschwitz of the late post house The Orphanage, and now the Creative Director for Red Giant Software’s Magic Bullet division. This plugin creates pre-graded looks to your shots, as well as gives you the creative freedom to create your own looks, while still giving you all the features of a high-end color grading application.  Also available is Magic Bullet LooksPack: Indie Film, which gives you more pre-made looks based on popular looks on on some favorite indie films.
3. Trapcode Shine -  Shine is another must-have from Trapcode for its ease in creating light ray shines fast and easy.  There are ways to create the effects that this plugin generates natively, but it takes a lot of time, workarounds and effects on top of effects.  From title design to logo reveal, visual effects to suns in the skies, this plugin can really streamline your productivity, and help you unleash the light!  Haha… lame… I know.
4. The Foundry Keylight – Keylight is an effect that comes shipped with After Effects 7+, but is probably one of the best keying effects out there.  Keylight is very versatile offering lots of different ways to control your keys, mattes, lightwrap, and spill.  The best thing about Keylight though is that it is free, and it is a very powerful effect.  Toolfarm actaully has Keylight training available from Angie Mistretta.
5. Red Giant Knoll Light Factory – Developed by John Knoll of Industrial Light & Magic, Knoll Light Factory is a lens flare and lighting effect generator.  There are many different pieces to choose from to build your own custom flares as well such as spikeballs, glowing cores and so on.  Also worth noting is this package actually has a free extra little filter called Unmult, which you can find online for free, and basically knocks the black out of your image, leaving only light.
6. Trapcode Form – One of Trapcode’s latest creations is quite the effect in itself.  Working the same way as Particular, Form actually creates layers of particles, sheets if you will, in which you can animate, affect, distort, set custom particle size, opacity and anything else you might want.  Form has been spawning some amazing videos lately found on Motionographer and the Trapcode official site.
7. Video Copilot Twitch – Andrew Kramer’s only actual plugin to date, Twitch is an awesome distortion generator, that gives you control on “twitching” light, position, RGB channels, scale, time, and even color.  The package actually comes with a bunch of sound effects and training from Andrew himself on how to use the plugin effectively, and ways to use it in your productions.
8. GenArts Sapphire – The Sapphire collection is pricy, but is a huge batch of over 200 plugins to increase your films and capability of doing things within After Effects, Shake, Avid, Final Cut, or Combustion.  Windows and Mac compatable, this collection of killer visual effects based plugins have been used on movies such as X-Men, commercials for Budweiser, Coke, GMC, and tons more.  The package includes effects such as glows, lens flares, glints and glares, film effects, compositing and distortion, and more advanced lightning, and time effects as well.  If you are looking to enhance your visual effects workstation, this might be a package you have to get.
9. Boris Continuum Complete – The greatest thing in my opinion about BCC is the 3D OpenGL extruded text generators and deformers.  You can warp, twist, and materialize your 3D text right inside of After Effects, and that’s not all it comes with.   There are generators like sparks and comets, keying and compositing tools such as Motion Key and Wire Remover, as well as basic, yet more advanced than stock AE effects such as Drop Shadow, Film Grain and Deinterlacing.  This is another huge collection like Sapphire’s, except a little cheaper.  You could always try checking out the other items in the Boris product line as well.
10. Trapcode Starglow – Our last one… Trapcode Starglow.  Although I don’t use this effect too much, it is really handy when you are trying to make something really stand out in your motion graphics peice, such as water, dust particles in the air or just some good old titling.  Starglow works on Mac as well as Windows, as do all of the Trapcode product line, and is a great little tool to have by your side, because you never know when you might need it.