Hey all -

A while back, we gave an update on the status of our plugins running on OSX Lion: Roaring Through The Issues. Pretty much, it came down to some serious bugs in OS X Lion, that we could not control. However we did our best to communicate the issues with Apple, and we’re excited to say…

Breaking News! Today, Apple announced an update for OS X Lion: 10.7.2 and we’re happy to say that this update resolves the issues we have been seeing with Magic Bullet Looks 2, Colorista II, Primatte Keyer, and Knoll Light Factory running in Final Cut Pro on OSX Lion. We’ve been testing with the pre-releases of this OS X update and we can finally give it a thumbs up!

Thanks for your patience on this. Getting these bugs resolved was entirely out of our hands, but we’re happy that our dialog with Apple resulted in a  a fantastic problem-solving update!

T. S. Eliot said “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood,” and it’s the perfect way to describe the mesmerizing collage of images, words and music blended together to create ‘Found’, a stereoscopic short film by Nice Shoes out of NY.

This sumptuous, 3min 12sec showcase is part of the “Verses” series, where the studio challenges itself to visually interpret short poems. But it didn’t just open a poetry book and pick a random page.

Brian Bowman, Creative Director at Nice Shoes, found the poem scrawled on a piece of paper that caught on his shoe as he was walking down a city street at the end of a particularly stressful day. He picked it up, read it, reflected on it and tucked it in his wallet, chalking it up as just another one of those ‘only in New York’ moments.

From this inauspicious beginning, a work of great beauty began to take shape, and we were delighted to find that Trapcode and Knoll Light Factory were some of the go-to tools for the artists that brought ‘Found’ to its visual reality.

Brian told us: “Working with Red Giant’s unique tools we were able to make environments really come alive. The tools proved robust in a stereoscopic workflow, important for those subtle depth flourishes that strengthen the audience’s visceral experience of the film in 3D.”

Here’s the 2D version of the short film, followed by a video breakdown:

Learn more about Nice Shoes HERE.

Check out Episode 59 of Red Giant TV to learn about using Trapcode Software to create Stereoscopic 3D effects.

Darren Gardner is a freelance motion designer and the graphic design producer for WHNS FOX Carolina in Greenville, South Carolina. He handles graphics, and visual effects for television commercials and promotions. Among his broad and varied portfolio of work, we noticed an impressive piece of lighting effects for FOX Carolina.

‘The Right Station for Weather’ was created using Trapcode Particular, Starglow and Knoll Light Factory and we recently caught up with Darren Gardner for some more details.

“I designed The Right Station for Weather promotional spot for WHNS FOX Carolina’s weather team coverage. I used Knoll Light Factory’s EZ plug-in presets to create the necessary luminance and glimmer of a convincing enough sun to sell the effect of a pleasant, sunny day turned dark and stormy. Trapcode Particular was instrumental in the completion of the storm clouds and rain. To create the moving clouds, I designed a custom sprite using random still frame time sampling of stock smoke elements gathered from Videocopilot’s Action Essentials 2 collection. The rainy neighborhood scene was designed from a stock photo element modified and brought to life using the Trapcode Particular and Starglow plug-ins among others. An off-camera lens flare generated by Knoll Light Factory EZ was used to add depth and help cement the final composite.”

We predict a sunny outlook for Darren and his fabulous work!

You can see Darren’s other great graphic design, web ads and other motion visuals on his company site GardnerFx.com.

Learn more about:

• Trapcode Particular
• Trapcode Starglow
• Knoll Light Factory

Red Giant QuickTip #39: Fairytale Lighting in After Effects

In this tutorial Harry Frank demonstrates how to take a regular, run-of-the-mill shot and turn it into something beautiful and moody, straight out of a fairy tale. You’ll learn how to set up a down-and-dirty 3D track,  add volumetric light and dust to a live action shot, and then finish it with some simulated camera lens blur.

Related Links:

• Buy Trapcode Particular
• Buy Trapcode Shine
• Visit Harry’s website

With the new year, Final Cut Fridays are back!

Red Giant QuickTip #27: Quick Custom Flares in Final Cut Pro

In this tutorial, Apple Certified Master Trainer, Simon Walker, shows you how to access and modify the existing Knoll lens flare presets to quickly create beautiful custom flares for your projects in Final Cut Pro.

Stu Maschwitz’s Rebel Epic for Looks
Give Your DV Rebel-Style footage an Epic Film Look

Using Magic Bullet Looks and his serious color correction chops, Director Stu Maschwitz brings you a set of Looks Presets designed to you give your footage the look of a true Hollywood Epic film. This Guru Preset Pack comes with 25 Looks presets for simulating big-budget film styles, as well as several utility-based Looks presets for creating popular Hollywood film effects.

Get it HERE for just $69.

Harry Frank’s Cinematic Flares for Knoll Light Factory
100 Breathtaking Flare Presets for Motion Graphics and Visual Effects

This collection of 100 Knoll flare presets makes it easy for you to add amazing cutting-edge visuals to film, still-imagery, music videos, motion graphics, and visual effects. If you’re looking to create fresh and exciting lighting effects that will stun your clients and audience alike, this essential addition to your Knoll Custom Lens Library is a must-have.

Get it HERE for just $69.

In a previous QuickTip I showed you how you could share your Magic Bullet Looks presets from app to app and from user to user. But did you know you can do something similar with Knoll Light Factory Flares?

Red Giant Quicktip #20: Sharing Custom Flares Across Apps

In this Quicktip, Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how you can easily share Lens Flares/Custom Lenses you Create in Knoll Light Factory between After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop (and more) – and how you can share them from user to user. This allows you to quickly achieve consistency throughout your project, even if it spans from print to video.

Learn more about Knoll Light Factory HERE, and Knoll Light factory for Photoshop HERE.

Great news to light up your summer! We have just released Knoll Light Factory 2.7. This important update includes support for Adobe CS5/64 bit processing along with new tools that make this industry standard plug-in even more amazing.

Even better, if you already own Knoll 2.5-2.6, you are elligble for a FREE update! (SEE BELOW)

Buy Knoll Light Factory 2.7 now for $399 or upgrade for $99.

What’s New?

• New Lens Designer for Adobe CS5
• 10 new custom lenses
• Knoll 3D Flare to easily create Lens Flares in After Effects 3D space (tutorial here.)
• Knoll Unmult for removing black backgrounds and generating mattes
• Support for Adobe CS5 and native 64-bit operation

The new Knoll Lens Designer for Adobe CS5

Free Update for Knoll Light Factory Pro 2.5 and 2.6 Users

If you own a license of Knoll Light Factory Pro version 2.5 or later, you qualify for a FREE update to Knoll Light Factory 2.7! This is our way of showing you how much we value your business and to thank you for being a loyal and devoted customer.

• Download the FREE Update (IMPORTANT: This will  only update Knoll Light Factory 2.5-2.6 to 2.7)

Just a note on 3 awesome tutorials we posted today:

RGTV Episode 47: Tiny Inventions

Red Giant Quick Tip#16: Creating a Flare Preset Slider for Knoll Light Factory EZ

Hi Folks – Next week, I’ll be flying out to  San Francisco to interview John Knoll, for Red Giant TV. Unless you’ve been living in a cave free of VFX news, you know that John Knoll was ILM’s Visual Effects Supervisor for Avatar, Star Wars,  and many other films. He is one of Hollywood’s most in-demand collaborators for VFX, having won many awards (including an Oscar) for his contributions to some of the biggest films of all time.

We’ll be talking about his film work, co-creating Photoshop with his brother Thomas, and the evolution and use of his popular software, Knoll Light Factory,  in motion graphics and films like Avatar, Transformers,  J. J. Abram’s Star Trek, and many others.

I’m incredibly excited. I’ve worked with and met a lot of cool people, but this is a whole other thing. His influence on what we do is so profound, I just hope I don’t forget my own name** when I sit down with him, let alone remember to ask him some worthwhile questions about his work. So I need your help…

If there’s anything you ever wanted to ask this visual effects master, post it here, and I may just ask it for you.

No promises – but make it good, and I’ll do my best.

_____________________________________

** That may or may not have happened to me when I worked with Director Frank Oz (a.k.a. Yoda). I can neither confirm nor deny.