Trapcode Particular, the venerable must-have After Effects plugin for making stuff fly-around-all-over-the-place-and-look-cool, is almost due for an upgrade. Here’s a taster, which shows off one new feature – particles will respond to After Effects lights.
Update: Them particle gurus have posted a PDF listing all the new features. Of which there are an abundance.
Randall Munroe is the talent behind the amazingly good, über-nerdy web comic xkcd. It’s making the leap from the Internet to the real world, in a new book that will only be sold through the website. Some outfit called “The New York Times” has the details.
(If you’re checking it out for the first time, be warned: you basically need to be an astrophysicist to understand some of the punchlines.)
Update: Here’s one of the classics.
Your password is “letmein” right? Am I right? If you were using Haddock, you’d be able to generate a tough-to-break password that’s not too difficult to remember. Like my password, for example: “preforgotten75:hexis”. It’s a gem for Ruby, and you can read more here.
(If that wasn’t enough, the landing page references the Marx Brothers and Captain Haddock. Ace!)
An endearingly simple animated spot for World Wildlife Fund. The illustrations remind me of LocoRoco.
Press fewer keys! Gmail has added autocomplete to Gmail Labs, works with your contact list right out of the box. It even includes advanced searches … type ph, and the autocomplete popup suggests “has photos”. If you select that, it expands to filename:(jpg OR jpeg OR png). Zap.
Filter Forge is a plugin for Photoshop that lets you build your own filters. It’s visual and node-based. You can download almost 6,000 filters that the community have developed, and if you submit your own, even earn a free license. The examples are actually pretty good (as opposed to endless variations on bevel and emboss).
Filter Forge. I think we need something like this for After Effects …
Via John Nack on Adobe.
