Were talking like 30 Film Dirt & Scratches, 46 Ink Plumes, 80 Animated Arrows, 115 Animated Paint Strokes, 53 Animated Spray Paints, and 43 Animated Paint Splats!  I mean, that is a lot of elements, and variety in those elements to choose from!   And the best thing, is each type of element is its own package, so you don’t have to buy everything together, just to get, say a selection of arrows.

All the packages are really well created, providing AI and EPS files, as well as the Quicktimes that go along with them in animation form.  All pre-keyed, with alpha channels so there is no messing around with that stuff.  All elements are in 1080p and are ready to rock for your convenience!

Along with these Motion Graphic and VFX themed packages, they also have Vector Imagery, RampanTV tutorials, Texture and Photo products, and After Effects Templates available as well!  They seriously have something for every type of project…

Check out their product videos for some of their latest products, and head over to their website and see what you can use for your own productions!

Film Dirt & Scratches – $29.99

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ink Grows & Flows – $69.99

Click here to view the embedded video.

Animated Arrows – $59.99

Click here to view the embedded video.

Animated Paint Strokes – $59.99

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You don’t need a huge Davinci system or Autodesk Lustre to get professional color correction… you just really need skills… and this plugin.  It is super easy to use and has a TON of features.  You can use multiple masks on layers for say, retouching two different actors skin tones in a single pass;  there is a powerful new keyer included, 8 HSL Channels for pristine accuracy, a “Pop” Slider for visual pop of your image, highlight recovery, quick new Auto-White balance for those times you screwed up when you were shooting, and of course GPU and CPU Acceleration, which is crucial for when you have some huge color correction jobs.

There are a ton more features but I don’t wanna list all of them, you just need to check it out yourself.  If you already have Colorista, you can upgrade for just $99, but if you need to buy it now, it’s only $299 which isn’t bad at all for a plugin you are most likely going to use on every single production you create.

Go check it out at Red Giant Software right now, and let me know what you think after you try it out… just leave a comment on this post!

In this video we’ll take an advanced look at UDK’s mesh painting features (often called vertex painting). We’ll go in depth with instructor, Ryan James Smith on how to create several advanced blending materials such as snow icing over stones, puddles that react to light, and cracked and weathered concrete. We will also discuss how to create mix maps in Photoshop which will allow us to blend our materials in unique and interesting ways.

Check out VideoSmash.com in the Sidebar!  SUPPORT THEM!

You can pick from any of those ten disk sets, and you get a data DVD with the HD and SD formats worth $349!  The only catch is you have to pay the Shipping & Handling which is a meezly $8.41 per DVD.  When you click through on the DVDs, you will see that you can click on each collection and preview the clips that they come with in their preview videos on their dedicated pages.   There are tons of different themes of people footage to choose from!

So what are you waiting for?  Head over to FootageFirm.com and grab your collections that you can use for your projects, or whatever the hell you want, for only $8.41 a disk!  The whole collection is worth $3,490.00 at full price, so you might as well grab them while they are still in stock… there is only 500 available so get on it!  Be sure to spread the word by tweeting about this post and let your friends on Facebook know too!

So like I said, this app is amazing, and probably one of my favorite camera apps out there for processing pictures.  Developed by Stu Maschwitz and the Red Giant Software Team, this is the first app from the Magic Bullet line of products to come out for the iPhone.

When you first jump into the app you will notice just two buttons, Photo Library, and Camera.  You can choose existing photos or take some right with your camera.  I have this on my iPhone 3G and it works beautifully.  Just snap a photo and it comes up with 4 options with 4 different looks.  Response time is really nice, and if you just hit refresh it generates 4 more looks for you to pick from.  Just tap the picture to view it full screen, and if you like it, hit the heart button to save it and generate more looks.

These are just random pictures I took the other day, and it really just adds a lot of life to your pictures.  And even if you want to bring existing pictures into the app you can.  It really is an awesome little app.  And its only $1.99 in the App Store!  They also have a Facebook Fan Page so you can submit pictures, as well as a Flickr Photo Pool Page, and Aharon Rabinowitz put together a sweet getting started with Plastic Bullet video below!  So go nuts… let me know what you think!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dave Scotland is going to be taking about an hour to an hour and a half to ask me loads and loads of questions about my role as a blogger and a “commentator” in the world of Visual Effects and Motion Graphics.   I believe the interview will be about an hour, and then after that we will have a question and answer session with the chat room, since this will be live.

So I urge all of you to check out the Live Webinar and join in to ask questions, hang out and see how great this will be!   Below is the text from the Event Page which you can click through to, to RSVP and register for the live webinar!

“Topher Welsh is one of the most renowned Commentators and Bloggers of the CG arena. His articles and blogs are read by millions of VFX and CG operators from countries all over the globe… He is also the creator of VisualFxTuts.com, a website aimed at bringing information, news, tutorials, and educational resources to the visual effects and motion graphics community….

Based in Tacoma, Washington, Topher is an After Effects artist, specializing in post production, VFX and motion graphics and he has published numerous tutorials specific to these areas. He also operates his freelance video production company, “Toe Fur Productions”, producing Web Video, Green Screen Productions, Motion Graphics and Visual Effects…

Topher is a big believer in the fact that anyone can teach themselves how to be a post artist, and using the resources available online to do it. He has also recently entered the world of HDSLR film making and he runs the After Effects Seattle User Group.

As one of the CG industries leading commentators, Topher is uniquely placed to provide a wide range of information specific to the world of CG, with particular emphasis on training. He is regularly published on such sites as CG-Tuts+, AE-Tuts+, VideoHive, Motionworks, GoMediaZineVisualFxTuts… and of course

This unique perspective of the industry is only one of the reasons we are including Topher in our Masters Webinar series. He constantly has the feelers out, looking for current and topical information pertaining to CG, VFX and Motion Graphics, with a real eye for useful training material…

Join us for this live, in-depth interview, with renowned CG and VFX Commentator and Blogger, Topher Welsh. Learn all about his rise to greatness and the twists, turns and choices he faced along the way. Don’t miss out as there are limited seats available and only live attendees will have the opportunity to ask Topher questions in a live, interactive Q+A session…

Plus we will be giving away 2 copies of our new complete tutorial workshop “The Space Chase“, which includes over 8 hours of step-by-step video tutorials showing you exactly how to create the classic space opera asteroid chase sequence, from scratch. All you have to do to win is participate in this exciting free webinar event..

And did I mention, It’s absolutely FREE…

To register for this exciting live session simply click the link below.

Session Details:

• Live – 6pm Thursday 13th May 2010 – US Pacific Daylight Time (Click to Register)
  

Use the  World Time Calculator to calculate your time zone…“

So make sure you guys hit up this exclusive Footage Firm deal, because you never know when you might need a certain type of music, and they have something for pretty much any scenario.

Gyorfi from Bluefx.net has just released a new After Effects Template called “The Business Template”

This project can come in handy when you work on a corporate video presentation, it is easy to edit and requires no plugins. Everything that you see is created inside After Effects with the built in tools.

To make the customization even easier, a video tutorial is also included that shows you step by step how to modify the template.

All the colors can be changed with one click, as you can see on the preview video. Users can easily modify the charts and mouse movements.

The template is divided in 3 main sections: 1)Intro, 2)website and charts 3)3D book , this way you can easily add in more footage or other elements in between if your project requires this.

You can find out more about this template at BlueFX’s official store