| Adobe After Effects Review at Creative COW |
 | Tim Johnson
Salt Lake City Utah USA
©2009 CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved. |
Article Focus:
Tim Johnson takes a thorough look at broadcastGEMs AE Pro Volume 2 and finds GEMs is well-suited for the corporate AE user or anyone that would like a quick and easy starting point for that next project.
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I've become a big fan of buy-out After Effects projects over the years for a couple of reasons. One, tapping into someone else's creativity takes a load off of my own overloaded brain. Two, it's just plain interesting to dissect other peoples' work and see how they did things.
The Cow's own Roland Kahlenberg has been creating broadcast work over the years for clients such as Sci-Fi Channel, Hallmark, the BBC, and Animal Planet. He's also trained folks from Disney, CNBC, and MediacorpTV. Now, he has created some cool stuff for the rest of us in the form of "broadcastGEMs' AE Pro Volume02" and the product is available in either SD and HD.
CONTENT
For those who are downloading this content, GEMS 2 comes in a series of zip files that expand into the various categories. One of project files I immediately liked was the curtains reveal animation. I was able to quickly and painlessly change the stock scene (left) to a promo for college basketball (right.)
Some other animations include some text-only flybys, corporate silhouettes, and a winter scene. For the most part, all of what's included in GEMS 2 requires no thirdparty plugins. There is one project that uses non-standard AE plugins, but Roland has created separate comps that have pre-rendered material in there as a placeholder. Very cool for both those who have the plugin (you can modify the settings) and those who don't (render as-is.)
For those that need a logo treatment, there's even a set of project files that you can stick your logo into for a quick logo animation. They're worth looking into. Here's a link to some of the logo samples. Click here to find other categories.
Overall, they're really easy to modify and put your own material into. One of the projects is a "filigree"-type growing vine that was a good fit for a news promo we were doing. With one click I was able to replace the text precomp with the HD footage. I then rotated into place for effect. Very quick.
TEXT CONTROL
One cool feature of GEMS 2 is an easy-to-use expression that links the range selectors on a text layer to another layer's x-position value. In the picture below, you can see a lens flare reveal a string of text with this expression. Pretty cool stuff. It's nice to have stuff like this thrown in. Very helpful down the line in future projects for people like me who still need some help with expressions.
All of these projects were created After Effects 7.0 (CS2), so most people will be able to work with the files. Pulling the projects apart will give AE beginners a chance to look at 3D camera moves, particles, and lights. Those who work in AE more often will be able to add a few more tools to their respective arsenals.
OVERALL
Depending on your audience, there are some solid project files in here to fit a variety of different productions. As a whole, I think it GEMS 2 is well-suited for corporate AE users. The projects are well-planned and customizeable. Some of the comps are pretty render intensive, though. The Text Controller is a curious bonus feature that you can pull into other projects and enjoy the benefits. The product is available in either SD and HD Four cows out of five.
For more information or to buy, click here.
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