Effects/Plugins for After Effects

[RobertF72]

I was looking for some new plug ins or effects for after effects, mainly the free ones.  I did not see any that would support any of cc versions. any suggestions.

[Rick Gerard]

Video Copilot has three that I know of. FX CONSOLE​, SABER, and Color Vibrance. Red Giant has Unmult which is really good at pulling alpha channels from black. Universe, also from red giant has a few free effects and once you download it and install it you can use it for free for 30 days.

AE Scripts has a few free scripts and some pay what you can stuff. I think there are about 130 freebies. You will have to check them out.

That's about it. If you want anything spectacular you generally have to pay for it.

[Andrew Yoole]

Videocopilot also offers Reflect for free.

[Szalam]

Grabbing plugins just for the sake of having them (and they're free) doesn't sound very useful. What kind of work are you doing?

[RobertF72]

I am an intern at a college television station my teacher informed that I should get familiar with after effects and premier. So I want to know everything about the two programs.

[Rick Gerard]

So I want to know everything about the two programs.

I hope you have about 3 years, 2 at least, to learn most of the things that a professional can do with After Effects and the techniques and workflows you need. 90% of successful motion graphics and compositing is preparation and planning.

To learn about AE and get a general idea of how the UI works start here: Basic AE

All effects plugins work on the same basic principal - take some pixels and do some arithmetic on them to change them. There is no magic button. it all takes time to learn and to do well.

[Szalam]

If you're trying to learn After Effects, plugins are the last thing to worry about. Learning AE's basic workflow, what all of the native effects can do, and the more powerful stuff like expressions will take a long time as it is. No need to confuse yourself with a lot of extra junk before you get it. As Rick says, it'll take you years to really know everything about AE. Heck, I've been working with Premiere and AE at my full time job for 8 years and I'm still learning things!

As far as free stuff for AE that doesn't suck...after you're very comfortable with how to actually work with After Effects (that is, realistically, going to be at least several months down the road), DUIK (and DUGR which comes with it) are free and extremely useful script UI panels.