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  • hi I'm Ben Marriott I make weekly motion design tutorials and this week I'm gonna

  • break down my top 5 favorite plugins for After Effects

  • let's begin

  • alright

  • so these aren't your flashy plugins that will do all the work and that you will

  • instantly get a cool graphic as a result I want to highlight the plugins that are

  • actually useful in creating commercial work they're not as sexy but they are

  • useful to get some sexy free plugins saber and orb from Video Copilot will

  • show you a good time and leave you feeling empty afterwards

  • and I do have to give an honorable mention to Duik from Rainbox which

  • hundred percent deserves to be on this list but I don't do an awful lot of

  • character ringing in my work and I haven't used it enough to give it an

  • honest recommendation but it's a crazy powerful rigging tool number five

  • TextEvo which is name your price on a script.com this is by far the sexiest plugin

  • of the bunch and essentially it's a heavily simplified interface over here

  • on the right for the text animated properties do you see if you dare delve

  • deep enough down into this menu down here and it just makes it really easy to

  • apply those and tweak them and now with our layer selected it does have to be a

  • text layer we can go up here and choose where we want to apply it to the

  • animating in or the animating out of our text let's select in for now click apply

  • which will add these effects and keyframes and let's add an animation

  • based on its position and based on its opacity so just by clicking those

  • buttons we've now got this animation pretty cool for a few clicks you can

  • also select down here whether it's based on the letters which it is now old words

  • or the lines I always always choose lines and pretty much use it only in

  • this combination and over here in our effects panel you're gonna choose how

  • many pixels the position wants to move in you can delay certain elements and

  • fiddle with it in a way a lot easier than going into the text animation

  • properties but be aware that relying on a plug-in like this can be dangerous not

  • fatal but not far off you might find that all of your text animations start

  • to look the same because it's so easy to get a result like this so just because

  • it's easy doesn't mean it's the right way but if you are on a tight deadline

  • and something like this is gonna be fine I do recommend it you can also do wacky

  • stuff like this but please don't

  • number four is ButtCapperfrom Adam Plouff

  • the plug-in or tool behind rubber hose and overlord plug-in sleaze every day

  • and this is name your price on gum road and battleaxe.com I love this because

  • it is so specific so so specific but really useful so I've drawn a head here

  • and we've got the mouth drawn with a simple line from our pen tool and at the

  • moment has this these square ends to the line if you want this to be around we

  • simply click over here and bam around want the eyes to have rounded edges

  • BAM they're round our head we click it nothing happens that's because these

  • aren't the ends of the caps of the stroke this is a complete shape so if we

  • hold alt and click on this we get round corners click on this style we get the

  • you know this style of corners in fact a rectangle I just find I use this all the

  • time most of the time I like my strokes rounded and I find this plugin saves me

  • so much time instead of having to navigate way down here and select all

  • these little triangles down here and then changing the cab down here it's all

  • done with one click two thumbs up number three is VC vibrance which is name your

  • price on Video Copilot it is an effect they call it a plug-in on the

  • website it might be a preset I'm not sure but it can do two things amazingly

  • well the first thing is recolor desaturated object so we type in vibrance

  • up here and add it we can see that already it's changed that gray fire to

  • this lovely green fire and we can change the color up here with this eyedropper

  • tool and select any color we like and we can control the levels of luminance that

  • it preserves its vibrance the amount of gamma as well loads of awesome stuff and

  • it's great for compositing and maintaining the brightness of something when you change

  • the color but I mainly use this plugin for its matte alpha effect at the moment

  • it's selected off but if we change this to on you'll see that it removes all of

  • the black from this image if you get rid of the background and turn our

  • transparency on you can see that this sort of main fire shape is all that's

  • left in the Alpha Channel and this is an excellent alternative to using blending

  • modes when something doesn't work exactly right you don't want it to

  • get too muddy I use this a lot for textures so I've got this texture layer

  • here and if we add VC vibrance we can change the matte alpha to only so it's

  • not going to recolor it and here we can see the visible blue background and only

  • these sort of white areas are visible similar to the screen blending mode but

  • now it can have a fill effect and here we can change the color of what's left

  • in the Alpha Channel and get some results that simply change the blending

  • mode just doesn't allow number two is ease copy which is name your price on

  • aescript and this plugin has been so useful to me ever since I discovered it

  • now this plugin does exactly what it promises from its name it allows you to

  • copy the easing influence values from one two or more keyframes and paste them

  • onto other keyframes and even other properties so say we've got this swell

  • animation of a little square bouncing up with its scale property and we've gone

  • to all the trouble of animating all these keyframes in the graph editor and

  • getting a nice lovely curve and it's all looking good and we want to match the

  • timing to an animation of another property maybe the position of this

  • Pentagon over here so let's make a position keyframe down here add a

  • keyframe up here another one and one more and the moment it's all linear and

  • doesn't match up anywhere close to the square so we can easily select our

  • scaled keyframes from our square select copy select the keyframes from our

  • Pentagon click on paste ease over here and if we play them back they're both in

  • sync this is really handy for getting your timing on your animations tired and

  • then of course you can offset them to create some different effects but this

  • is really useful and number one you probably guessed it is FX console which

  • is free from Video Copilot ever since this came out every motion

  • designer I know loves it and wants to marry it now on paper this sounds like just an

  • effect search bar from what's up here but it's a lot more than that so with a

  • layer or a comp selected you could press a keyboard shortcut I've got is command

  • space which is the default and I'll open up this little toolbar wherever your

  • cursor is and then you can simply start typing in an effect and it will bring up

  • all the effects under there and simply apply it with one-click gone

  • are the days where you would have to physically move your mouse over to the

  • effects preset and click down and and press the effects like in the end at all

  • and now you can simply press a shortcut and type them in like Edgar Wilde would

  • do you also have space down here to select your favorite effect so I've got

  • a fill and curves on mine at the moment so you can simply click those with one

  • click and quickly start to build up your animation from effects at your

  • fingertips another great thing about FX console is when you open it up you have

  • this export button here and when you click you can either save what's in your

  • composition window as a PNG or copy to the clipboard we can easily open up

  • Photoshop and paste it in I find this great presentation decks while making

  • simple adjustments to style frames or you know making you YouTube thumbnails

  • all the time and it's just damn good time all around it's free it'll save

  • your time you won't regret it please let me know it down in the comments what

  • other free plugins you love and use all the time I'd love to know hopefully there's

  • some I have never even heard of and that I get to use and please don't

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hi I'm Ben Marriott I make weekly motion design tutorials and this week I'm gonna

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