Do ANY FREE plugins Exist?!!!!???????????

C

Cieloent

Well-known member
Every single free plugin for final cut pro has a watermark, everything from the Fx factory to noise, to etc.

Please if anyone knows of ANY free plugin packs like transitions or any effects please let me know. I truly cannot believe that FCP comes so bare naked!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Not for every possible effect but sure there are some free one's out there. Stand by for some suggestions from Shane.

Noah
 
Cieloent said:
=I truly cannot believe that FCP comes so bare naked!!!!!!!!!!!
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Remember that plug ins and filters are the fonts of the desktop publishing industry.

When overused, they detract rather than contribute to the story that is supposed to be told.
 
Yeah all you really need are in/out points, dissolve and titles. Most everything else is masturbatory. :)

Noah
 
Thank you for the tips, since I am editing a music video I know not to overuse anything, I just like to use a cool little transition once or twice.


I normally always do straight cuts and a couple of dissolves here and there, I am just trying to just add a little spice and IMO think that a subtle transition or effect can work. Now if that is not the way to do it I am always open to opinions and better ways to achieve creative results.


Personally I find leaving my camera directly in front of an artist on sticks very boring, in the future I am definitely going to work on some more handheld and possible dolly shots mixed in with some tripod shots.
 
Shane Ross said:
Sure...tons. Start here:

http://www.digitalzoo.com.au/lunchtime/lunch_docs/related_02_free.htm

Some here:
http://pistolerapost.com/pluginz/index.html
http://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/freeware
http://www.crumplepop.com/?page_id=123
http://www.videonline.co.uk/MainMenu.htm
http://web.mac.com/andymees/Free_and_Easy/main/main.html

Now the higher end ones, ones that do super cool things...those cost. Gotta pay people for their effort on SOME THINGS, right?
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A+ post, thank you. Now can you please link me to some of the "cool" plugins you are talking about. If they are really nice I can save up some money and buy them

Thanks
 
Sapphire is overpriced. I use maybe 3 of the plugins, and for $1600, that's steep. Look at FX Factory and all the offering they have. You can see demos of the effects. THAT is what I use for the cool stuff.

Most everything I cut (for broadcast cable) is cuts, dissolves and speed changes. Until a producer wants me to use the really overused flash edit.
 
Shane Ross said:
Sapphire is overpriced. I use maybe 3 of the plugins, and for $1600, that's steep.
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Very overpriced.

I don't get their business model.

Some plug ins are nice, but nothing is especially special. (nice phrase)

For the money, FXFactory is the bee's knees.
 
The most useful free plugins for me are by far the two offered by Marcus Herrick of Haiku Productions:
http://www.haiku.com.au/

the link is in the upper right corner of his blog.
"Facelight" and "vignette" are two very simple and very useful plugins that I use probably more than I should.
:)
 
Luis Caffesse said:
The most useful free plugins for me are by far the two offered by Marcus Herrick of Haiku Productions:
http://www.haiku.com.au/

the link is in the upper right corner of his blog.
"Facelight" and "vignette" are two very simple and very useful plugins that I use probably more than I should.
:)
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Agreed. You know I use these extensively.

Also free, the Too Much Too Soon plugins (TMTS)
http://www.mattias.nu/plugins/

Warp Sharp (New Aug 2009)
This sharpens the image by making edges thinner. It produces no halos and can often be used to bring back some edges from out of focus material, or define the detail in material that has been scaled up by a large factor. It's also perfect for cartoons and other drawn or computer generated images, where you can go crazy with the sharpening and get really smooth and sharp results, whereas for normal video the image quickly looks plastic and creamy if you go too far, often as little as 0.5-1 is enough.

D90 Upscaler (Updated Mar 2008)
This plugin works because the D90 really captures an 800p image and scales it to 720p and the way it's done makes it possible to scale it back up almost losslessly to 800p and then back down to 720p or even better up to your resolution of choice. This update uses a new and largely superior workflow, but the previous "slug and image well" works too. You start by nesting your 720p sequence in a 1080p one, make sure no automatic scaling is done and if it is just reset it, then nest this sequence again in another 1080p sequence. Now apply the filter to this nest, and either use scale to fit, or select native 1280x801 and apply your own scaler. If you're using Instant HD from Red Giant Software for example here's where you apply it, setting the source size to 1280x801. You'll notice that the workflow is exactly the same so no need to nest the clips again, just apply it. You can also use the motion tab, which if motion quality is set to best might yield better results, or maybe export using compressor and its frame control scaling. Good luck.

D90 Rescaler (New Nov 2008)
If you're a D90 user I'm sure you've seen the stairstepping of diagonal lines, as well as the flickering aliasing of horizontal lines. No more, thanks to this plugin. Lee Wilson posted the concept behind this script on the dvxuser D90 forum. Check it out. Basically the D90 uses a lousy algorithm to scale the footage down to 720p, and what the plugin does is resampling it to the original size and scaling it back down using FCP's bicubic interpolation instead.

Frame by Frame Interpreter (New Nov 2008)
Interprets a clip frame by frame to the framerate of the current sequence. Useful for converting back and forth between 24p and 25p, or for creating smooth slow motion from footage shot at a higher speed, like from 60p to 24p, or even 60i to 24p along with my slow motion plugin (or even 60i to 50i for the adventurous since the fields are preserved as is). Place a slug or scratch clip on the timeline, apply this filter, and drag the clip you want to interpret onto the well.

Slow Motion (New July 2007)
Change the speed of interlaced video to 50% then apply this. It will alternate between the fields creating the smoothest slow motion possible.

Regrain (New July 2007)
When working with film footage it's either often necessary to remove the grain before performing things like sharpening and keying, or some filters you add like diffusion and time remapping will remove grain that you wanted to keep. Drop the origina clip on this filter, and it will lift the grain from it and add it back. If you regrain something that was previously "noise reduced" make sure you use the same settings and you will get near lossless performance.

Smart Anamorphic (Updated July 2007)
Stretches 4:3 footage to 16:9 without cropping. Make sure you remove any automatically added distortions in the motion tab before you apply this. Currently in beta so please send all the feedback you got. This update stretches in a more subtle way, more like the panorama setting on many widescreen tv's.

Noise Reduction (Updated July 2007)
New Heavy Blur method may remove more noise, but may also create an artificial look. Mainly meant for web video and for footage that will be Regrained, see the new filter. You can also chose to show edges, to fine tune what's considered detail in the image and what is noise. Removes video noise and grain by averaging pixels where there's no detail. Aside from giving you a cleaner image, this can really improve the results you'd get from most compression schemes.

Smart Noise Reduction
Reduces noise considerably by averaging frames where there's no motion. Needs to be first in the filter chain to work properly.

Smart Deinterlace
Deinterlaces motion areas only, maintaining maximum sharpness and minimizing artifacts. Needs to be first in the filter chain to work properly.

Custom Diffusion
Add diffusion with more control than the old one, but otherwise the same effect.

Hair Removal
Just razor on each side of the frame with the hair or dust speck, draw a line over it, select whether to replace it with the previous or next image, add an optional offset, and it magically disappears. You'll find that simply drawing the line is sufficient in most situations.

Clock
Generates a digital clock, for countdowns or whatever. The update adds the option to select which figures are shown, plus you can now count hours too. The clock doesn't animate on its own, so you have to keyframe the "milliseconds" slider. I thought that would be the most flexible way of handling this...

Flashframe
A flashframe transition. Now with optional gradual pre and (!) post blur and luma clamping for legal levels.

Color Balance
Adjusts color balance without changing the luminance. Works a little like the built in color balance filter as well as the Quicktime RGB filter, but much better and more intuitive than both.

Color Balance 3-way
As above but with separate controls for shadows, midtones and highlights. Similar to the color balance tool found in many image manipulation tools for stills.

Clock
Generates a digital clock, for countdowns or whatever. The update adds milliseconds to the display. I suggest you crop the frame to select the number of decimals you need. The clock doesn't animate on its own, so you have to keyframe the "seconds" slider. I thought that would be the most flexible way of handling this...

Scratch Removal
Removes vertical scratches from old and damaged film. Move the sliders (you can enter fractions by hand for fine tuning) until the guide covers the scratch and then uncheck the guide box. Scratches like these are often stationary but otherwise the filter is completely keyframeable.

Anamorphic Squeeze
The benefit of doing this using a filter is that the letterbox area becomes usable for other filters applied to the same clip, such as Timecode Reader. This is not the case when you use the anamorphic checkbox or the motion settings. Make sure you undo any other squeeze before applying this.

Shadow/Highlight Gamma
Applies gamma correction to the highlights and shadows independently. Originally designed to correct the excessive contrast often found in film material transfered on a film chain, but feel free to use it whichever way you want.

Black & White
Offers more control over the conversion to black & white than simple desaturation. Use it to emulate different b&w filmstocks as well as camera filters. I like to use 50% red and 50% green and lose the blue altogether for that orange filter look.

Chroma Resample
Resamples the chroma channel using FCP's bicubic interpolation instead of Quicktime's built in nearest neighbor algorithm. Makes keying a lot easier and generally improves the image, especially if used with the Black & White or Fast Deinterlace filters.

Diffusion
Silk stocking, Soft Filter, ProMist, LoCon, Diffusion and so on -- this filter does it. Just experiment with the settings. Normal, Overlay and Screen seems to be the most useful transfer modes, but don't let that stop you.

Speeder III
Speed ramping tool. Ramps by keyframing the frame number or progress percentage. Works on the clip it's applied to, but if you want to change the duration you can apply it to a scrap clip and drop the clip to ramp in the source clip box.

Fast Deinterlace
Same as the built in, but it renders more than twice as fast. And now it shouldn't destroy the last line of video as it sometimes did before.

Black Restore
If you've lost the blacks for some reason, like video noise, bad telecine or dirty VHS heads, or even because of some filter you applied, this one's for you. It gives the image its punch back, with deeper blacks and better saturation in dark colors, without changing the brightness of the rest of the image.

Blend Fields
This does the exact same thing as the famous "double deinterlace filmlook method," but it renders *a lot* faster.

Mosaic
Well, mosaic.

Reduce Flicker
Same as Blend Fields, but only blends where there's interlace artifacts. Useful for removing flicker in text and still images while preserving as much sharpness as possible.

RGB Gamma
A simple but effective color corrector.

Typewriter
Types the letters one at a time. Uses keyframes to control the speed, which allows for a more "real" and "natural" typing look. Try it with the Harting font.

Wind Blur/Cross
This is a regular wind blur that is much, much faster than the built in one, due to the slight limitation that it only supports two directions, vertical and horizontal. It works both as a filter and as a transition.
 
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