3DStroke, while still easy to use, requires a little more work. Basically you need to use the mask tool to create the lines that 3DStroke will animate. Because of the way masks function in AE, this effect works best over a solid, but can also work over video if you duplicate your layer and add the mask and effect to the top layer. Once you’ve created your mask, you apply 3DStroke, and the mask turns into a white line. You can then change the color of the line, its thickness, and can also animate it so that it will appear to “write on” along the mask. The line can also be bent for some interesting effects, and if you add a camera to the layer, you can rotate around the mask line in 3D space. The effect is a little difficult to describe in words, but is really cool when you see it in action.
Red Giant, being the great company they are, provides a bunch of “Getting Started” video tutorials for these plugins on their website. They also include some examples of what can be done with the software, as well as a link to user-generated content that should spark your imagination and stretch you to use the software in new ways.
Depth of Options
All three plugins have just the right amount of keyframeable settings in them. Literally every setting is useful, and it doesn’t feel like there is anything superfluous that they just threw in there because they could. I particularly enjoy the depth of the coloring options in Shine and Starglow; you can pick a different color for the highlights, midtones, and shadows. In Starglow you can control the length of the star spokes in eight different directions (up, down, left, right, upper left, upper right, lower left, and lower right), which is actually extremely useful. I also like how changing the transfer mode from inside the plugins really makes a huge difference in the way the effect interacts with the background.
In 3DStroke, there are some really neat parameters that you can use to create unusual effects. The taper control will slim down the beginning and end of the line for a more realistic looking stroke, and the repeater options let you multiply your line and arrange the copies anywhere in 3D space. I like the “Bend” control the best; it distorts your line in unexpected ways, creating new 3D shapes that are really cool. And of course, all of these parameters can be keyframed, allowing you to make some great animations where your mask can start out as a complex design and gradually bend into a word or some simple shape, all while the camera flies around and even inside the transforming shape.
Performance
On my Windows XP-Pro home-built PC with an Athlon XP 3200+ processor and 1GB of RAM these plugins fly. I feel that slow preview and render speeds really impede my workflow, but I didn’t notice myself sitting around and waiting much at all. As a result, tweaking parameters to get exactly the effect you’re looking for becomes fun instead of tedious. However, if you do find that your render speeds are slowing down, you can always switch the layer to Draft mode, although I didn’t find this to be at all necessary.
