Despite the fact that it's not as fast as I would like, the folks behind FXHome have added a good number of presets to help minimize the amount of wait time you can expect, from Force Lightning, to Anemone (a form of ball lightning), to Bolt (a traditional lightning strike). And fortunately, especially for lightning strikes, they've pre-chosen realistic durations as part of the animation. This means that you can essentially drag and drop in a lightning strike preset and then slide the appropriate keyframe sequence to the exact entry point you want. This helps your workflow stay pretty fluid, despite the processing time. Further, because PowerPlug (like FXHome's other plug-in, MuzzlePlug) is a 32-bit plug-in, you will get the most precise coloration and floating-bit precision when you create your lightning. This means that the actual lightning strikes and electrical bursts will look as polished and realistic as possible.
In addition to changing the shape of energy outbursts, you can change all elements of the colors involved in making up the energy bursts.
Value
At $179, PowerPlug is actually more expensive than FXHome’s entire standalone particle generator program, EffectsLab Pro. While EffectsLab Pro won’t create electrical effects like the ones PowerPlug will create, nor will it work inside of AE, it is still a complete particle generation program for less than the cost of the much more limited application, PowerPlug. As such, I really think that the price needs to drop on PowerPlug to reflect that it revolves around a single type of particle effect. I think $49 - $79 would be appropriate (especially with the number of more widely, varied plug-ins coming from Digieffects and Red Giant between the $99 - $199 price). If a greater price tag is desired, then I would suggest that a complete AE plug-in version of EffectsLab Pro be created. If you had all the power of EffectsLab Pro (plus the PowerPlug technology) as an actual plug-in for After Effects, that would be worth a price jump up to $300, the same price as Trapcode's particle-generator plug-in, Particular. However, with only a single type of effect, it’s a hard sell unless you do a lot of horror films that need lightning or a lot of sci-fi films that need force lightning or crazy tesla coils.
Final Comments
When it comes to creating lightning and electrical effects, PowerPlug has quality where it counts. However, with some missing finishing touches, a fairly steep processor load, and a fairly high cost for what it delivers, it still has some areas for future improvement. If you need a lot of electrical work in your films, then PowerPlug is one you need to at least download the demo to see if it will do the things you need it to do.
The
director of two feature length films and half a dozen short films,
Jeremy Hanke
founded Microfilmmaker Magazine to help all no-budget filmmakers make
better films. His first book on low-budget special effects techniques, GreenScreen Made Easy, (which he co-wrote with Michele Yamazaki) was released by MWP to very favorable reviews. He's curently working on the sci-fi film franchise, World of Depleted through Depleted: Day 419 and the feature film, Depleted.
