For many After Effects artists out there, tutorial sites come as a great inspiration for getting ideas to launch into your next project. And as far as tutorial sites are concerned, it doesn't get much better than Video Copilot.
Andrew Kramer is prolific in coming up with new ideas and showing you how to design them on your own. VC's latest textures, elements, presets are formidable tools in the business. So it was only a matter of time before VC started bundling their complex expression sets into full blown plug-ins.
Enter the first of what I hope is many VC plug-ins: Twitch.
VC couldn't have made installation of this downloadable plug-in much easier. Simply drag the downloadable Twitch folder into your plug-ins folder. When you receive your KEYFILE, place it into the "Twitch Plug-in" Directory next to the actual plug-in.
The basic concept here is that you have six main operators in place to create chaos: Blur, Color, Light, Scale, Slide, and Time. When you open the plug-in, none of these operators are selected. Simply drag the effect to your footage or text and check off the operators that you want to mess with.
Like most randomizing effects, things can get a little crazy and hard to control at times. It takes a little bit of practice to get the effect that you have in mind. But usually when you are trying to create an effect, you end up with something much cooler than you originally envisioned. As a great added-bonus, VC throws in 25 presets to get you started, including presets for adding mood like "Bad Film Gate" and "Night Club" and transition presets like "360 Spin" and "Color Tearing"
