Tutorial: Red Giant Universe 3
This tutorial walks viewers through a number of cool new effects, transitions, and text animation tools in Red Giant's omnibus plugin package, and shows how to navigate and customize the preset options available with each effect.
The third effect I went with is also an exposure blur but a slightly different preset. So again, if I choose Preset, the Choose Preset dialog for Exposure Blur (Figure 6, below) is going to pop up. I could choose one to start with and then tweak those to what I want.
Figure 6. The Choose Presets dialog
The next effect I used is the Glitch transition, which I like for a lot of uses because there are so many built-in presets for this transition (Figure 7, below). But you can also tweak these. Again, you can choose the colors, you can choose the speed. There are so many ways to make it exactly what you want, but it's a really fun one I've used in previous projects.
Figure 7. Working with Glitch transition presets
Again, these transitions are very quick and short because all the clips are going to be tight. I just wanted to show the highlights.
The next one I used is Channel Blur, which blurs just one channel of color essentially. After that I tried Channel Surf, which is one of the transitions that was added a version or two ago when Red Giant had a very 1980s-and-VHS theme that they wanted to bring in. Channel Surf is neat because it's a unique and very realistic analog-looking effect. The next one I went with is the Half Light, which I would say described as an Instagram-y type of transition--very colorful and vibrant.
Again, you can choose the colors you want, and the direction it goes. There are many ways to customize it. This is just what I used.
Next I tried Flicker Cut, which is basically a flash-to-black repeatedly in quick succession.
Another one I used that I really love is the Color Mosaic (Figure 8, below). This one looks like it would've taken me an hour to build by hand. But instead I can just choose the colors I want here, choose the color map, and again, just build it from a preset, which is essentially what I did here. If I wanted to match the colors in the Mosaic to the company colors or the Bassmaster Classic logo colors, I could do that.
Figure 8. The Color Mosaic effect
The next one is very specific: a Carousel transition (Figure 9, below). It's supposed to look like you’re watching images on a carousel slide projector. You can’t change the wording, but there are presets. I went the Grungy preset, which I went with, but you could easily change it and see it updated immediately.
Figure 9. The Carousel transition
Next I went back to the Glitch transition, but I just chose a different preset so viewers can't tell that it's the same thing. This is a similar transition to the Carousel transition. Retrograde, it's sort of like a roll of film that's being distorted or pulled past the gate.
The effect I used at the end where the company logo website comes up over B-roll of the event when it began is Spectralicious. This one is a little easier to show than to explain; you can see it at the 7:18 mark in the tutorial video. It's basically just kind of blobs of colors and it transitions from one of the other just like everything else.
Related Articles
A look at Magic Bullet's Denoiser III video noise reduction plug-in
Paul Schmutzler demonstrates key animation features in the new Red Giant Universe effects and transitions suite.
Here's a quick tutorial to show you how to get started with the new, simplified Colorista interface and quickly apply some interesting grades to create new looks in your clips.
This tutorial runs through some of the highlights from the new Red Giant Universe 2.1 plug-in package of effects and filters, working in After Effects because that's where so much ambitious title work happens.