After Effects. This content has been brought to you in association with HP ZED, a pop up shop for creatives in Londons Soho from 2. September 1. 0 October 2. Register for HP today After Effects is an amazing standalone tool for creating motion graphics, whether in 2. D or 3. D. And its inspired a vibrant third party plug in culture thats thrown up countless tools to help make things you once thought impossible to do in After Effects alone easy to implement. Here are five of my favourite plugins, which really help enhance After Effects already accomplished motion graphics offering. Let us know yours in the comments below Here I took an image of the world and made it into UI sphere with text in minutes. Nodes 2 is a Mac only,generative motion graphics plugin that can create astoundingly complex 3. D forms with integrated text in a matter of minutes. Frischluft Plugin Free' title='Frischluft Plugin Free' />Log me on automatically next visit Forgot password Registration Annual Subscription. Adobe Premiere Elements 4 PremiereAfter Effects. Perfect for a range of uses, from UI design to infographics that depend on linking elements, Nodes 2 provides a rich set of starter templates to get you going. It would be wrong to think of Nodes as just a set of templates, though. Footage and 3. D models can be used as starting points for your graphics. And with a huge range of deformation, colour and rendering options. Nodes can give you very quickly start to seem limitless. With features such as built in motion blur, depth effects, and text editing function, Nodes 2 provides a full motion graphics suite within the one plugin. Ease and Wizz makes your animations move with a new found life. One of my favourite plugins for After Effects well its a script really, but lets not quibble is also the cheapest. Ease and Wizz by Ian Haigh is the best way to make your animations move with a life that otherwise requires a lot of playing with animations curve. To use Ease and Wizz, select a keyframe, apply the type of movement you want from the Ease and Wizz palette, and youre good to go. All of sudden your simple text movement across the screen is enhanced with starts and fall offs. Ease and Wizz can also create effects like bounces and animating your object as if it was stretched by elastic. Lenscare provides two plugins which provide a greater amount of control over defocusing than After Effects in built tools. Using a depth of field blur to replicate camera bokeh in a scene can be a great way to let the viewer focus on specific areas. This is achievable in After Effects with the 3. D camera and the Lens Blur effec, but if youre going to be using depth effects a lot, its worth looking at the excellent Lenscare plugin set from Frischluft. Comprising two plugins, Depth of Field and Out of Focus, the quality of Bokeh that can be achieved with Lenscare is impressive. One standout feature of Depth of Field is that if youre using a depth map from a 3. D render, the focus point can be set interactively by clicking on the part of your image you wish to concentrate on, which is much easier and quicker than the native plugins. Plexus can create beautiful animatable motion graphics constructs from nothing more than two masks and a light in After Effects. Plexus 2 from Rowbyte Software has become one of the mainstays of motion graphics creations over the past few years. Used on a wide range of animations, Plexus gives you the ability to create geometric imagery from a wide range of data, but still remain responsive to user input. Frischluft Plugin Free' title='Frischluft Plugin Free' />Its a testament to the developers adoption of a modular approach which is different to most After Effects plugins. You stack how you want your image to look via a range of options including points, facets and lines, to the manipulation of 3. D sequences and text. Plexus offers an infinite variety of creations at your fingertips and once youve got the hang of how to use it, abstract beauty can be created in minutes. Red Giant Universe offers a wide range of plugins to enhance your motion graphics, some of which are completely free. The last on our list is actually a suite of plugins, which are perfect for enhancing your motion graphics as well as generating them. Many of them are GPU enabled. After Effects. Some of the plugins are free when you sign up for Universe, but the great thing is that new plugins are being added all the time. In researching this article, RGB Displacement, Grid, Holomatrix and Glitch are my standouts for distorting and creating footage which is ideal for UI or mograph effects. If you havent looked at Universe yet now is the time. Conclusion. These are just my selection of great plugins for motion graphics that are available for After Effects. Just remember though with any of these plugins, dont just use the templates, always strive to create something unique from these great tools. Words Mike Griggs. Mike Griggs is a freelance 3. D, VFX, mograph artist and technical writer. He can be found on Twitter, Facebook and his work can be seen at http www. This content has been brought to you in association with HP ZED, a pop up shop for creatives in Londons Soho from 2. Nissan Civilian Owners Manual. September 1. 0 October 2. With talks, tutorials and creativity sessions brought to you by top experts from leading studios like Framestore, Double Negative and MPC, as well as HP, Intel and Nvidia, its going to be a must attend event for anyone working in motion graphics, animation or 3.