Top 3 Plugins

[Serge Hamad]

Hi,
It all depends on your needs.

Make a better search and you will find more recent threads about this topic.

Salut.
Serge

[Bob Cole]

Shine and Tinderbox Rays are very useful; Boris Continuum Solarize has been invaluable for exploring a dramatically different look.

I’d also be curious as to which plug-ins people felt were a waste of money, or rarely used anymore.

Plug-ins to avoid?

— BC

[Steven Bump]

The only plug ins I’ve run across whose packages don’t include some degree of ‘filler’ are from Trapcode.

[Aharon Rabinowitz]

That’s because Trapcode sells individual plug-ins that do only one thing (or variants on the same thing) – which in many ways is good. You buy a Plug-in from them with a speciffic need, and you have it covered.

I hate plugins that come with 2 good filters and 15 useless things – they just fill up my effects menu (or rather the ones at some of the studios I work at), and the jack up the price by saying it comes with tons of filters.

—————————————-
Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
—————————————-
Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
available @ http://www.pIllusionFusion.com

[Guy]

1 Trapcode 3D Stroke
2 Trapcode Particular
3 Zaxwerks Invigorator

[Visualocity]

Magic Bullet Film Look
Color Finesse
and…
I have a love hate relationship with Trapcode Shine. I love it, but so does everyone else. It’s totally overused, but i can’t stop using it myself.

[David Johnson]

[I have a love hate relationship with Trapcode Shine. I love it, but so does everyone else. It’s totally overused, but i can’t stop using it myself.]

That’s exactly how I feel…and, apparently, a whole bunch of other people too.

Back to the point…I find GenArts Sapphire, Digital Film Tools and Boris Continuum Complete to be indispensable, although they are amongst the more pricey plugin sets. They’re also those sets of many plugins that include some I rarely use, but most are useful so they’re still well worth it. Also at the top of my list are the ones already mentioned like Invigorator, Magic Bullet, Trapcode. I aslo like Red Giant’s other products, ReVision and Digital Anarchy, although most of those are geared more towrds specific needs. I’d say my least favorite is Eye Candy, although i do occasionally use 2 out of the set of 20.