[Chris Bobotis]

Another option is FreeForm V2. Same features as the bundled version (Digieffects FreeForm – we did that too). BUT FreeForm V2 is 2 to 8 times faster than the bundled version(depending on your system). This sells as an upgrade for only $99.00 and the system requirements are the same as CS5.

FreeForm Pro has over double the features and sells for $299.00. FreeForm Pro also requires a GPU with a minimum of 512 mb of VRAM – preferably 1GB or higher.

HTH

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Chris Bobotis]

Erik add “depth map” and “z depth” to your search as well.

HTH

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Chris Bobotis]

Glad to help Will. Send a link when you are done.

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Chris Bobotis]

Will, FreeForm can do “hard folds” as well. Simply switch Tangent Alignment from “On” (default state) to “Off”.

You would find this in FreeForm > Editing Controls > Tangent Alignment

HTH.

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Chris Bobotis]

Thanks for chiming in Ted and I would be happy to help.

Will, please send me you project file- remember to collect files and send it to chris@mettle.com.

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Chris Bobotis]

Guilty as charged 😉

Yes our products FreeForm Pro and ShapeShifter AE both use the GPU but so does VC Element 3D, Optical Flares (I believe), RGS Magic Bullet, Knoll Lens Flare, some of the Boris Continuum filters, I believe some of the Genarts and Digital Anarchy plugs too. I am sure I missed quite a few and I mean no disrespect to those I missed just trying to a point across. Hetereogeneous computing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterogeneous_computing) is here and i believe it is here to stay…

HTH,

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Chris Bobotis]

Dave, I beg to differ. Many a third party AE plug-in uses either CUDA or openGL and they benefit from this card.

As a result, AE benefits. Furthermore, AE has an openGL renderer (see Todd K’s Vid : https://www.video2brain.com/en/videos-5359.htm) and if you only use it for previewing then you are saving quite a bit of time. Sooooooooooo my take on it is that a better graphics card is a good investment – the question posed was is the Quadro FX worth the money? I run high end cards and find they are well worth it. Bang for the buck? Best bet? I cannot answer that – really depends on what your requirements are. We run all major 3D apps as well at Mettle so we do see a huge benefit there too. Makes it even easier to justify the investment when amortizing over several uses.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Chris Bobotis]

Thanks for the kind words Eric. If I may toot our own horn, we worked very hard on this and actually pulled off some minor miracles with our rendering engine. All of the speed and efficiency we achieved allowed us to add that many more features. Making FreeForm Pro an amazing creative tool as well.

Enjoy the demo and I would love to see what you create using FreeForm Pro.

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Chris Bobotis]

I am biased but here goes anyway… FreeForm Pro combined with some other plugs would be awesome for this effect. The combination of 3D displacement and the 3D Mesh warping features would work perfectly for the cracking and peeling of the ceiling. Animated Fractal noise or turbulent noise would help sell it too. Roughen edges for the parts that peel… This would make a great tutorial. Whatever you end up using, please share the recipe and the clip.

HTH

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Chris Bobotis]

Thanks for the kind words Walter. We aim to please. Stay tuned we will have more to show soon.

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com