Eye Candy a treat for After Effects

MacWeek, Jan 26, 1998 by Jeff Glasse

Eye Candy 3.0 for After Effects 4 1/2

Alien Skin Software LLC brings its popular filter package to the dynamic-media crowd with Eye Candy 3.0 for Adobe After Effects. This $599 collection of 19 filters with full dynamic controls will be indispensable for many users, especially those trying to create dynamic text directly within After Effects. The program works with After Effects 3.0 or later.

Based on Alien Skin's Black Box filter set originally released for Adobe Photoshop, most of Eye Candy's effects are designed to act on only a portion of a given layer. Because After Effects does not have Photoshop's ability to create dynamic selections, Alien Skin includes an Alpha Layer pop-up in each filter that lets you use the alpha channel from any layer in a composition to cut an effect into a layer.

The most direct example of this approach is the Carve filter, which cuts a selected alpha channel out of a layer, leaving a hole with optional fill color and keyframable drop-shadow controls. The Chrome filter fills the selected alpha channel with a simulation of shiny, polished metal; of all the filters, this one is the most difficult to use. The program also offers several filters to help you create beautiful beveled text with minimal effort.

Well-rounded collection

Eye Candy also includes texture, distortion and production filters, as well as specialized filters, such as Weave, which creates a textured weave pattern; Fur; HSB Noise; Glass; and Swirl, which generates Van Gogh-inspired swirly patterns.

All the filters produce beautiful, anti-aliased results with full alpha channels. Most contain controls for flow and undulation, which let you set the rate of dynamic interpolation. Undulation control saves you lots of time. For example, you don't need to experiment with keyframe settings to achieve a believable ripple effect with the Glass filter, or a standard slow crawl with the Weave filter: Simply set the undulation control to the desired speed. These two controls also save on render time, letting you work on a composition the size of your screen rather than a larger, slower-to-render one.

We tested Eye Candy 3 for After Effects on a Power Computing Corp. PowerTower Pro 225 with 40 Mbytes allocated to After Effects. The program worked fine, but the filters were occasionally sluggish, especially when applied to larger layers. Version 3.1, due at the end of January, will offer multiprocessor support (as well as an extra Gaussian blur filter).

Conclusions

There's little to criticize in this set of useful filters. While we wish they were speedier, all are well within tolerable performance limits and offer designers gorgeous, easy-to-use effects that aren't available anywhere else.

Alien Skin Software LLC of Raleigh, N.C., is at (919) 832-4124 or (888) 921-7546; fax (919) 832-4065; http://www.alienskin.com.

Score card: Eye Candy 3.0 for After Effects 4 1/2

Alien Skin Software LLC

List price: $599*

Hits: Impressive effects; easy to use; flexible alpha-channel support.

Misses: Slow render speed.

*Sidegrades from other Alien Skin products, $449.