Article: Editor's Toolkit 2 Review
By Jeffrey P. Fisher
Digital Juice has followed up
their popular Editor's Toolkit with another stunning collection of graphic
elements for NLEs. Editor's Toolkit 2 includes additional seamlessly looping
animated lower thirds and overlays and complementary graphics, called Jump
Sets, that you can easily bring into your editing program. New to this
collection are animated wipes, one set that matches the look of the 50 jumps
sets includes with ETK1 and a new set for this package. Also new this time are
111 motion design elements consisting of fully animated graphics you can
combine to create your own custom animations. A disc packed with hundreds of
photos and static mattes rounds out the 10 DVD package.
Central to all Digital Juice products is their proprietary The Juicer.
This animation processing software does double duty. It's both a searchable
catalog of what's on the discs and a render engine for converting the
animations to the format your NLE supports. The animations come on the discs as
Quicktime PNG sequences with alpha channels. If your NLE supports this format,
you can just grab what you need and go. If not, the Juicer software renders
what you need. Options let you resize the output, change the frame rate, alter
the animation playback speed (faster or slower) and even alter the animation's
color. I especially liked its batch processing mode that lets you render
multiple files virtually unattended.
For animations I wanted to change, I used the Juicer and then exported
the new animation as a PNG image sequence. Since I use Sonic Foundry's Vegas, I
imported the image sequence easily and made it one loopable event. Sweet!
If you want to use an animation as is with Vegas, drag it to the
Timeline, right click the event, select Properties, select the Media tab, and
change the Alpha channel setting to "Straight (unmatted). For backgrounds
without alpha settings, just import the QT movies as is. The included still
photos also don't require conversions.
Animated Wipes
Tired of the same old transitions? ETK2 gives you over 100 animated
wipes in a variety of looks. The first 50 match the look of the Jump Sets
included with ETK1. Using the wipes couldn't be simpler. They include alpha
channels and at least a few frames where the animation fills the screen. Line
up your edit between clips to coincide with the full frame fill, and it'll
appear that the animation wiped off the previous image and replaced it with the
second clip.
Animated Jump Sets
ETK2 includes 15 loopable matching animation sets. Each set comprises a
background, lower-third, overlay, template, and wipe. All the animations in the
set match and complement one another giving you an integrated, professional,
and expensive look to your video. Fast and easy! While the backgrounds are
useful for building composites, the templates are ideally suited for overlaying
text. The overlays and lower-thirds are often not hard edged and frequently
have subtle intrusions into the surrounding video. It's a subtlety that
completes the look. ETK2 includes and additional 15 matching animated lower
thirds and overlays, too.
Motion Design Elements
Four DVDs contain individual looping animation sequences with alpha
channels. By combining and compositing these clips, you can create a virtually
infinite number of custom animations. Your choices vary quite widely and
include a bouncing baseball, digital number sequences, various blobs, streaks,
auroras, and more. Your custom animation can then be used as backgrounds,
overlays, and lower-thirds. You'll be able to charge your clients for custom
animation work that you build yourself in just a few minutes.
The most difficult task when dealing with these animations is deciding
on a good workflow. There is no way to really see how the elements work
together without actually building composites. In Vegas, I tried multiple
combinations using the existing QT files. Again, set the Alpha channel
correctly for the event properties (See above). This gives you a preview of how
a combination might work. You can then use the Juicer to make changes (if
needed), render those animations as PNG image sequences, and then rebuild the
composite. If you like what you see as is, you're done.
Photos
The photo collection covers a lot of ground, both as full stills and
photo objects with alpha channels. What's especially nice are the picture
sequences with common themes. You don't just get one picture of somebody
sitting at a desk; you get a variety of pictures of the same person and event.
That's a more versatile and useful approach that I wish more stock photo
libraries would take.
Final word
If you already own ETK1, then ETK2 expands nicely on that package. You
don't just get more of the same; there's plenty new to make it worthwhile. As a
stand-alone purchase, ETK2 doesn't include as many jump sets, but instead gives
you more individual elements for building your own animations. If you're more
the grab and go type, ETK1 might be a better buy. If you prefer to tweak and
add a personal touch to everything, then ETK2 is definitely the package for
you.
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