Related
There is a lot of talk going on recently in the After Effects world about plugins. While there are many new exciting plugins that are coming out this year, there are quite a few plugins that won’t be compatible when the next version of After Effects comes out. Amidst all of this, I have a little announcement to make. Both of my plugins Separate RGB and Bad TV will be going native pretty soon. That means, they will no longer be Pixel Bender plugins, but instead they will be Native Compiled plugins utilizing the AE SDK. Now compared to all the big-wigs in the plugin market, my plugins are not a big deal. But I just want to explain my interesting journey from using AE to developing native plugins. Back in the day, I was addicted to the Radio Waves plugin, but I desperately needed 3D Camera support and a faster rendering capability. So after googling for a while, I found out some easy ways of making plugins for AE. But none of them are production ready and universally compatible. Then I came across Pixel Bender Toolkit, which an amazing language to create filters for photoshop, shaders for Flash and Effects for After Effects. Even though, Pixel Bender is a great for creating Image Distortion effects, there is no native support for AE timeline and Camera functions. This might change in the future, but it is always advantageous to develop plugins utilizing the native SDK. Not only, prior versions of AE can be supported but various things specific to AE like Camera, Masks etc., can be implemented.
You might ask, “But, developing native plugins in C/C++ is very complicated. How can you do it?” In terms of syntax, it might be a little bit complicated. But from my experience, the principles of programming always stay the same irrespective of the language or syntax. The same question popped up when I was developing in Pixel Bender. But, in reality the syntax is easier than AE scripting, but the concepts of Image processing matter. In conclusion, thanks to the help of kind developers at the SDK forum, I don’t think it will be a problem.
Beta Testers:
If you are interested to beta test the plugins please signup to the following group. You’ll need a Google account to Signup.
http://groups.google.com/group/betaplugins
I will periodically update them with new builds and your input will be very helpful.
Note: All existing customers for Bad TV Pixel Bender will get a free update when the native plugin is released. So you need not wait until the native plugin is released ;)
Comments
- MCYS · Mar 12, 02:25 AM
HI! :)
My name is MCYS ( yes it’s not my real name ) and I am a french student in mathematics and as you, I love AE and create plugins for it. Like you, I already created a plugin with Pixel Blender but I need to use camera, light and other cool things in AE. So I tried something with the SDK, but it is not as good as i want.
So can you explain to me, quickly of course, importants steps to convert my plugin with the SDK., please ? I already installed the SDK and the .NET (for windows) but I would like to know where, for instance, variables are, UI controls, and I have a problem with the AE_PLUGIN_BUILD_DIR.
Thank you for what you’ve done (tutorials, etc) and for your help.
MCYS
- Satya Meka · Mar 14, 08:54 PM
Hello, Welcome to plugin hell. Native SDK is a far more complicated than Pixel Bender. I assume you have some prior experience with C++. To create variables you have to create them in the header files. To create parameters you have to create them in PF_Cmd_PARAMS_SETUP function call. The whole point of the C++ plugin is to create an Entrypoint function where you can assign individual function according to the call. AE has some required function calls and the rest of them are optional. Building plugins on Windows is a tad more complicated. AE_PLUGIN_BUILD_DIR is supposed to be the plugins folder of AE. But the SDK fails to set it up properly. You have set the path for the folder variable manually in the configuration. You can easily get comfortable with all these things if you spend some time around the examples that come with the SDK. The SDK documentation is not that beginner friendly, but the some people at the SDK forum try their best to help you.
- Mike · Jun 28, 05:02 AM
Hi Satya,
feels like I’ve tried a hundred times to work with the SDK, but I never could wrap my head arround. Is there any chance to get a quick starter tutorial on that subject, that assumes that the people wanting to start developing with the SDK already have a basic knowledge of programming ?
BTW: great Plugin stuff on that site, helped me a lot!
- Satya Meka · Jun 29, 05:12 AM
Hello Mike,
The SDK is definitely a scary place for beginners. Even though the documentation is very good, it is not designed for absolute beginners. Fortunately, there are some great people at the SDK forum that helped me understand a lot of things. A Tutorial on the SDK certainly sounds like a good idea, but the audience for that is really low(probably in digits). But, I would love to help fellow devs, so have to find some time and write one.
