The Red Giant Universe Expands with Version 1.1

The Red Giant Universe Expands with Version 1.1
Nine new Free and Premium effects. Several updates to existing tools.

June 24, 2014 -- Today, Red Giant released an update to Red Giant Universe, its new multi-host app library of GPU-accelerated tools. The updated (version 1.1) includes nine new free and premium effects as well as updates that add new features and functionality to several existing Universe tools. These updates expand the Universe toolset to 59 Effects and Transitions, more than half of which are free.

Watch video: https://vimeo.com/98684234

“When we released Universe, we promised frequent updates,” said Sean Safreed, Red Giant's co-founder. “We added three new free tools including an awesome little Luminance noise generator. We also included Red Giant Carousel, available for the first time for Adobe apps. We held this release up for a few days to make sure it worked well in Adobe's new CC 2014 release.”

With less than two months of development time, one might expected a software update to offer some minor improvements, and maybe one or two new tools. But the Red Giant Universe team has turned around a large amount of new content in just a few weeks; and not only are there a lot of new tools, there are a lot of great ones.

"I'm really really impressed not only by the number of new tools, but by their quality and the artistic possibilities they provide," said filmmaker and editor David Pepe. "Just the nine new tools in this update alone are worth the entire cost of Universe."

The secret is Supernova, Red Giant’s powerful, new java script-based development platform, which makes the process of creating and updating plug-ins much faster and easier than ever before. Supernova also makes it simple to output plug-ins for all supported host apps, at the touch of a button. Currently, Universe supports Premiere Pro, After Effects, Final Cut Pro X and Motion, with more host apps on the way.

Watch video: https://vimeo.com/88253005

This release of Universe includes many new additions and updates including glows, cartoon effects, vintage footage treatments and more. Version 1.1 also features SplitScreen Blocks and SplitScreen Custom Blocks from CrumplePop, based on its extremely popular split-screen tool. This is the first time this tool is available for Premiere Pro and After Effects. In addition, Holomatrix and ToonIt have also been given new features and presets, based on user feedback.

One of the most interesting aspects of Universe is that plug-in development is being driven by the community. To that end, Universe 1.1 also includes a new free high-quality Compound Blur tool based on community voting in Universe Labs.

Pricing & Availability

Red Giant Universe is available today as a subscription for $10/month or as a discounted yearly pre-pay for $99. Users who want the benefits of membership but would prefer to opt out of the subscription model, can opt for a lifetime membership for $399. The lifetime membership never expires and includes all Universe updates and upgrades released over the months and years to come. All Red Giant Universe tools and effects work in After Effects (CS 5.5, CS6, and CC), Premiere Pro (CS6 and CC), Final Cut Pro X (10.1.1) and Motion (5.1), and work on both Mac OS X (10.8.4 and later) and Windows 7 (64-bit) and Windows 8.1. This release is fully certified for the new Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro CC 2014.

The Red Pledge
Red Pledge is Red Giant’s commitment to customer happiness, with no purchasing hassles. Learn about the Red Pledge guarantee at www.redgiantsoftware.com/redpledge/.

About Red Giant
Red Giant is a software company made up of talented artists and technologists who collaborate to create unique tools for filmmakers, editors, VFX artists and motion designers. Over the last decade, our products (like Magic Bullet and Trapcode) have become the standard in film and broadcast post-production -- with over 200,000 users, it’s nearly impossible to watch 20 minutes of TV without seeing our software in use. From our experiences as artists and filmmakers, we aspire not only to provide tools for artists, but inspiration as well. Watch our films, learn from over 200 free tutorials, or try our software at redgiant.com.

Press Contacts:
Anya Oskolkova
Zazil Media Group
(e) anya@zazilmediagroup.com
(p) 617.817.6559
(skype) anya.oskolkova

Lauren Leger
Zazil Media Group
(e) lauren@zazilmediagroup.com
(p) 508.498.8433
(skype) lauren.zazil

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Red Giant Universe 1.1

A new update to Red Giant Universe includes new free and premium tools and updates to the existing premium tools. In total, there are nine new effects and updates to three existing products. If you already have Universe Installed, the new tools and updates can be downloaded through Red Giant Link.

What’s New, at a Glance

Free:
Universe Noise: Luminance Noise
Universe Blur: Compound Blur (Labs)
Universe Utilities: Color Gamma Conversion

Premium:
Universe Glow: Glimmer
Universe Stylize: Carousel
Universe Stylize: Holomatrix EZ
Universe CrumplePop: SplitScreen Blocks
Universe CrumplePop: SplitScreen Custom Block
Universe ToonIt: ToonIt Sketch

Updates:
ToonIt Paint: Add Halftone (P)
ToonIt Outlines: Added Chalk presets (P)
Universe Holomatrix: Added glitching, distortion, flicker and more (P)

New Tools, in Detail

FREE:

Luminance Noise: Add quick rendering of noise and grain to the Luminance channel of your footage. Self-animating by frame, this tool is highly useful for mimicking the look of 35mm film grain and other noise effects.

Compound Blur: A tool that blurs pixels based on the luminance values of another layer. This tool was chosen for development by the Universe Community through our Universe Labs.

Color and Gamma Conversion: Converts RGB to a different color space. Choose from RGB to YUV, YUV to RGB, RGB to HSL, HSL to RGB, RGB to Lightness, sRGB to Linear, Linear to sRGB, Video Gamma(2.2) to Linear, and Linear to Video Gamma(2.2).

PREMIUM:

Glimmer: Universe Glimmer creates colorful glints and animated twinkling effects at the bright areas of your image. This is a great effect for beauty shots, titles, music videos and more.

Carousel: Carousel captures the classic look of vintage color cross-processing, film fading and vignettes.

Holomatrix EZ: Holomatrix EZ makes it even easier to create the same looks as Holomatrix, with streamlined controls and presets. This is an ideal tool for an editor who wants to work quickly to add effects to their text, logos and footage.

SplitScreen Blocks: A quick assist tool in cropping, positioning, and resizing multiple video layers into split-screen compositions.

SplitScreen Custom Blocks: Divide up the screen with customized shapes and break out of standard split-screen layouts with this advanced editing tool.

Universe ToonIt Sketch: Create a loosely "sketched" hand-drawn look for your video footage, in a variety of styles: Color Sketch on Gray, Scratchboard, Sketch on Brown, Smooth Gray, and Cartoon Subtle.

About Red Giant Universe

Red Giant Universe: http://vimeo.com/87001310

Red Giant Universe is a free community that gives you access to fast and powerful free tools for editing, visual effects and motion design. Every tool in Universe’s library of effects and transitions is GPU-enabled (making them super fast) and works across multiple host applications on both Mac and Windows. The Universe library of tools is continuously growing - new effects and transitions are added regularly, and existing tools are updated just as frequently.

Premium Membership: http://vimeo.com/92943432

In addition, as a Premium member of Universe, you’ll get access to even more Universe tools - and you’ll get to help us choose which effects and transitions we build next. Learn more about Premium Tools and Pricing.

What’s Included in Universe?

Nine FREE video transitions
25 FREE effects & motion design tools
All GPU-enabled & multi-host app compatible
Regularly updated with new FREE tools

What’s Included in Universe Premium?

Nine additional Premium transitions
14 additional premium effects & motion design tools
New tools from third-party developers
Voting for new tools in our Universe Labs
Regularly updated with new Premium tools

Who is Universe for?

Filmmakers
Motion Designers
Editors
VFX Artists

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OS Requirements:

Mac OSX 10.8.5 or later
Windows 7, 8.1

Host App Compatibility:

After Effects CS5.5, CS6, CC (includes CC 2014)
Premiere Pro CS6, CC (includes CC 2014)
Apple FCPX 1.X or later
Apple Motion 1.X or later

Hardware Requirements:
A GPU-accelerated graphics card.

Pricing & Availability:
Red Giant Universe is available today:

Basic Membership: Free
Premium Monthly: $10
Premium Yearly: $99
Premium Lifetime: $399

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