Since CERN hasn’t yet opened a black hole under Switzerland, After Effects users may as well make their own. ProductionCrate has released Crates Black Hole, a free plugin that turns your timeline into a gravitational field. It’s part of the LaForge Suite, a collection of experimental VFX tools distributed through the ProductionCrate Portal app.

The plugin simulates relativistic lensing and accretion discs using a ray-marching algorithm. You can tweak physical parameters like mass, disc thickness, colour gradient, and absorption colour. The results range from physically inspired to gloriously implausible. Built-in volumetric fog and shadow casting add three-dimensional depth without leaving After Effects.

The recommended workflow uses OCIO colour management and 32-bit linear colour space to ensure the glow behaves like something that might have escaped from physics class. High-quality and default render modes allow users to trade precision for speed.

Black Hole Accretion and reflection

ProductionCrate’s demo suggests enhancing the effect with its Easy Glow plugin and dirty-lens overlays for a more cinematic look (Have your own interstellar at home!). The combination produces the faint grime, colour drift, and saturation roll-off characteristic of high-energy photography or a very very very very expensive and difficult to use telescope. The plugin allows chromatic aberration, curve-based colour shaping, and per-channel gradient biasing for the accretion disc. You can even simulate Doppler redshift, giving the illusion of orbital velocity differences across the disc.

Density and data

Crates Black Hole’s volumetric fog uses ray-marched shadows with adjustable step count, strength, softness, and falloff. Disc opacity, outer radius, and density parameters determine how the fog interacts with light. A lower ray-march step size increases quality at the cost of render time. The approach is computationally demanding but produces visuals well beyond traditional glow-and-warp effects. According to ProductionCrate, the system approximates gravitational light bending through iterative ray accumulation. Platform compatibility appears to cover both Windows and macOS under After Effects, though GPU dependencies were not specified and have not been independently verified.

Black Hole presets and controls

The plugin ships with preset configurations that demonstrate a variety of disc and fog behaviours. Each can be adjusted in real time within After Effects, with camera linking for orbital fly-throughs. Installation is handled through the ProductionCrate Portal, which also manages updates for other LaForge tools. A free ProductionCrate account is required.

Render quality can be increased by adjusting ray-march step size or maximum disc multiplier, both of which affect detail and smoothness. It is recommended to preview at low settings before switching to high quality for final renders.

Verdict: attractive forces

Crates Black Hole brings a dose of theoretical astrophysics and some fun to everyday compositing. Its physically-based ray marching and volumetric fog give After Effects users a taste of simulation-grade rendering without leaving Adobe’s 2D universe. Performance depends on system specs, but the results are striking. Particularly for a free plugin.

DP is reviewing the other tools in the LaForge Suite to assess their production potential. Keep your eyes open forthat. And until CERN changes its mind, this plugin remains the most practical way to bend light and time in postproduction. Test it carefully before deploying to the pipeline, and remember: in After Effects, nothing escapes the event horizon faster than your render time.

By the way, writing this news gave us a full-day earworm. Not difficult to guess, with our age, but here you go. The video still rocks, surprisingly.

The post DIY Gravity: Make Your Own Black Hole (In After Effects) first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Having recently looked at the After Effects scripts circuit FX, mazeFX and quadrateFX from the Greek manufacturer Real Creations, in this second part we take a look at the other three effects in the RealFX bundle, which can be purchased from aescripts.com for just over USD 140. If you don’t mind the cost or only really need one of the six tools, you can also purchase them individually for between USD 30 and USD 40.

easyRulers 2: Rulers and sliders

Whether a simple ruler, clock face, tempo display, volume, diagram or progress bar, the controllers of easyRulers 2 can be used for almost anything that needs to be visualised using numbers and indices.

The script initially offers the user two options: A straight line or a circle, with a corresponding number of dashes or dots between the digits. Further options are the shape and spacing of the dashes/dots as well as the display of digits, start and end numbers, their size and colour.

Once the user has selected all options and clicks on the “Create Ruler” button, a new shape appears in the composition with a number of text layers corresponding to the number of digits.

If you click on the shape layer, the extensive effect controls of easyRulers appear. Here the user defines, for example, the gaps between the indices, the width, the height, the colours and the distance between the digits and the dashes/dots. A pointer can also be optionally displayed and designed. If the “Wiggle” option is also activated, the pointer moves according to defined patterns. All other elements can be animated via the individual parameters using keyframes.

Conclusion

It should be noted that easyRulers does not create such elaborate animations at the touch of a button as the presentation on the website might suggest. easyRulers 2 is a script for generating fairly simple shapes and figures, not much more. Everything that the artists on the RealFX website have made out of it requires extensive and not to be underestimated post-processing. Nonetheless, easyRulers is a very good and easy-to-understand basis for designing any kind of controller and display. What you do with it is up to you.

Info box: Real Creations – easyRulers v2

easyRulers 2.02: USD 40
Host application: from After Effects CC
Further information: https://aescripts.com/easyrulers

LoadUP 1.7: Load bars and circles

The LoadUP script makes it easy to generate different load bars with or without pointers and numbers. The LoadUP script from Real Creations works in a very similar way to easyRuler 2, with the difference that here it is a matter of loading and render bars or similar types of graphics arranged in a circle. And, there are presets from which the user can choose not only simple but also quite sophisticated templates. As with all other RealFX scripts, you first create a composition, load the control panel from the window menu and make the first decisions here: Should the loading bar be straight or curved, what size and width, should there be a pointer, additional digits, for example percentages, should these follow the display, and what alignment and colour should the numbers have. If you want to leave everything to chance, use the three “Randomise” settings.

In contrast to other RealFX tools, there is also a “Presets” button within the LoadUP window. Here, the user can choose from a variety of ready-made bars and pie charts (20 each, to be precise), some of which are modelled on real progress and loading bars such as those from YouTube, while others are more playful. Nevertheless, the templates are mostly professionally designed and save the user a lot of manual work.

To fine-tune the graphics, click on the corresponding shape layer in the composition, whereupon the effect controls open. Here you will find the options to animate the progress of the graphic, to adjust the colours and any existing reflection, to determine the width and height of the indices and to define the size and spacing of the numbers. All options have keyframes so that the graphics can be easily animated to your own taste.

Conclusion

Thanks to the extensive templates and the easy-to-use settings, even beginners can quickly achieve results that are really worth seeing. With a price of only USD 30, LoadUP is therefore an all-round recommendable script if you often want to design loading or progress bars or simply visualise figures and diagrams.

Info box: Real Creations – LoadUP v1.7

LoadUP 1.7: USD 30
Host application: From After Effects CC
Further information: https://aescripts.com/loadup

keyboardFX 1.5 – Virtual keyboards

The last tool in our RealFX series from the Greek manufacturer Real Creations conjures up virtual keyboards on the After Effects screen. As with all the other tools, these are shape layers with optional text layers. If you call up the keyboardFX window, a handful of templates are available from which you can select an Apple keyboard (in white or black), older or newer Windows keyboards and even a Commodore 64.

Right at the start, the user can also enter a text to be typed and specify whether the keyboard labelling is to be displayed. If you then click on “Generate Keyboard”, keyboardFX generates the corresponding layers in the composition (the text layers for the keyboard labelling are set to “shy”).

Although keyboardFX also involves lovingly designed forms, they are nonetheless quite simple, which means that it still requires a lot of skilful manual work to create an elaborately designed keyboard from the script. In contrast to videos of animated keyboards, which can be found in image and video databases, the keystrokes can be animated within keyboardFX. To do this, the user can either use a so-called “speed slider” or activate optional markers in the settings, which are moved within the shape layer depending on the desired keystroke speed.

After generating a keyboard, the user has two shape layers available in the comp, each with its own effects control. For the actual keys, the user can use the slider to define the speed at which they are pressed (including an optional forward movement), the height and width of the keys, the colouring of the letters and the keystrokes as well as other tweaks for the shape and appearance of the keyboard housing. The user also defines the appearance of the keystrokes, i.e. the “glow” of the keys, via the “Glow” level. Each key on the keyboard has also been assigned a special command so that, in addition to simple words, key combinations or function keys can also be pressed virtually (Home, Arrow, F1 to F12, etc.).

Conclusion

As usual with Real Creations, the script is very easy to use and you can quickly achieve pleasing results, although understanding the correct keystrokes and the corresponding timing requires some time and patience. The script only generates very simple shapes, which can be further processed into more complex graphics in more extensive compositions. The great advantage of the script lies in the user-defined keystrokes and the sophisticated options for the keystroke speed. For a price of USD 30, keyboardFX saves the user a lot of manual labour that would otherwise be involved in designing keyboards.

keyboardFX v1.5: Script for creating different keyboards

keyboard 1.5: USD 30
Host application: from After Effects CC
Further information: https://aescripts.com/keyboardfx

The post RealFX Part 2: From the loading bar to the keyboard first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Andreas Zerr.

Epic Games has released a new Sports Broadcast | Motion Design Sample, available free on the Fab marketplace. Built in collaboration with Capacity Studios, the package provides broadcast artists with a complete set of sports graphics assets designed entirely with Unreal Engine’s Motion Design toolset.

The release is positioned as both a practical starter kit and a guided showcase of Motion Design workflows inside Unreal Engine.

What’s in the Box

Epic lists more than 40 animated, rigged, and pre-designed elements. These include templates for scoreboards, player line-ups, match statistics, and other staples of sports broadcasting. All are fully rigged and built to demonstrate reusable setups rather than complex, one-off solutions.

According to Epic, the assets avoid heavy reliance on Blueprints or advanced scripting. The stated goal is to keep the learning curve low (relativly speaking of course. We are still comple neophytes in that thing!) and highlight the Motion Design system itself.

Motion Design Features in Action

The sample makes use of a wide range of Motion Design features now embedded in Unreal Engine’s core. Epic lists:

• Transition Logic
• Rundown
• Cloners and Effectors
• Remote Control
• Material Designer
• Masking
• Animators and Modifiers
• Motion Design’s Custom Outliner

Each of these features is applied in context, so broadcast artists can see real-world usage rather than abstract demos.

Engine Version and Update Path

This initial release is built in Unreal Engine 5.6.1. Epic has confirmed a Unreal Engine 5.7 version is planned. That update will incorporate functionality and refinements developed as a result of building this sample. No release date for the 5.7 version was given.

Teaching by Example

The package is not only about graphics delivery but also functions as a structured tutorial. Because it sticks to core Motion Design features, it offers an accessible entry point for those new to Unreal’s procedural motion workflows. Artists can dissect and repurpose the included rigs without first needing extensive Blueprint experience.

Epic describes the sample as a way to “jumpstart” projects. The implication is that the company continues to court not just game developers and VFX teams, but also broadcast graphics departments.

A Reminder for Production Use

As always, new samples and assets should be tested carefully in actual production environments before deployment. Stability, integration into existing broadcast pipelines, and rendering performance under real-world conditions were not independently verified at press time.

The post Ready-Made Hype: Epic Ships Free Sports Broadcast Motion Design Sample first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

In a significant move for the compositing- community, Maxon has announced the acquisition of the Autograph team from Left Angle. As Left Angle winds down its operations, its staff, known for their expertise in modern compositing workflows, will join Maxon’s expanding family. Autograph, developed by Left Angle, was created with the vision to rethink compositing from the ground up, offering a modern toolset for motion designers and visual effects artists. The integration of Autograph’s technology and team into Maxon’s ecosystem is expected to foster innovation and development of new tools that cater to the evolving needs of artists and creators worldwide.(left-angle.com) For more information, visit Maxon’s official announcement: Maxon Welcomes Autograph Team Following Left Angle Transition.

And since we probably won’t be using the cool company name “Left Angle” anymore, here are some post which had that tag:

Autograph Starter: Free Motion Graphics Tool with a Twist

Autograph 2025: Sign Here for New Features

From the left..

The post Maxon Acquires Autograph: A New Chapter in Compositing Tools first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.