Maxon Unveils Universe 4.0 For Special Effects

Maxon, a German developer of software for motion designers, visual effects artists and editors, has released its Universe 4.0 special effects package.
This latest subscription-only release features Electrify for creating electrical effects on images, footage, and logos, Texturize Motion for blending animated textures with footage for sketchy, stop motion looks, and Analog for simulating dynamic analog retro-TV-styles, noise, interference, and CRT effects.
Universe 4.0 exploits Apple‘s latest Metal technology for optimal GPU performance on the Mac. With improved Premiere Pro and After Effects integration, users will notice significant performance improvements, according to the company. Then, in an effort to provide continuous content-driven value to the community, 140 new presets have been added for Array Gun and Typographic contributed by Motion Designer, Laura Porat.
“Universe 4.0 gives artists the ability to quickly and easily create their favourite effects and add visual excitement to their projects. It’s a pleasure to provide tools we know are going to inspire the creative community,” said Dave McGavran, Maxon CEO. “I am also very pleased with the under-the-hood improvements that offer notable enhancements, and set the groundwork for greater performance and efficiency in future releases.”
Electrify allows lightning effects to be added to images and footage by using source image contours to generate electrical effects. The Fractal Noise sources allow creation of custom patterns without image contours.
Then Texturize Motion allows users to choose from a library of 14 high resolution animated textures to blend into existing footage for sketchy, stop motion looks. Rotation, scale, and position jitter controls are integrated to add additional custom shakiness.
Finally, Analog allows simulation of color, noise, interference, and CRT effects to recreate classic television video appearance. Simple settings like Phase, Filter and Temperature allow control over a variety of looks. Basic scan lines, CRT dots, and squares can be added for a realistic CRT projection as well as screen curvature and reflections.
You might also like...
Virtual Production For Broadcast: Image Based Lighting
Ensuring consistency of lighting between the virtual world and physical objects on set requires controlling production lighting based on image content.
Virtual Production For Broadcast: Part 4 - Uniting The Physical & The Virtual
Virtual Production For Broadcast is a major 12 article exploration of the technology and techniques of LED wall based virtual production approached with broadcast studio applications in mind. Part 4 examines image based lighting, new developments in RGBW LED technology and what i…
Virtual Production For Broadcast: Motion Capture
One of the creative advantages of virtual production for performers is seeing the virtual environment in which they are performing. Using motion capture techniques extends this into capturing the motion of performers to drive CGI characters. New technologies are rapidly…
Virtual Production For Broadcast: Capturing Objects In 3D
Sometimes, there’ll be a need to represent real-world objects in the virtual world. Simple objects could be built like any VFX asset; more complex ones might be better scanned as a 3D object, something some studios have begun to c…
Virtual Production For Broadcast: Shooting Locations For Virtual Production
Sending out a crew to capture a real-world environment can be a more straightforward option than creating a virtual world, but there are some quite specific considerations affecting how the material is shot and prepared for use.