Digital Film Tools Rays Brings Volumetric Lighting Effects to More Than Just After Effects

Posted on by Jeff Riegel, Producer/Editor

September 1, 2011

by Beth Marchant, Studio Daily

Digital Film Tools’ volumetric lighting effect plug-in Rays, formerly only available for Photoshop, Lightroom and Aperture, now works with the major nonlinear editing applications from Adobe, Avid and Apple, including Final Cut Pro X. Other popular volumetric effects plug-ins, like Red Giant’s Trapcode Lux 1.2, work only in After Effects. This update, however, is welcome news for the majority of editors and motion graphic artists who run more than one program on a single workstation. If you regularly work with After Effects, Premiere Pro and Final Cut on one machine, for example, a single Rays film/video plug-in license lets you use it across those applications. A separate Rays photo license, however, is required to use the original version of the plug-in with Photoshop.

The new Rays Video/Film plug-in, as you might expect, is slightly more expensive than the original $50 Rays Photo plug-in. But for $99, you get some nice control over the color, direction, length and brightness of your rays, plus a number of on-screen displays that include sliders for selecting precise values. You can also control Threshold (to pin-point where you want the rays to be visible) or mix up your effect with a randomize option.

Digital Film Tools founder Marco Paolini says he’s eager to get feedback from users of this new version of Ray, which he says was a “clear decision for us.” The download, in fact, encourages users to make use the 15-day free trial before purchasing. A standalone version of Rays is also available in the Mac App store.

 

Description

Create stunning and realistic light ray effects quickly and easily. Known as volumetric lighting in computer graphics or crepuscular rays in atmospheric optics, this dramatic effect adds polish and style. Since the rays are only added to highlight areas, they have the effect of passing through objects and add a third dimensional quality. Add shafts of light streaming through clouds, rays filtering through a forest canopy, beams of light on a foggy night or rays shooting out from text. Rays adds a striking and dramatic quality to any image.

Features
– Set the ray length and brightness
– Control ray direction with an on-screen control
– Customize the color of the rays using a color picker
-Threshold control to specify where the rays will be visible
– Randomize the rays
– Modify settings with sliders
– Integrated Help

  • One Rays photo plug-in license will allow it to run in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture if installed on the same machine.
  • One Rays video/film plug-in license will allow it to run in Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro (including FCPX), Apple Motion 5 and Avid Editing Systems if installed on the same machine.

For more information: www.digitalfilmtools.com

Digital Film Tools Rays Now Available for CS5, Avid and FCPX

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For two decades, Jeff Riegel was a senior level Producer/Editor for the Department of Defense and various government contractors in Northern Virginia. Outside of the workplace, Jeff keeps himself busy with the creation of festival worthy documentaries "Tori Nelson: Fighting for Her Future" and the once nominated and two-time Emmy award winning "A Journey of Education and Remembrance." His short film "The Great Realisation" captured the eyes at 18 international film festivals with various winning honors; a poem that takes on heavy themes such as fevered capitalism, man-made ecological issues, digital addiction during the global Covid blight. Jeff is looking for funding investors and co-producing "The Lost Clipper," a two+ decades project about the first hijacking in U.S. history and the search for those 15 lost souls abducted in 1938, the true first act of war with Japan. Filming takes him to Micronesia, Guam, Hawaii, Canada, and locations across the U.S. (see www.LostClipper.com) He enjoys creating media-marketing social networking campaign for personalities such as 13-time world boxing champion Tori Nelson, Netflix's "Narcos" personalities Steve Murphy and Javier Pena, and renowned landscape photographer Frank Lee Ruggles. Jeff is eager to attack any project head-on. Jeff's Motto: think beyond convention...and consider it done!