Dark Energy plugin for Adobe After Effects (UPDATED)
Published: July 11th 2013
Dark Energy plugin for Adobe After Effects (UPDATED)
Note: As of Dec 1, 2015, the sale of the Dark Energy plugin for After Effects plug-in has been discontinued. Cinnafilm remains committed to supporting all current users with technical support and license updates. Support inquiries for current users should be directed to [email protected]. To learn more about using Cinnafilm Dark Energy, please click here.
Dark Energy plugin for Adobe After Effects is still making a powerful name for itself. We have been witness to incredible and clever use cases with this technology, including:
- Removing blocking/compression/signal noise from lower end cameras
- Removing blocking/compression/signal noise from green screen shots
- Filling in incomplete renders (where ray traces have left random “holes”, vastly speeding up the render times).
We recently provided several very successful webinars for the multitudes of users out there. We plan to have at least one training webinar per quarter, so look for next session to be in August.
Thanks to a very interactive user base, we were quickly notified that Dark Energy for After Effects did not work with Adobe’s new Creative Cloud. We have since corrected the installer and users can migrate to CC without any need for additional licensing or renewal – just install the latest version available here: Download Dark Energy for After Effects.
On August 1st 2013, we will release the newest version of the Dark Energy Plugin for After Effects, which will unlock resolutions up to 4K and will include tuning specifically for 4K. It will also be compatible with Adobe’s new Creative Cloud service.
When will you be Windows 8 compatible?
A: We will release a Windows 8 compatibility patch toward the end of the year – we need to wait for Microsoft to release a Windows 8.1 patch to avoid major headaches. Keep in mind Dark Energy is a refined collection of various technologies, not a simple plug-in (though many times we wish it were simple). The ability to multithread and manage the incredible compute power in spatial and temporal space under the hood relies heavily on a stable OS which Windows 8 is not yet. It will be here, please be patient with us.
When will you release a version for Mac?
A: Not happening for now. Apple’s latest announcement for their new Mac tower design has precluded our efforts to do this. This is because we are CUDA-dependent. Apple has chosen AMD for its future products, and we cannot port this very complex plugin over to Open CL. We have re-set our sights on OFX (more info soon).
What is the main difference between the plug-in and your $12,000 DE Pro system?
A: No doubt, this $399 plug-in comes with a bang, and creates the same level of quality the DE Pro 3 system does in imagery, but in the power and convenience of a plug-in. The main differentiators with DE Pro 3 are: No large-scale batch process capability – the “Accelerator” toolset is only available in Pro (able to leverage many multiples of GPUS on large volumes like archives); the plug-in is limited to 2 GPUs per the Adobe architecture (about 4 fps versus 12 fps per GPU), so speed is not as fast because the caching pipeline is dependent on Adobe (we wrote our own GUI and interface for Pro); and Dustbusting is only available in Pro.
When is your next sale?
A: Who knows. But if you like what we do enough to read this newsletter and have read this far, why not support a great Kickstarter campaign and get DE for AE for half off? You’d help fund the Dark Energy OFX Plug-In, and with a pledge of $200 or more, you’ll get a copy of Dark Energy for After Effects (Windows) plus the killer Dark Energy t-shirt when the project funds. Please check back with us regarding the Kickstarter campaign, launching soon!