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.

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