FreeForm User Manual

freeform | created by mettle.com

Contents
3 Installation
4 Controls
6 Controls - cont’d
8 Controls - cont’d
11 Support
14 Application

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FreeForm Resources

Video Tutorials
The FreeForm plugin for Check out project techniques
from DigiUsers just like you.
After Effects increases your
3D design options, allow-
ing you to bend or warp
any layer in 3D space.
Digieffects FreeForm (Created
by www.mettle.com)—included
with After Effects for the first
time in Creative Suite 5—vastly View video tutorials
increases your 3D design op-
tions, allowing you to do more
in After Effects without requir-
The Reviews
See what others are saying about
ing a side trip into dedicated 3D DE’s latest releases, plugin effects,
software. and more.
This powerful plug-in allows you to use a user-controllable mesh of
points or another layer as a displacement map for bending and warp-
ing.

Installation
Read the reviews
System Requirements:
FreeForm is a plugin to After Effects CS5, created by www.mettle.com. It has
been tested with Snow Leopard and Windows 7. Project Gallery
DE software and plugins in action.

Installing
1 Locate the Install file.
2 Double-click the installation program and follow the in-
structions.
3 The first time you attempt to run FreeForm, you will be
asked for your serial number.

Search, view, and download the latest

presets and videos or submit your own.
Visit project gallery
For more information visit:
http://www.digieffects.com/support/installation_guide
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Controls
FreeForm automatically responds to 3D cameras and lights in After Effects, making it easy to integrate
the results of this effect into any 3D scene.

About
Shows information about Digieffects and the
FreeForm (created by www.mettle.com) plugin
version.

Reset
Resets the parameters to their factory default.

Animation Presets
Contain groups of parameter settings you would
like to keep for future use. The list is empty until
you save a group of parameters as a Preset.

What you’ll need

A layer you will be warping with FreeForm
Optionally, you can use a 3D camera, a null object,
and some lights.

NOTE: Magnification and Resolution should be set to 50%

and (Half ) respectively for faster working.
Digieffects FreeForm places a layer in 3D space,
and presents a grid of control points for you to
warp. Grid points can be dragged to pull the Grid
in different directions.

Grid
Grid allows you to create meshes the way you can
with Adobe After Effects’ Mesh Warp; you can add
as many as 20 Rows and 20 Columns on the Grid
to play with.

Rows – Sets the number of rows of the Grid.

Columns – Same as rows, but columns, to deform
vertically.
Mesh Distortion – Keyframes the state of the
FreeForm deformation at a given time.
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FreeForm is a Digieffects plugin for After Effects, created by www.mettle.com.

Editing Controls
Manipulation – allows you to restrict your warps
to the X, Y, or Z axis.
Tangent Alignment – When checked allows you
to create curves. When unchecked, moving tan-
gents forms sharp angled corners.
NOTE: The “tangent handles” stay in line with each other
when checked, so that tangents move in an indepen-
dent or co-dependent manner.

3D Mesh Controls
Position – Regardless whether the Grid has been
deformed, this lets you control where the Layer
appears in 3D space.
Rotation – Controls the rotation of the Layer in
3D.
Anchors – Changes the position of the 3D anchor
point that controls the axis along which the Layer
moves and rotates.

45 ®
Controls - cont’d

Surface Controls
Diffuse – Adjusts the surface color’s ability to
reflect or absorb light. Higher values make the
surface brighter without adding a hard specular
kick. Lower values make the surface look darker.
Specular – Controls the specular highlights (in-
tensity) of the Layer. Higher values create a more
metallic look and a brighter, harder highlight.
Roughness – Roughness controls how hard or
soft the edges of the specular highlight are — as
opposed to intensity.
NOTE: The shading algorithm used by FreeForm is based on
the Blinn-Phong shading algorithm and the rough-
ness control is related to the exponent value (but not
directly).

Backside Controls
Backside Controls allow you to assign any other
layer to the back of the FreeForm layer.

The next controls allow you to create the perfect

backside.

Layer – You can choose a different layer from

within the composition to be the backside of your
3D mesh.
Shade – This will only add a solid color as the
backside instead of an image, e.g. if you don’t
have an image to put there AND don’t want the
frontside displayed as the back.

®
FreeForm is a Digieffects plugin for After Effects, created by www.mettle.com.

3D Mesh Quality
Mesh subdivision – Sets the density of your
mesh. Lower values (30-300) are good for less
detailed deforms like hills and wavy water. Higher
values (300-600) are needed for sharp corners/
edges and details. You can go as high as 1000,
but higher values increase render time.
Rendering:
Full – Renders the layer as a full color image.
Shade – Renders the layer as a single solid color.
Wireframe – Renders the layer as a wireframe im-
age. This is the fasted to update & render but has
the least visual information of the three.
Antialiasing – Removes jagged edges from your
warps. It works like font antialiasing.
Image Filtering – Acts like a Bicubic filter setting
when resizing an image in Photoshop, i.e. it helps
create smooth looks when downscaling or upscal-
ing.
NOTE: Multi Processing uses FreeForm’s own multiprocess-
ing code independent of After Effects. If you have a
multi-core machine, this can speed up the plug-in’s
responsiveness. However, it can sometimes introduce
artifacting on the FreeForm layer. If you notice any
artifacting, uncheck Multiprocessing and see if it fixes
the problem.

67 ®
Controls - cont’d

Displacement Controls
After creating a displacement map, load it by se-
lecting it from the Displace Layer menu.

Displacement Layer – The layer you are going to

use as a displacement map. This can be a still im-
age or an animated movie or pre-comp.
User Layer’s – This option sets a channel used
for displacement. RGB(luma) should be used for
black & white images. You may select Red, Green,
Blue or Alpha as other possible values. If your
source is an RGB image, each channel can give
you a slightly to drastically different result.
Use Alpha as Mask – If you check this control and
your displacement layer has transparency, Free-
Form will cut out your layer using that transpar-
ency information. For example, if you use text as a
Displacement Layer, the result would be text that
looks engraved in the FreeForm layer.
Displace Height – Sets the distance the Displace-
ment layer will deform your mesh in 3D space.
NOTE: In FreeForm, displacement is done with luminance
values. Black doesn’t displace pixels at all. White offers
maximum displacement and shades of gray have less
and less influence as they get closer to black. The Dis-
place Height adjusts how high the whites are pushed,
the grays scale accordingly.
If you rendered black & white clouds, your resulting
displacement would look like a 3D mountain range.
Higher Displacement Height values would make for
taller mountains. A very small value would make for
something like a calm ocean texture.

®
FreeForm is a Digieffects plugin for After Effects, created by www.mettle.com.

Grid and Controls Colors

Grid Color – Color of the grid.
Control Color – Color of the grab handles of the
Grid.
Tangent Color – Color of the mesh bezier curve
controls.
Anchor Color – Color of the layer anchors.
Grid and Controls Display – Check to see all con-
trols and the Grid.

89 ®
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