Back in March, Red Giant Software announced the public beta of Universe, their innovative online post production platform/community -- a potentially endless library of free tools, plugins, transitions, and effects. Well, today is the big day -- Red Giant has officially launched Universe with 50 tools, as well as the option to join their Premium Membership that will grant users paid access to premium content, which includes 12 effects and 7 transitions. Continue on to find out more about Universe's official launch.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Red Giant Universe, check out the video below to get acquainted:
Here's Red Giant Universe at a glance:
31 Free Tools
- 22 Effects
- 9 Transitions
19 Premium Tools
- 12 Effects
- 7 Transitions
OS Requirements:
- Mac OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5
- Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9.0 and later
- Windows 7 with Service Pack 1
- Windows 8 and 8.1
Host App Compatibility:
- Adobe After Effects CS5.5, CS6, CC
- Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, CC
- Apple FCPX
- Apple Motion 5
Other Features
- Regularly updated (using our dev tool, Supernova)
- Porting of some existing Red Giant products to Universe (Premium)
- Voting on new tools to decide what gets made next
- Invitations to private betas for new tools (Premium)
Once you sign up for a free Universe membership, you gain immediate access to 5 free tools, which include a total of 31 plugins. Tools include: Blur, Distort, Generators, Glow, and Transitions. Though there's plenty of tools to work with in the free membership, Red Giant is also offering a paid membership option that gives users access to premium content. The Premium Membership can be paid for on a $10 monthly, $99 yearly, or $399 lifetime subscription plan (the lifetime subscription never expires). Once signed up, you gain access to a bunch of premium tools, like Chromatic Glow, Holomatrix, Prism Displacement, and Retrograde.
The premium plugins are available in a free, 30-day trial when you install Universe. However, a red X watermark will appear after the trial period. This is good news for those of you who aren't interested in dropping some dough on effects and transitions that you haven't been able to battle test.
Here is a quick overview of what the Premium Membership entails:
Here's a bit about Universe's tools from the Red Giant website:
The Universe library of tools are GPU-accelerated, making them much faster than the tools you are currently using inside your host applications. In fact, we designed much of Universe to improve upon the humdrum tools built into our favorite host apps. Universe has all the basic effects and unique transitions you need for editing, plus more sophisticated effects that you want in motion design. We deliver them all together in one package that works the same across host applications and on both Mac OS X and Windows. Best of all, many are completely free.
Red Giant's Vimeo account shares a bunch of videos that give introductions to most of these tools. Here are a couple with which to wet your whistle:
If you're interested in signing up, head on over to Red Giant Universe!
What do you think about Red Giant Universe? Do you think this is the ideal platform for creating, sharing, and accessing post production tools? Let us know in the comments below.
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