March 11, 2014 – Today, Red Giant, makers of Magic Bullet, Trapcode, and PluralEyes, announced Red Giant Universe (public beta) – a community that gives members access to fast and powerful free tools for editing, filmmaking, visual effects and motion design. 

Red Giant invites you to join a new Universe (Public Beta launch)

50 new free and premium tools. GPU-accelerated. Multi host-app. Rapidly expanding. Community driven.

It appears that RedGiant is somewhat following the Adobe CC model with a subscription-based communities and software downloads/upgrades for monthly/annual/lifetime premiums. (Beta/basic membership is free to sign up). It appears that legacy software will still continue to be supported as well.

From the Red Giant Press Release:

“It's rare we get to introduce technology that is entirely new,” said Sean Safreed, Red Giant co-founder and CTO, who has been working with his team, behind the scenes, on Universe for the last year and a half. “Universe is an entirely new foundation for tools. It marries the simplicity of Javascript with the power of the GPU to deliver speedy renders and pixel-perfect results. Users are going to love how quickly we offer new plugins.”

In total, Red Giant is releasing an unprecedented 50 new plug-ins at once – with more already in development. Every tool in the Universe library of effects and transitions is GPU-accelerated, both Mac and Windows compatible, and works across multiple host applications including: After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro X and Motion. The Universe library of tools is continuously growing—new effects and transitions are added regularly, and existing tools are updated often, based on user feedback.

In addition to the expanding library of free plug-ins, Universe also offers Premium membership, which gives users access to even more tools – including new effects and transitions, as well as existing Red Giant favorites ported over to the new Universe platform (such as Knoll Light Factory EZ, Holomatrix, Retrograde, and ToonIt). Premium membership is available through monthly and yearly subscription, as well as a one-time lifetime membership fee.

“I'm a motion graphics and visual effects artist, and definitely not a coder,” said Aharon Rabinowitz, Red Giant's Director of Content and Communities. “Even so, along with the Universe development team, folks like motion designer Harry Frank and I have been secretly cranking out plug-ins for the last few months. Our new development tools have made it surprisingly easy. I'm super excited that we can finally share the stuff we've been making.”

What truly makes Universe unique, however, is it's community aspects. Through Universe Labs, members get to help choose what effects and transitions Red Giant builds next – while premium members are eligible for invitations to early betas of new products, allowing users to give early feedback and actively help shape Universe’s expansion over time.

Here's Red Giant's announcement video:

Pricing & Availability:

Red Giant Universe is available free starting today, with Premium membership available for purchase in the next few weeks.

Basic Membership: Free
Premium Monthly: $10
Premium Yearly: $99
Premium Lifetime: $399

Sign up for a free Red Giant Universe account today at http://redgiant.com/universe.

Universe at a glance:

Red Giant Universe is a community with access to an ever-expanding library of new free tools for filmmakers, editors, VFX artists, and motion designers. Universe includes:

• Tons of New GPU-Accelerated effects and transitions.
• 31 Free Tools
• 22 Effects
• 9 Transitions
• 19 Premium Tools
• 12 Effects
• 7 Transitions
• 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)

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

Hardware Requirements:

• A GPU-accelerated graphics card.

What is Supernova?

Here's a brief overview video behind the scenes of Red Giant Supernova with Harry Frank (Nerd alert – coding required!): 

_________________________________________________________________

Jeff Foster is a published author of several how-to books and training videos in the motion graphics, animation and video production industries and is an award-winning video producer and artist. Visit his web site to learn more about his training methods, tips & tricks at PixelPainter.com