Red Giant announces a Public Beta of Trapcode Mir 2, a motion graphics tool that allows users to create 3D surfaces for use in motion graphics and visual effects.
Technology developer Red Giant has announced a Public Beta of the popular motion graphics tool, Trapcode Mir 2. Current users of Trapcode Mir 1.0 can download the latest beta for Mir 2 from the Trapcode website.
Trapcode Suite is the industry-standard tool for motion graphics in After Effects. One of the tools in its roster, Trapcode Mir creates 3D surfaces for use in motion graphics and visual effects. It is a GPU-accelerated effect, allowing After Effects users to shape, animate and light 3D surfaces in real-time.
Trapcode Founder Peder Norrby has already implemented some new features in the Mir 2 beta, including:
- Optimized Rendering – up to three-times faster
- Z Range controls (found in Fractal group); for example, to create plateau in landscape or to move fractal to "up" only so that amp map only goes "up"
- Second Pass Wireframe – it is drawn with proper obscuration and fog
- Quads, which is found under Geometry>Tessellation, and uses quads instead of triangles
- Memory Management – new pop-up where VRAM can be manually set or memory check turned off completely. It’s useful with high-end cards with >2GB VRAM since Mir's auto-detection only works with <2GB.
While he may not be able to implement all of the requests coming in, some of the items on Peder’s Mir 2 to-do list potentially include:
- Reflection maps
- Specular maps
- Depth-of-field camera effects
- Motion blur
- Loop options for fractal to create seamless animated loops
- And much more
Join the beta to help determine which features will be implemented!
Source: Red Giant
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
