Gak Pak(TM): New Plug-in Suite Is A Motion Graphics Gold Mine

Compatible with Adobe(R), Discreet(R), and Avid(R) platforms, Gak Pak has nine super customizable plug-ins that create an endless variety of backgrounds, textures, and patterns for motion graphics artists.

Verona, WI (September 25th, 2004) - Profound Effects(R), Inc., a leading innovator in special effects technology, is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the Gak Pak, a unique and super customizable plug-in suite for motion graphics. Created by renowned artist Kenneth Woodruff specifically for motion graphics artists, Gak Pak offers nine plug-ins producing an endless variety of animated backgrounds, textures and patterns. Use Gak Pak where you might use a background or graphic from a collection of canned clips or stills. Unlike canned backgrounds, Gak Pak graphics can be customized, tuned, and tweaked to get exactly the look you're looking for. And, several Gak Pak effects can incorporate your own footage, something canned background collections can't do.

Motion graphics designer Michael Schneider of 2Dmedia said, "Gak Pak has great a chance to become the fastest amortizing plug-in set I've ever had. A plug-in set which specializes in creating cool background animations ... WOW! Something I was looking for for a long time."

Designer Tim Kolb said, "The building blocks to create deep, dimensional backgrounds quickly, are there. Because you customize how the elements go together, the possibilities for use and re-use are exponentially higher than a fixed, pre-composited library ... and it's named after something that Smithers from The Simpsons might say if someone stole his life-size cardboard cutout of David Hasselhoff ... What more could you want?"

Many Gak Pak effects are loopable and all provide automatic motion and behavior with little or no keyframing. All effects are resolution independent and provide both 8- and 16-bit rendering in hosts that support it. Many Gak Pak effects are built from a library of 18 basic shapes and 16 built-in textures. Your own video sources and custom shapes can also be used. Gak Pak also provides a very sophisticated color picking scheme that produces beautiful color combinations that you can tune to meet your needs.

Gap Pak Effects Include:

Barrage sends an endless stream of customizable shapes towards the viewer. Source point, drift, rotation and other options combine to produce a huge array of particle-like effects.

Fireflies simulates the flowing movement and appearance of fireflies that glow on and off by emitting shape particles from random locations and moving, rotating, and fading them in and out smoothly.

Gakcharmer produces gorgeous snakes of shape particles or video sources undulating with customizable color, rotation and other settings. Gakground makes amazingly smooth backgrounds containing washes of colors and textures. These backgrounds are created by combining one or two gradients with an optional textured pattern. By animating these gradient and textured pattern settings, you can create fantastic backgrounds. Sixteen textures are included as presets. You can also choose your own video stream (on some supported platforms).

Glider creates colored bars that slide across the frame over time, and is a very common effect on television. Numerous horizontal and/or vertical bars slide and fade in and out over time, creating a dynamic backdrop for use with lower-third titles, talking heads, or other video. Instead of bars, you can also select any one of the 18 included shapes.

SpiderWeb builds a spider web that can sway in the wind. You can even simulate the construction of the web by having the strands built over time, and include a video source at the leading position if you want to include, for example, an animation of a walking spider (available as a separate download for registered users only). You're not limited to spider silk, you can draw the web with any of Gak Pak's built-in shapes for a video source of your own (on some platforms).

Structure creates an animated background of multiple-jointed lines, with optional shapes at their joints. The collection of lines, each moving randomly and independently, can create interesting, dynamic backdrops. Vectro is an amazing plug-in that can use any of Gak Pak's built-in shapes, your own video sources or mask shapes (on some platforms).

Waves offers 10 preset customizable wave patterns. Shapes and video sources (on some platforms) can be drawn at the peaks and valleys of the wave forms. Profound Effects, in cooperation with Kenneth Woodruff, has created a plug-in suite with enormous depth and sophistication. Modestly priced, Gak Pak is a powerful and valuable addition to the motion graphics artist's palette.

Gak Pak for After Effects(R), Premiere(R), and combustion(R) has a suggested retail price of $149 (USD). Gak Pak for Avid AVX(TM) systems has a retail price of $195. Please see the Gak Pak Specifications page on the Profound Effects web site for specific platform compatibility. Profound Effects can be found on the web at http://www.profoundeffects.com. The Profound Effects store is located on the web at http://www.profoundeffects.com/store/.

Editors Note: Additional information about Profound Effects, Inc. and its products can be found online at http://www.profoundeffects.com. A media center, including white papers, media releases, and logos can be found at http://www.profoundeffects.com/company/press/.

(C)2004 Profound Effects, Inc. All rights reserved. Profound Effects is a registered trademark and the Profound Effects logo and Gak Pak are trademarks of Profound Effects, Inc. Adobe, Adobe Premiere and After Effects are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems, Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Autodesk, combustion, and Discreet are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Autodesk Canada Inc. in the USA and/or other countries. Avid and AVX are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other references to trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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