Red Giant, one of our favorite plugin vendors, has acquired the motion plugin portfolio of Digital Anarchy. The plugins include PlaneSpace (formerly 3D Assistant Lite/Pro), a 3D layer animation tool; Datamator (formerly Data Animator), which creates and animates charts and graphs in 3D space; Psunami (formerly Psunami Water), a photorealistic water and wave generator; ToonIt (formerly Toon It!), which creates cartoon-style art from video footage; and Knoll Light Factory Spark, a version of the popular lens flare generation tool especially for FFI and Smoke.
One really bit of great news about the acquisition is that Digital Anarchy’s Microcosm QuickTime codec is now going to be distributed free of charge (along with PlasmaFX and Color Theory). Microcosm is a 64-bit lossless codec which can achieve compression rates around 5:1. It’s a great tool for saving space on high quality renders from graphics applications.
For more information about the acquisition, click through for the press release and check out Red Giant’s FAQ about the acquisition…
San Francisco, CA, August 4, 2008 – Red Giant Software, with popular products Magic Bullet, Knoll Light Factory, and Trapcode, today announced that it has agreed to acquire the video plug-in portfolio of Digital Anarchy, a San Francisco-based plug-in developer. Digital Anarchy is known for its high-quality creative software for broadcast designers and 2D animators. The acquisition will add six new products to Red Giant Software’s roster, which will be repackaged under Red Giant Software’s own product names.
These new products make Red Giant Software a one-stop shop for plug-ins, with over 30 plug-in packages for Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Avid. Users can now turn to Red Giant to create a wide variety of effects, including particles, keying, color correction, lighting, cartoon effects, look creation, animated titles, and ultra-realistic water. Several of Digital Anarchy’s former products will distributed free of charge, including PlasmaFX, Color Theory, and Microcosm Codec. These free products will be introduced later in 2008.
The six new tools include PlaneSpace (formerly 3D Assistant Lite/Pro), a 3D layer animation tool; Datamator (formerly Data Animator), which creates and animates charts and graphs in 3D space; Psunami (formerly Psunami Water), a photorealistic water and wave generator; ToonIt (formerly Toon It!), which creates cartoon-style art from video footage; and Knoll Light Factory Spark, a version of the popular lens flare generation tool especially for advanced Autodesk platforms.
Jim Tierney, president of Digital Anarchy, said, “As I looked to exit the video plug-in business to fully concentrate on our photography/Photoshop products, I approached Red Giant Software to help ease the transition for our users. Red Giant Software is recognized in the industry for taking care of its customers with a solid record for support and marketing. It was important to find Digital Anarchy’s film/video users a good new home — Red Giant Software fits that bill.”
Sean Safreed, owner of Red Giant Software, said, “This is an exciting milestone for our company. We entered the plug-in market nearly six years ago, and we are now are one of the largest providers of tools to production professionals. We are dedicated to providing innovative tools for broadcasters, film designers, and independent filmmakers, and Digital Anarchy’s video toolset expands our palette. We look forward to providing Digital Anarchy film/video users and future customers with the best support and on-going updates to these new tools, and we’re already working on updates and compatibility enhancements.”
Digital Anarchy will continue to publish plug-ins and filters for Adobe Photoshop. For more information, visitwww.digitalanarchy.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
For more product information, visit: http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/featured-news/da-faq/
Pricing and Availability
• Red Giant PlaneSpace (formerly 3D Assistant Lite/Pro) is available for $199 USD
• Red Giant Datamator (formerly Data Animator) is available for $99 USD
• Red Giant Psunami (formerly Psunami Water) is available for $199 USD
• Red Giant Text Anarchy (formerly Text Anarchy, now includes Geomancy and Anarchy Toolbox) is available for $199 USD
• Red Giant Toon It (formerly ToonIt!) is available for $399 USD
• Knoll Light Factory Spark is available for $1,299 USD