Red Giant Universe 2.0 - no more free lunch

You probably already heard, but...

Red Giant Universe had been a consistently-updated mix of free and subscription effects for Adobe After Effect, Premiere Pro, and related apps like Hitfilm Pro, Final Cut Pro X, and DaVinci Resolve. With the new Universe 2.0, Red Giant removed the less popular plug-ins -- and will no longer offer free tools! 

There more at PVC in Red Giant Universe 2.0: Hud, Mograph, Stylized Damage & Looks, Transitions

Creative Cloud video June 2016 aka 2015.3

Adobe has released a new version of its Creative Cloud video and audio tools, dubbed Creative Cloud 2015.3 (not Creative Cloud 2016).  Here’s a handy roundup of summary info, links to more, and videos from Adobe and 3rd party reviewers & trainers.

You probably should choose to deselect “Remove Old Versions” in the Creative Cloud app (in Advanced Options when you click Install), in case you run into an unworkable bug situation.

And migrating plug-ins between versions can be a problem too, depending on plug-in tech used, but copying the old folder over to the new version plug-in folder often works fine. Just be sure to copy the folder before you uninstall the old version, or check leave preferences.

Arabic text in Premiere Pro and After Effects

UPDATE: Creative Cloud incorporates RTL text in the release of June 2016 (Arabic video; Hebrew demo).



 
UPDATE:  Typewriter effects in After Effects at PVC (August 2013) updates the status of Right-to-Left writing systems like Arabic and Hebrew.

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AE Scripts has another script for text manipulation in After Effects, ArabicText, by Salahuddin Taha. Arabic, Hebrew, and other texts are written from right to left, but AE flows letters from left to right in the Composition panel (oddly, the Layer Name stays correct).

TextReverser, from LLoyd Alvarez fixes the flow when the letters are standalone, but broke the letter back into individuals. Arabic is cursive and has medial letterforms, and needed another approach.

Later: There's now an Animation Preset, Typewriter-RTL, that "only works with 2 keyframes that reveal the text from beginning to end."