SurfaceFX

About this plugin

Apply SurfaceFX to a layer from Effect > Stylize and it turns the layer into the maps a 3D material needs: a normal (bump) map, a height map, specular, reflection, ambient occlusion and a diffuse with the lighting taken out, picked from the Map menu, or a Shaded Preview that lights the surface so you can see its relief. It reads the shape of a photo or texture from its shading, or starts from a height map or an OpenGL or DirectX normal map. Pick one of 14 material presets, from Stone Wall, Cobblestone, Bricks and Rock to Wood, Bark, Fabric, Leather, Skin, Metal, Sand and Emboss for logos and text, or mix the detail yourself from fine to huge, with Detail Size, Shape Recognition, Noise Removal and Auto Contrast, and choose whether the light or the dark areas are raised. Seamless keeps the edges tileable. Each map has its own settings: the normal map's format and red flip, the height's contrast and level, the occlusion's strength, radius, depth and gamma, the specular's contrast, brightness and cavity darkening, reflection as reflectivity, glossiness or roughness, and how much light the diffuse removes. The Shaded Preview lights the layer's colours, the delit colours, clay or a colour of your own with a light you aim and colour, ambient light, highlights, and reflections of a built-in studio or of your own layer as a matcap or a panorama. SurfaceFX renders on the GPU (CUDA on NVIDIA, OpenCL on AMD and Intel) or on the CPU, in 8, 16 and 32 bpc, with Multi-Frame Rendering. Free, for After Effects on Windows: unzip it, copy SurfaceFX.aex into After Effects' Plug-ins folder and restart After Effects.

What it does

• Normal, height, specular, reflection, occlusion and delit diffuse maps from any layer
• A Shaded Preview that lights the surface, to see the relief before you use the maps
• From a photo or texture, a height map, or an OpenGL or DirectX normal map
• 14 material presets: Stone Wall, Cobblestone, Bricks, Rock, Concrete, Gravel, Wood, Bark, Fabric, Leather, Skin, Metal, Sand and Emboss for logos and text
• Fine, medium, large, very large and huge detail, with Detail Size, Shape Recognition and Noise Removal
• Light or dark areas raised, Auto Contrast and an Intensity for the whole relief
• Seamless: tileable edges for repeating textures
• Normal maps for OpenGL (Y+) or DirectX (Y-), with a red flip
• Occlusion with strength, radius, depth and gamma
• Specular with contrast, brightness, shine on raised areas and cavity darkening
• Reflection as reflectivity, glossiness or roughness
• Delit diffuse: takes the light baked into a photo out, with occlusion and saturation
• Preview lighting with highlights and reflections of a studio, or of your own layer as a matcap or panorama
• GPU rendering with CUDA (NVIDIA) and OpenCL (AMD, Intel), or the CPU
• 8, 16 and 32 bpc, and Multi-Frame Rendering