The Orphanage announces free plug-ins for Adobe After Effects

The Orphanage, whose recent visual effects efforts include Revolution Studios' ‘Hellboy’ and Fox's ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, has announced the release of a key piece of its visual effects technology.
Named eLin, the software consists of a suite of plug-ins and scripts for Adobe After Effects 6.5 that allow compositors to work in the expanded photographic colour space of film. eLin will be free of charge for non-commercial use. "We created eLin to work more organically with film and other High Dynamic Range material," said Stu Maschwitz, Orphanage CTO, "but we now use it on every project, from A-list movies to commercials."
eLin allows After Effects users to composite film, video, and 3D elements together in a unified High Dynamic Range (HDR) colour space that mimics the physical properties of light. As a result, even simple compositing operations look better and more photographic. eLin includes support for industry-standard Cineon film scans as well as Industrial Light & Magic's open source EXR file format. By preserving highlight information beyond the visible range, all of After Effects' built-in effects become capable of HDR performance. Highlights blur and reveal in a realistic way, and even basic A over B comps are lent a cinematic feel.
"eLin completely changes everything in After Effects and the way I will look at compositing in it forever," said Joe Pavlo, Visual Effects Supervisor for HBO's Rome. "I thought I would only be getting this from Shake for a long time to come."
(GB)