Pixel Cloud

THIS PRODUCT HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED

 

The Pixel Cloud plugin for After Effects is a powerful compositing tool that allows you to relight a 3D generated image, make 3D aware selections or displace the pixels in 3D space. Combine the use of a Position Pass and a Normal Pass with the power of After Effects' 3D lights and cameras and change the lighting of your composited 3D graphics.

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Description

THIS PRODUCT HAS BEEN DISCONTINUED

The Pixel Cloud plugin for After Effects is a powerful compositing tool that allows you to relight a 3D generated image, make 3D aware selections or displace the pixels in 3D space. Combine the use of a Position Pass and a Normal Pass with the power of After Effects' 3D lights and cameras and change the lighting of your composited 3D graphics.

This native plugin for After Effects can use the coordinate information from a Position Pass or depth map to generate a Pixel Cloud in 3D space. This Pixel Cloud can be viewed from all angles using AE's own cameras. With a Normal Pass, the Pixel Cloud can be relit using After Effects' own lights or using an image as an Image Based Light. There are a number of uses from 3D compositing to motion graphics!

Features

  • Relighting with 32-bit passes
  • Use AE Lights and Cameras
  • Support for falloff lighting in CS5.5 and CS6
  • Diffuse
  • Specularity
  • Image Based Lighting
  • Reflection
  • Alpha Lights for matte generation
  • Support for falloff in CS5.5 and above
  • Pixel Cloud generation with 8bpc to 32bpc
  • 3D Displacement
  • Pixel Texturing
  • Lo-res Preview modes
  • Multiprocessor compatible

Generating the position pass can be done in various 3D software packages. In Cinema 4D you may use the PointPosition C4D plugin. For Maya, you may use the Point World output of a samplerInfo node connected to a surface shader and render an EXR using mental ray and the 32-bit framebuffer. There are also a variety of tutorials available. For 3DS Max, you may add the XYZ Generator shader to the surface slot of a mental ray material. Set its Coordinate System to 3 and render to an EXR using the floating point framebuffer.

Tutorials

Relight tutorial
Depth Map displacement tutorial
Export PPass from C4D to use in Pixel Cloud
Alpha Lights in Pixel Cloud
Animating a Photo

Discussions

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Version History

1.7 -

Jun 14, 2015

Unified license scheme and

CC 2015 compatible

1.6b -

Mar 28, 2015

Fixed Mac Installer installing incorrect version

1.6 -

Mar 28, 2015

Added Support for Render-Only Licensing

1.5 -

Jul 4, 2014

Added Support for Adobe After Effects CC 2014 to installer

Compatibility

After Effects

2021, 2020

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Updated: Oct 21, 2025 1:35 AM