USER GUIDE Tinderbox 1 on After Effects Visual Effects Software The Foundry Tinder Box1 The Foundry ©2008 The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd. All rights reserved. Tinderbox 1 User Guide This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license. This manual is provided for informational use only and is subject to change without notice. The Foundry assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors of inaccuracies that may appear in this book. No part of this manual may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of The Foundry. The Foundry logo is a trademark of The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd. Tinderbox 1 is a registered trademark of The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd. All other products or brands are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or organisations. Software engineering Mailys Levassort, Ralph McEntagart. Product testing Martin Rose, Mike Zannetou, Sean Brice, Jack Binks. Writing and layout design Jonathan Barson using Adobe FrameMaker. Rev: 14 November 2008 The Foundry Tinder Box1 iii Contents Introduction About this User Guide. 5 System Requirements . 5 Installation on Mac . 5 Installation on Windows . 6 Activating Tinderbox. 7 Installing a License . 9 Serial Number . 10 System ID (lmhostid) . 10 Where does the license file go? . 11 License Problems . 13 Background Rendering . 14 Further Reading . 16 About Tinderbox Plug-ins. 16 Other Foundry Products . 17 Tinderbox Controls About... 19 Reset. 20 Options.... 21 Type . 22 Aspect. 23 Process . 24 Ignore Transparent Pixels. 26 Gradient . 27 Lighting . 28 Camera . 37 Filtering. 39 Blending . 41 The Foundry Forge The Foundry Tinder Box1 iv Matte . 47 Matte Layer. 47 Attenuation. 48 Source Crops. 50 Matte Layer Crops . 52 Tinderbox 1 T_Beam . 53 T_Blur . 57 T_Caustic. 61 T_Deflicker. 66 T_Degrain . 73 T_Diffuse . 77 T_DirBlur . 79 T_Distorto . 83 T_Droplet. 87 T_Etch . 91 T_Grad . 96 T_HeatHaze . 100 T_Lens . 103 T_Pattern. 107 T_Rays . 111 T_Sky . 118 T_Starburst . 126 T_Tile. 131 Appendix A Release Notes . 135 Appendix B End User License Agreement . 145 Index A-Z . 153 Forge The Foundry Tinder Box1 The Foundry INTRODUCTION 5 About this User Guide INTRODUCTION Welcome to Tinderbox 1 for After Effects. Our plug-ins have been developed for the most demanding professionals in the post production industry. Many of the software engineers at The Foundry have worked in television or film, and know only too well the exacting requirements of this field. We are delighted to bring these tools to digital artists using After Effects. We hope you enjoy using them as much as we do. About this User This User Guide tells you how to install the plug-ins and Guide remove the watermark with a license key. It gives information on each of the plug-ins in this set with hints and tips at the end of most plug-ins to suggest creative or practical uses of the effect. Controls common to many of the Tinderbox plug-ins are described in the chapter Tinderbox Controls and referenced from the plug-ins. System Tinderbox 1 plugs into Adobe After Effects CS4 running on Requirements Mac OS X or Windows XP. It will also work in CS3/AE7. It does not work in After Effects 6.5, 6.0 or earlier versions. A version of Tinderbox is available for Combustion. Installation on Mac Tinderbox is distributed on CD or as a software download from our web site. To install Tinderbox 1 on a Mac follow these instructions: The Foundry Tinderbox 1 The Foundry Tinder Box1 6 INTRODUCTION Installation on Windows 1. Insert the Tinderbox 1 CD into your CD-ROM drive or double- click on the dmg file downloaded from our web site. 2. Double-click on Tinderbox pkg icon and follow the on-screen instructions. Figure 1. Double-click on the package to install. 3. Tinderbox will be installed but not licensed. It will render the effects with a watermark. If you have installed from a CD follow “Activating Tinderbox” on page 7. If you have installed from a download see “Where does the license file go?” on page 11. Installation on Tinderbox is distributed on CD or as a software download Windows from our web site. To install Tinderbox 1 on a computer running Windows follow these instructions: 1. Insert the Tinderbox 1 CD into your CD-ROM drive. 2. The Tinderbox installer should start automatically. If it does not, click on the Tinderbox Installer and follow the on-screen instructions. 3. Tinderbox will be installed but not licensed. It will render the effects with a watermark. If you have installed from a CD follow “Activating Tinderbox” on page 7. If you have installed from a download see “Where does the license file go?” on page 11. Tinderbox 1 The Foundry Tinder Box1 The Foundry INTRODUCTION 7 Activating Tinderbox Activating Once you have installed Tinderbox 1, you will need to Tinderbox activate the product. Successful activation gives you a license key that unlocks the software. If you have installed Tinderbox 1 from a CD, you can activate it via the Internet or by telephone. If you have installed Tinderbox 1 from a download, proceed to “Installing a License” on page 9. Activation via Internet 1. Start After Effects. 2. Apply a Tinderbox plug-in to a layer in a composition. 3. Press the About button (Figure 2) and make a note of your Figure 2. About. System ID (sometimes called lmhostid). This number is unique to The Foundry Tinderbox 1 The Foundry Tinder Box1 8 INTRODUCTION Activating Tinderbox your machine and your license key will be locked to it. Click the dialog that appears to make it go away. Figure 3. System ID. Click dialog to make it go away. 4. Press the Options... button at the top of the plug-in. (Figure 4) Figure 4. Options... 5. This launches a web browser. Check that the System ID shown on the web page is correct. If it is not, or you wish to activate for a different computer, follow the on-screen instructions. 6. Type your serial number into the box provided. You can find your serial number on a sticker in the DVD case. Make sure you type it in exactly as shown. Click ’continue’. Tinderbox 1 The Foundry Tinder Box1 The Foundry INTRODUCTION 9 Installing a License 7. If successful, you will be taken to a page that let’s you download your license file and the Foundry License Installer (FLI). From the pulldown menu, select the installer for your operating system, and click ’download license’. 8. Double-click on the downloaded file to extract the license key and the Foundry License Installer (your computer may do this automatically). The license will be in a plain text file called foundry.lic. The license will look a bit like this: INCREMENT tinderbox1_ae_i foundry 2.1 permanent \ uncounted HOSTID=000b957bfdf4 START=13-aug-2006 \ SIGN="0170 13D4 3659 2FC0 CCA4 1B88 0799 5D27 \ A73A ECE0 DE03 EAA3 1AF8 D98C EC7A 972A 19E3 \ 7E20 AE1F 4D3B 3623" Once you have downloaded the license file, proceed to “Install- ing a License” on page 9. Activation by Phone Call our London office on 020 7434 0449 (country code 44) or phone our Los Angeles office on 310 399 4555. You will need your serial number (“Serial Number” on page 10), System ID (“System ID (lmhostid)” on page 10) and an email address for us to send the license key and instructions. Installing a License Once you have received your license file, you need to install the license. The Foundry License Installer (FLI) application helps you with this. You may have received this application in an e-mail or downloaded it from http:// www.thefoundry.co.uk/licensing. To install a license: 1. Open the directory where you have saved the license file and the Foundry License Installer. 2. Double-click on the Foundry License Installer application. 3. In the window that opens, click ’Install’. The Foundry Tinderbox 1 The Foundry Tinder Box1 10 INTRODUCTION Serial Number This checks the license file and installs it into the correct direc- tory. If you installed a node-locked license key (a license that allows you to run the software on one machine only), you’re good to go. Start After Effects and check you’re plug-ins are licensed. If they are not, check that you have a foundry.lic license file in the correct directory. See “Where does the license file go?” on page 11. If you are installing a floating license key, you will be asked whether you want to create a client license file. For more information on how to install floating licenses, see “Background Rendering” on page 14. Serial Number The serial number is printed on a sticker inside the Tinderbox DVD box. The number will look a little like this: C334-D2B8-E3A6-9A75-315E-E37E-B5FB-311A System ID The System ID (sometimes called lmhostid) is a unique (lmhostid) number that identifies your computer. We use this number to generate a license key for that, and only that, computer. Tinderbox 1 The Foundry Tinder Box1 The Foundry INTRODUCTION 11 Where does the license file go? The System ID is shown at the bottom of the help dialogs. Figure 5. Help showing the System ID. Click on any Tinderbox About button to display this number. See Figure 2 if you can’t find it. Where does the The license file should be called foundry.lic and saved in the license file go? following directory as a plain text file. Mac If you’re on a Mac, this is where the license file should go: /Library/Application Support/TheFoundry/FLEXlm/foundry.lic Windows XP If you’re on Windows XP, this is where the license file should go: C:\Program Files\The Foundry\FLEXlm\foundry.lic C:\Program Files (x86)\The Foundry\FLEXlm\foundry.lic Windows Vista If you’re on Windows Vista, this is where the license file should go: C:\ProgramData\The Foundry\FLEXlm\foundry.lic There are also other places where you can place the license The Foundry Tinderbox 1 The Foundry Tinder Box1 12 INTRODUCTION Where does the license file go? file.