All experienced AE users know Jens Enqvist, the Swedish genius.
Jens is co-creator of Final Effects and Cult Filters.
Final Effects was the very first 3rd party plug in set for After Effects. It set the standard for originality and meticulous craftsmanship.
Even after all these years, the expanded FEC remains the classic godfather of plug in sets for After Effects.
I told Erica Schisler at Adobe about the interview, her response: “we love him.”
“ ‘CoSA’ trivia....
they were our first developers-- and for years we called him Jens
with a J sound-- when his actual pronunciation is more like an H
sound! How embarrassing for all of us! he was so nice-- he never corrected us.”
Interview with a Filterman
Part 1.
>1. Jens, can you think of an original FEC filter - and tell us how it evolved -
The particle effects were pretty original when they came.
Traditional particle effects at that time were terribly slow. They required a lot of memory and updating of dynamics if you stepped around in time.
FE Particle Systems didn't have those drawbacks because it was designed in a completely different way.
Initially, I wrote a stand alone application that rendered 3D particles based on a text script.
It was still slow and took a lot of memory, but it solved some limitations.
I was constantly trying to come up with ideas to make it faster.
The real breakthrough came while watching a TV program, about orchids I think.
It was so simple. I tried it the same night and it worked beautifully.
Every particle has its own seed, like a flower. Information about shape and color is contained in that seed.
So the old way of "updating dynamics" was like repeating and remembering the whole growth process every time you wanted to look at it at a different age.
The shortcut would be to calculate the shape at any age at once instead of calculating every day/frame in-between.
For most particle animations this works.
All the Final Effects particle plug-ins are based on this concept.
Ironic side note: FE Snow was designed by my Australian colleague. In his whole life, he has never seen snow.
>2. How long do you spend working on a filter. Let's say, how long did it take you to make one of my favorites - Wide Time? Or the hair filter, which I came to respect after it saved my life a year ago. You could gotten by being less careful leaving aliasing, and funky motion, but it was well thought out, did everything we needed. My self-proclaimed Quantel Snob co-worker was humbled.
Tough question.
CE Color Solid - a day.
FE Wide Time - a few days.
FE Hair - a few weeks.
CE Paint - Year and a half for the AE 3.1 version.
It's difficult to calculate since we usually work on several plug-ins side by side.
We also test plug-ins a lot while we develop.
The plug-ins must work in any situation so we use them in faked productions.
It's the polishing phase of the plug-ins.
We have a lot of fun when we do this.
The first betas of Final Effects still didn't have full antialiasing implemented. The response from the After Effects community was a name for it, "Swedish Antialiasing". I'm almost certain that Tim Sasson came up with it.
Considering that, I wouldn't want to be caught releasing an unfinished plug-in again.
>3. What do you like most about making filters, and what do you like least?
Like:
I like solving problems and making tools that can be really helpful. An extra bonus if they are unique.
Dislike:
Canned effects.
I used to have this note beside my computer : "Solving a problem is essentially the same as the age-old method for cooking a mammoth..... Break it up into smaller pieces!"
I want plug-ins to perform a simple task well.
Perhaps a remnant of CoSA AE where you had to take whatever tools available and create the effect you wanted to achieve.
Putting effects together yourself makes it unique and that is what I always wanted.
Then again, FE Pixel Polly has rendered at default settings countless times around the world...
What's the most misunderstood FEC filter?
You’ll find out in part 2...stay tuned....
(and while you’re waiting, why not post a
a cool technique or experiment?)
