Useful and just damn cool plug-ins for AE

My favorites are the Trapcode Plugins, that you can get at red giant(they have some really good tutorials on using them too and all of there stuff.). Also you can get trial versions of all of them before you buy. If you register at red giant(Red Giant People) they have tons of useful presets and fun things to download there too.

I also use the Mettle Shapeshifter plugin alot.

Another favorite is Optical Flares

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com

"I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."
---THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

Free Form Pro, Shape Shifter AE and Zaxwerks Invigorator Pro (the new upcoming version especially) are great for 3D work in AE.
Plexus and Newton are quite interesting as well.
Trapcode and all other Red Giant plugins of course.
I've been using Knoll Lens Flare Pro from the beginning, but Optical Flares are good as well.
AE comes with a bunch of great plugins - I recommend browsing and using Brainstorm.
There's quite a few scripts and expressions as well that can make life interesting- aescripts.com is a great resource.

Tudor "Ted" Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist