Best Video Effects Software: Free and Paid Options
If you want to create good-looking video content—whether that’s your own movies, YouTube shows, marketing videos for your company, or anything else—you’ll undoubtedly be thinking about how you can add exciting visual effects.
There are many types of effects and graphics that you can add: color changes, dramatic lighting, chroma-keying, adding animated title text, and composting different shots together. These are just a few of the many things that you may want to do to spice up your videos.
There are also many choices for what software to use. As the various programs available are aimed at different levels and can come at a wide range of prices, it can be difficult to know which is the best video effects software for you. In this feature, we look at the pros and cons of five popular choices.
Perhaps the most popular VFX app on the market, After Effects is part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite of software. It’s a particularly good choice for those who edit videos in Premiere Pro, as it’s easy to send all or part of a Premiere Pro sequence to After Effects.
Not many other programs match After Effects when it comes to the breath or quality of tools, and Adobe regularly updates it with new features. Recent additions include a powerful 3D transform tool, AI-powered rotoscoping, and easy removal of objects from video clips.
The main downside is the subscription pricing model. After Effects costs $20.99/month with an annual commitment, $31.49/month with no annual commitment, or $239.88/year. While updates are included, these subscriptions can become costly over time. Alternatively, you can subscribe to it as part of the whole Creative Cloud package, which will save you money if you use several Adobe apps.
Hitfilm Pro allows you to edit both video and VFX within one app. This means that the effects are applied onto the non-linear editing timeline, rather than an After Effects-style layer-based system, making for a gentler learning curve if you’re not used to editing software.
From the impressive VFX toolset, you can see why Hitfilm Pro is used in big Hollywood movies. Besides all the essential tools that you’d expect, particularly remarkable features include an excellent chroma key, world-leading particle effects, advanced 2D- and 3D-motion tracking, and over 875 VFX presets.
Hitfilm Pro’s one-off fee of $349 is high, but if you’re going to use the program regularly, it can work out cheaper than subscription-based software. A free demo version is available, which has all the features and no time limit, but exports are given a watermark.
If Hitfilm Pro is too expensive or complicated for you, then a more accessible editing and effects suite is offered by the same developers. Hitfilm Express is free to download, has a similar layout to Pro, and works well as a free video editing program.
When it comes to effects, you get clip animation tools, title design/animation, 2D tracking, and a few other basics, but most of Hitfilm Pro’s advanced effects are absent. However, if you want to use just some of the missing features, you can purchase add-ons for Express, which give you them individually. The costs range from $9.99 for basic color adjustment tools to $49.99 for 3D particle effects.
This means that Hitfilm Express is a flexible option for beginner filmmakers who want to edit videos with basic VFX. When you’re a bit more confident and want to step up, you have the choice of buying add-ons or switching to a different program.
Blackmagic Design describes Fusion as “the world’s most advanced compositing software for VFX artists,” and the breadth and depth of its features back up that claim. These include compositing live-action footage with 3D models, working with 360º VR, and stereoscopic 3D effects.
It’s a complex program, so it’s definitely for professionals and not beginners, though the node-based workspace—in which you connect various effects and filters through a visual web of nodes—is quite efficient once you get used to it.
Fusion is built into DaVinci Resolve, Blackmagic’s all-in-one post-production program, so you can edit your video, then switch to the Fusion tab to add effects. The real-time collaboration tools enable an editor and a VFX artist to work on the same project simultaneously.
The best thing about this option is that the standard version is completely free. The premium version has a few advanced features, including faster network-based rendering, and costs a one-off $295.
Like most Apple software, Motion is a sleek and attractively designed app. Its efficient interface means it’s easy to get to grips with and is accessible to less-experienced VFX artists, yet it’s still pretty powerful. Among its features are advanced color correction and a useful set of tools for designing and animating text.
That said, it doesn’t have the same depth as other options like Hitfilm Pro and Fusion, falling short on advanced compositing and 3D model tools, for example. But for most projects that aren’t blockbuster movies, you should find everything that you need.
Motion is particularly useful for those who edit in Final Cut Pro, as it’s easy to send projects between the two apps. It’s available for a one-off fee of $49.99, and this includes access to any future updates.
RELATED ARTICLES
Best Video Auto Subtitle Generator Software Online and Offline
Gihosoft Free Lossless Video Cutter
The easiest two-in-one free video trimmer and joiner software
1 Cut video and audio without decreasing the quality
2 Easy to use, fast import and quick output
3 Accurately control every second of the range for cutting
4 Support various video and audio formats
5 100% clean and free video cutter
Gihosoft Free Video Joiner Software
The easiest two-in-one free video merger and cutter software
1 Join multiple videos and audios at super fast speed
2 Support joining different formats of videos and audios
3 Support arranging the order of videos to be merged
4 Support cutting the videos before merging
5 100% easy-to-use, clean and free video combiner
Remove unwanted objects from photos free without impacting the background!
Jihosoft photo editor software helps you emphasize what’s interesting in your photos by removing distracting objects seamlessly.
Comments
Post a Comment