Mettle SkyBox 360|VR Transitions Shifts Premiere Pro CC to VR
360/VR developer Mettle showed Skybox 360/VR Transitions for Adobe Premiere Pro CC at NAB. Their new plug-in helps video artists design transitions specifically for editing cinematic 360 content.
The growth of immersive virtual reality presents challenges for video editors, both with respect to narrative continuity and to ensuring that viewers can shift from one view to another without discomfort. Skybox 360/VR Transitions combined with the expanded VR support coming to Adobe Premiere Pro CC, helps editors cut material together more effectively for stories and the audience.
As an audience experience that is quite different from conventional screen-based media, a viewer looking at 360° video can look around within a spatial environment by tilting or turning his or her head. Consequently, content creators cannot rely on established filmmakers’ traditions when cutting from one shot to the next one.
“Creating seamless transitions for 360 content can be very challenging for the editor,” said Chris Bobotis, the co-founder of Mettle. “Finding the optimum transitions in material is very time-consuming, especially for artists who are new to the medium. Our plug-in supplies a set of ready-made transitions for Adobe Premiere Pro CC editors, to get them past the initial hurdles, plus ideas and direction for storytelling techniques that work for VR.”
Mettle’s Skybox 360/VR Transitions for Adobe Premiere Pro CC includes Image-Based 360 Gradient Wipe, 360 Random Blocks, 360 Iris Wipe and 360 Mobius. Many of the 360 Transitions will have X,Y start points, to help storytellers direct the viewers’ gaze.
360 Mobius Transitions, one of the software's tools, is an example of how editors can use movement to briefly assume control of the visual experience and pull the viewer out of one space and into a new one. Rather than cutting from shot-to-shot on a flat screen, the transition feels visual, not only physical, which helps the viewer to understand that they are being taken from one place to another, as well as allowing their eyes and brain to absorb the switch over to a new environment.
SkyBox 360/VR Transitions for Adobe Premiere Pro CC is among the first plug-in packages specifically for VR editing. It is Mettle’s most recent plug-in their series of SkyBox products for 360/VR that includes SkyBox, SkyBox Studio, SkyBox 360 Post FX for Adobe After Effects CC and SkyBox 360/VR Tools for Adobe Premiere Pro CC.
SkyBox Studio, for example, is a workflow system of two scripts and two plugins that works within After Effect’s 3D space handling different aspects of 360/VR production. It automatically sets up a 360° master composite and a linked 360° output composite to render from. You can create content entirely within After Effects, or import stitched 360° footage to add text, logos and effects to, and perform clean-up or motion-tracking. It is compatible with most After Effects 3D plugins, including Mettle’s own ShapeShifter Ae, FreeForm, FreeForm Pro, Red Giant Trapcode Particular and Form, Element 3D, Plexus and others. www.mettle.com
