Profound Effects Inc. has released Gak Pak, a collection of nine plug-ins for use with Adobe After Effects. All are resolution independent and feature 8- and 16-bit rendering. Gak Pak includes: Barrage, which sends a stream of customizable shapes toward the viewer; Fireflies, which simulates the bugs by moving random particles that glow off and on; Gakcharmer, which strings shape particles or original video sources into snakes; and Gakground, which generates backgrounds of color washes and textures, complete with support for original video sources.
In addition, it features Glider, which moves colored bars, or one of 18 other shapes, across the screen; SpiderWeb, which constructs a spider web that sways as if it’s catching a breeze and can include an animated spider walking across it; Structure, which creates a background of multiple-jointed lines; Vectro, which uses built-in shapes or ones pulled from external sources; and Wave, which includes ten customizable wave patterns. GakPak requires Mac OS X v10.2.x (v10.3.x recommended) and After Effects 5.5, 6.0 or 6.5. Pricing is US$149.