Mettle ships Mantra VR
Mettle has announced Mantra VR, a new plugin for After Effects and Premiere Pro that enables users to apply a set of 16 stylised procedural effects to 360-degree video and virtual reality projects.
The toolset is described as complementing SkyBox Suite, Mettle’s set of tools for editing 360-degree footage, which Adobe bought earlier this year, and is integrating into the next release of After Effects.
Apply customisable effects to VR footage: from animated logos to extreme stylisations
Mettle describes Mantra VR as “enabl[ing] real-time visual effects treatments” for 360-degree footage, with the aim of enabling artists to create “dream-like, hyper-realistic experiences”.
Treatments range from the extreme – check out the retro-tastic Chrome Spheres at the start of the video above – to more general-purpose ripple, repeat, stretch, turbulence and zoom effects.
However, even the more extreme distortions look like they could be used for animated transitions, and there are also a number of more obviously practical tools.
Those include Graphix, which applies animatable 2D graphics like logos to 360-degree footage; Primitivz, for adding environment-mapped 3D primitives; and a self-descriptive Magnifying Glass effect.
Comes with a built-in node graph and spherical preview
Each filter has controls for adjusting properties like focal point, fluency and speed, and there is also a built-in node graph for wiring together individual filters into custom effects networks.
The effects can be keyframed or driven by audio files, and work with monoscopic and stereocopic footage.
As well as a conventional equirectangular view, Mantra VR also has a Globe Preview panel, which enables users to view footage wrapped around a sphere, making it easier to navigate and check for artefacts.
Pricing and availability
Mantra VR is available for After Effects CC and Premiere Pro CC on Windows and Mac OS X. It costs $229, and each licence can be activated twice simultaneously on any combination of host platforms.
Read more about the features in Mantra VR on Mettle’s website
(Includes demo videos of each effect in action)