Taking advantage of the new 3D capabilities of After Effects, Aurora Sky lets you use texture and cloud shaping maps to create an infinite variety of skyscapes. Most importantly for users with a lot of rendering power, Aurora Sky gives you the option of truly volumetric 3D clouds that let you create clouds like smoke and fog-like effects.

The 3D Camera Tools
Aurora Sky works in 3D space, both its own and After Effect’s. The built-in camera can fly throughout the vast world within the plug-in, using all the standard axis controls. For After Effects users, Aurora Sky is built to utilize AE’s 3D camera (5.0 and later). As you move or turn the After Effects camera, Aurora will update its environment as a seamless part of the scene. This integration makes it simple to composite other 3D objects over the skyscape created with the plug-in.

Texture Maps
You can project images or logos onto the regular cloud surface using texture maps. The texture maps respect cloud opacity and shading, and the clouds can be used as a displacement map, displacing the image as the clouds move. This opens up the door to many effects, from simply projecting a logo to covering the sky in swirls of color using a QuickTime movie.

Regular Clouds
The normal cloud layer in Aurora Sky is a fractal-based flat layer of clouds. This works excellently in many scenes, but for actually flying through 'cloudy matter,' users need more powerful volumetric clouds. That's where the 3D Clouds come in handy.

3D Clouds
The 3D Clouds in Aurora Sky are actually 3D objects with mass and substance. You can adjust properties like opacity and number of spheres, and navigate through them using Aurora’s or AE’s camera. This also allows special effects such as fog or smoke layered over the regular clouds. Using a 'U' shaped Bezier path, we can fly through the 3D cloud. This functionality creates cloud effects that seem to envelope the camera as it passes through them. An especially cool feature is that Bezier paths can be used to apply custom shapes to the 3D Clouds.

Cloud Shaping
You can also use grayscale maps to control the shape of the clouds. Words or shapes can emerge from cloudy matter, and - heck - there's always sky writing. Aurora has plenty of controls for placing and arranging the maps. It's a feature that's as flexible as the maps you can come up with.

System Requirements
PC Minimum:

• Pentium III 500Mhz CPU


• 256MB RAM


• 40MB Hard Disk space for installations


• 800x600 high-color monitor

Macintosh Minimum:

• PowerPC G3 350Mhz


• 256MB RAM


• 40MB Hard Disk space for installations


• 800x600 high-color monitor