Red Giant Universe is a new community with access to an expanding library of new tools and effects for filmmakers & motion graphic artists. Membership in Red Giant Universe is free and allows members to take control of the future of Universe development.

Available now are 50 free and premium visual effects plug-ins built on the Supernova platform. All the tools in Red Giant Universe exploit the power of modern GPU to render most effects in near real-time, according to Sean Safreed, co-founder and lead visionary behind Universe.

Free membership includes the use of 31 effects and transitions, including blurs, glows, distortion, generators and 3D transitions. Tools in the free membership include transitions such as Swish Pan and 3D Shutter, as well as the Glo-Fi that creates pulsating, multi-hued glows for titling. Premium membership includes access to 19 tools, such as Knoll Light Factory EZ, Holomatrix, ToonIt (powered by Toonamation), and Retrograde, from CrumplePop and Red Giant.

Red Giant Universe community is now open on the web as well with their first feature called Labs. Labs lets our members vote on the visual effects that they want to see next.

Red Giant Universe is available today as a subscription for US$10/month or as a discounted yearly pre-pay for $99. Users who want the benefits of membership but don’t want to pay monthly can opt for a lifetime membership for $399. The lifetime membership never expires and includes all Universe updates and upgrades released over the months and years to come.

All Red Giant Universe tools and effects work in After Effects (CS 5.5, CS6, and CC), Premiere Pro (CS6 and CC), Final Cut Pro X (10.1.1) and Motion (5.1), and work on both Mac OS X (10.8.4 and later) and Windows 7 (64-bit) and Windows 8.1. Go to http://tinyurl.com/kbd47bx for more info.