Using Presets

Form

Using Presets

Form contains a wealth of expertly designed presets. These can be used as-is, slightly customized, or as starting points for something completely different. Browsing these presets can also be a great way to discover this incredible tool’s capabilities.

Presets in the Designer

Access Form presets through the Presets pane in the Designer’s left panel. These presets divide into sixteen categories. Entries within the Custom Presets category, listed below the standard Presets categories, appear when you save your own custom presets.

As a quick preview, here's a glimpse of Form's Preset types:

Backgrounds: These are stylish looping backgrounds with various shapes and lines.
Basics: These presets contain simple adjustments to Form. They are great jumping off points for more complex forms or for learning the Form basics.
Bokeh: Bokeh impacts out-of-focus highlights in photos and videos. Bokeh presets recreate this beautiful effect.
Fluid: This group turns particles and grids into mesmerizing patterns resembling fluid flows or smoke.
Fractals: These presets all feature fractal field distortion.
Geometry: Many of these presets are based on 3D OBJ models and employ stylish glows as particles move around geometric shapes.
Grids: These presets consist of landscapes of grids, all with a nice retro aesthetic.
HUD: These presets either complement or serve as a HUD (heads-up display), such as generated sine waves and audio meters.
Landscape: These presets use Form to simulate traversing a virtual landscape, like you might see in a flight simulator.
Lines: These presets all use Box - Strings (from the Base Form > Type block in Designer) as their foundation.
Motion Graphics: These presets are meant to complement anything from text to graphics moving around on a composition.
Organic: These presets take on a natural feel from grass to ink.
Shape Grids: Shape Grid presets all use the Box – Grid Base Form as well as some version of sprites, such as the Particle Type. Sprite presets are discussed below.
Space: These presets all simulate the look and feel of outer space. Galaxies and stars abound.
Spin Dots: These presets all use Twist, Fractal Field distortion, and the Glow Sphere Particle Type to create beautiful shapes and patterns.
Text: Make words sizzle with a wide range of particle, fractal, glow, and color effects.

Other Presets

The presets in Designer’s Presets pane are for your entire Form object. But there are also other presets for other Form components. These make creating popular looks faster and more convenient while also showing what is possible with Form.

Blocks Pane Presets

The Blocks pane contains presets for each component (e.g., Base Form, Particle, and Shading) in the Effects Chain.

OBJ Presets

Form also includes many 3D OBJ files to use as your Base Form. When you select OBJs as your Base Form, you can narrow the results by Geometry or Objects types.

In the ECP, you can access these OBJs under Base Form > 3D Model, then select from the Geometry model options in the ensuing pop-up window.

This opens the Choose 3D Model window, which contains a collection of object presets. These OBJ files are organized into two categories, with an optional third Custom category created when you import a new OBJ using the Add New Obj button in the OBJ window.

C4D: This group includes over two dozen forms from Cinema 4D, including currency symbols, geometric shapes, and some fun random shapes.
Geometry: This contains almost 50 different 3D objects, most of which are 3D primitives and geometric shapes.
PixelLab Objects: This contains such 3D objects as weapons, a car, and a spaceship. These 3D objects tend to represent real-world objects more than the OBJs in the Geometry category.
Custom: When you click the Add New Obj button in the Choose 3D Model window to import new 3D files, a new Custom category appears. These files are accessible in all projects.

Note that models imported via the ECP will appear in the Designer. Feel free to import in whichever interface best suits your workflow.

Sprite Presets

When selecting any of the Sprite or Textured Polygon options as your Particle Type (either in the Form ECP or in the Designer), the Choose Sprite button becomes available.

The Choose Sprite button opens a treasure trove of graphic elements to use as particles for Form. There are hundreds of sprite presets, organized into 16 categories, with an optional 17th category for your custom sprites should you import your own. A Most Recent category tops the list. A sampling of these sprite categories includes:

2D Animated Shapes: These are flat, two-dimensional shapes that contain a single color. Hover over the thumbnails to preview their behavior.
3D Geometric Shapes: These are 3D objects, many of which are animated.
Bokeh: Here you'll find bokeh images to help create beautiful, organic highlights.
Dust and Debris: Try these elements for randomness and chaos. They contain rotating shards of glass and tumbling rocks.
Emojis: Because how else could you properly express love, disdain, and poopiness in the 21st century?
Light and Magic: This group of sprites has flares, streaks, lens elements, and other objects great for creating organic light effects.
Organic Matter: This group contains natural elements, such as leaves and cells.
Smoke and Fire: This group contains some impressive fire and smoke elements for creating organic Form effects.
Streak Brushes: This group contains Streaklet-like brushes as an alternative way to create the Streaklet effect.
Water and Snow: These are realistic sprites of bubbles, clouds, snowflakes, and various water droplets.

Adding Your Own Sprite Presets

Simply click the Add New Sprite button in the upper-left corner of the Choose Sprite window to import a file to use as a sprite, both now and in the future.