What It Does
SkyBox 360 Post FX applies four post-production effects to stitched 360° footage in After Effects. Works directly on imported equirectangular footage or adjustment layers, maintaining seamless results across the entire spherical image. Supports both mono (2:1) and stereo (1:1 over-under) formats.
Originally developed by Mettle, this plugin was acquired by Adobe and integrated into Creative Cloud. The standalone version is no longer available for purchase.
Key Features
Blur. Adjustable convolution kernel radius controls the amount of blur applied across the 360° image.
Sharpen. Relative sharpen amount from 0 to 100, bringing out detail in footage without creating artifacts at the seam.
De-Noise. Suppresses random valued noise or salt-and-pepper speckles. Adjustable noise level parameter lets you dial in the right amount of reduction.
Glow. Luma threshold defines which bright areas glow. Controls for glow radius (in pixels), brightness multiplier, saturation multiplier, and optional tint color. Default brightness and saturation are both set to 1.0.
All effects are GPU-accelerated using CUDA or OpenCL. Can be applied to 360° footage, native After Effects 3D layers, or animated geometry.
Who It’s For
VR filmmakers and 360° video producers working with stitched equirectangular footage. Particularly useful when you need to apply standard post-production effects (blurring backgrounds, sharpening details, reducing noise from low-light shoots, adding glows to highlights) without the distortion that typically appears when applying regular After Effects filters to spherical content.
Pricing
No longer available for standalone purchase. Adobe acquired Mettle’s SkyBox suite and plans to integrate the functionality into Creative Cloud subscriptions. The original price was $149, with version 2 listed at $119 (special) or $149 (regular) before discontinuation.