Me taking pictures of succulents at Ruth Bancroft Garden 😍

Quitting Twitter was profoundly, overwhelmingly, immeasurably good for my mental health, and my quality of life. With a single click, I blocked 100% of the Nazis, Fascists, trolls, and hateful pieces of shit on that garbage fire of a service. 

I’ve had a lovely, positive, friendly, uplifting experience on Instagram, and the people who choose to engage and post comments on my Facebook are overwhelmingly kind. 

Tʜᴇ Pʜᴇɴᴅʀᴀɴᴀ Dʀɪғᴛs ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴠᴇɴ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ᴀɴ ᴏᴘᴛɪᴍᴀʟ ʟᴏᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ғᴏʀ Rᴇsᴇᴀʀᴄʜ Hᴇᴀᴅǫᴜᴀʀᴛᴇʀs, ᴀɴᴅ sᴏᴏɴ ɪᴛ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ ᴊᴏɪɴᴇᴅ ʙʏ ᴀ ғᴜʟʟʏ ᴏᴘᴇʀᴀᴛɪᴏɴᴀʟ Cᴏᴍʙᴀᴛ ʙᴀsᴇ ᴀɴᴅ sᴛᴀʀᴘᴏʀᴛ. Iғ Cᴏᴍᴍᴀɴᴅ's ᴘʀᴇᴅɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴs ᴀʀᴇ ʜᴀʟғ ᴛʀᴜᴇ, ᴡᴇ sʜᴀʟʟ ʀɪsᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏᴍɪɴᴀɴᴄᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜɪs sᴇᴄᴛᴏʀ ᴡɪᴛʜɪɴ ᴀ ᴅᴇᴄᴀ-ᴄʏᴄʟᴇ. Tʀᴜʟʏ, ᴛʜᴇsᴇ ᴀʀᴇ ɢʟᴏʀɪᴏᴜs ᴛɪᴍᴇs.

Hexagon grids! They're cool, right? They're the shape of The Future, for whatever reason (see: Doctor Who, Deus Ex, Metroid Prime, various science-y designs, etc) and if you're like me you're wondering how you can make some natively in After Effects. Well, you can't...not without a crapload of working with duplicated shape layers and stuff. And why go to all that trouble if you can just use a preset? After a lot of searching, I found two plugins that will enable you to easily make both hexagon grids and hexagon pixel tiles. HEXAGON GRIDS Over at aescripts.com, Andrew Yang has whipped up YY_HexTex, a fantastic plugin that generates hexagon grids and lets you animate every aspect: size, border thickness, rotation, etc. Best of all, it's name-your-price, so if you're a starving artist needing a hexagon grid for that Big Project that'll finally get you a job, you can fork over a few bucks and get a sweet plugin without having to eat ramen for a month.

HEXAGON TILE PIXELATION

This one was a lot harder to find. A lot of my searches ended up in dead ends or outdated files, and this one just baaarely made it. It's a Pixel Bender plugin that a guy named Pixelero actually made for Flash video five years ago, on a blog that hasn't been updated since 2011, but it works! Here is the blog, and HERE is a direct link to the .pbk file itself, which is the only one compatible with After Effects. This script, which shows up as "Tiling" under your Pixel Bender menu, is extremely bare bones - you can change the size of the hexagon pixels, and the relative placement, but that's about it. Furthermore, I've had a lot of trouble getting it to match up in size with a HexTex grid; I believe they decide tile placement differently, so if you want a HexTex overlay on a Tiling layer, you're gonna have a hard time. Note that the .pbk file isn't a normal AE plugin, it needs to go with your other Pixel Bender files.