More After Effects news this week

Here are some other bits not mentioned earlier, topped by a few posts from Todd Kopriva. Todd reminds us that if "you're thinking about making the move from After Effects CS3 to After Effects CS5, don't forget about this other great stuff that comes along" from CS4. He also said that on April 12 that he'd "be publishing the entire After Effects CS5 Help document, which will include detailed information about all of the new and changed features. I'll also be accumulating links to other people's feature summaries, reviews, and such on this blog."

Todd also says that "64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.5 or higher are the operating systems that After Effects CS5 will run on. ...The design of Mac OS separated the kernel address space from the client (application) address space, which is why Apple can fully support running a 64-bit program on a 32-bit kernel. On Leopard, this is the only option; and it's the default on Snow Leopard." If you're getting a new computer, it might be good to invest in an approved CUDA graphics card that works with the Mercury Engine in Premiere (GeForce GTX 285 is the cheapest), especially if you use DSLR or RED video sources according to Karl Soule.

There's more:

• The Sneak peek of Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop on John Nack's blog made a big splash this week, and if this is in CS5 it'll be a big upgrade. This technology seems similar to Patchmatch and Multi-operator Media Retargeting videos that circulated earlier.

• from PVC: "The Adobe User Research team is conducting a series of usability studies at NAB in Las Vegas from April 12 to 14. If you plan to go to Las Vegas for the 2010 NAB show and are interested in participating in our usability study, please take a few minutes to respond to the online survey. In order to participate in this usability study, it is not necessary for you to be currently using Adobe’s creative software."

• motion graphics eXchange noted an After Effects tutorial on how to create a believable sunrise matte painting by CGSwat, the Switch Accepts Lights/Shadows Script, and an expression for random rotation in specific angles.

• AETuts posted several After Effects tutorials, including Better Balcony Backdrops on compositing and sky replacement by Mohamed Hafeez & Track Your Golf Swing Form Like A Master by Kerry Murphy.

• Topher Welsh added another roundup of motion type on AETuts, and Motion Design Love continued its series with Nice Type Tuesday 11. Check out also the Typography Gallery at Motionspire and Week 38 of Type Tuesday by Brad Chmielewski,who posts about five free fonts weekly.

• Trapcode has more free projects and examples at Trapcode Sharelog, which also has a list of Official Trapcode Suite training videos by Peder Norrby.

• There's a new free project download from Eran Stern – Cinematic Intro, a ready-made opener courtesy of AEdude.com.

• Red Giant Quick Tip #3 - 3D Text is a quick tip for quickly creating 3D text in AE using Red Giant's PlaneSpace.

• Spacescape is an Open Source tool for Windows that creates space skyboxes with stars and nebulas (via Lester Banks again). It seems like a decent idea for an After Effects filter.