The Future of After Effects

Adobe is near releasing the "IBC" update to video apps in Creative Cloud 2015, which itself was just released in June, so community attention is turning towards future features for After Effects.

See The Future of After Effects: feature requests, nodes, GPU at PVC for comments by After Effects product manager Todd Kopriva on the general direction of AE, including interesting hints on the future of nodes and GPU rendering, as well as info on a new initiative by Sander van Dijk to open discussion of feature requests for AE.

Creative Cloud video updates at IBC 2015: a summary

Adobe has revealed updates to its pro video apps in Creative Cloud, though a specific release date was not shared. Adobe will also be showing the new features at IBC 2015 in Amsterdam for the next week. By the way, a separate bug fix update for Premiere Pro CC was released, which may have its own issues for some.

Creative Cloud video updates at IBC 2015 at PVC collects the overviews, video, and details links. This is just the announcement stage though, so 3rd-party perspectives aren't available yet.

After Effect’s puppet tool meshes and "digital beauty" treatments

Imagineer Systems posted a new tutorial, mocha and After Effects Puppet Tool. It uses the mesh warping capabilities of After Effect’s puppet tool along with captures of secondary soft tissue motion in a set of multi-planar tracks, to place a complex animation onto a moving person.

The new Face Tracker in AE should make some of this easier. See intros by Evan Abrams and Chris Meyer on the Face Tracker, as well as Adobe AE CC 2015: Face Tracker and mocha AE: An Overview from Imagineer systems.

These and additional "digital beauty treatments" and cosmetic fixes in post-production – basic and advanced – can be found in Cosmetic fixes, blemish removal, and skin retouching in post-production at PVC. 

Zoom while dragging in Adobe Premiere

While direct manipulation of UI elements may not be favored by NLE power users, sometimes it is faster. One example is moving a short clip or still using the =/- keys to zoom the timeline during the move.

For specifics, see Adobe Premiere Quicktip: Zoom while dragging at Pro Video Coalition.