CS Next is CS 5.5 at PVC has details and links to videos and more. New features include Warp Stabilizer, Camera Lens Blur, stereoscopic 3D camera rig, light fall-off, source timecode, & more!
Continuing updates on CS 5.5 will be available at AE Portal on PVC.
This is the eve of the next step in the evolution of the Adobe CS suites, as indicated in Adobe messages around the internet last week. Adobe has kept things fairly quiet on Twitter since yesterday, but they had previewed a couple of sneak peeks for After Effects on a Warp Stabilizer and Adobe Red Epic support.
And you may have seen the preview for Warp Stabilizer, but Chris Meyer added a first look based on personal experience, Updated: Adobe Warp Stabilizer (P)Review. There's also a technical backgrounder from the research team, including video, in Subspace Video Stabilization. Warp Stabilizer seems amazingly easy to use and even eliminates some rolling shutter problems, but it won't perform miracles like getting rid of motion blur in hand held footage.
The countdown has commenced and news from NAB will be coming fast & thick very soon. Among the many news resources is dedicated coverage from ProVideo Coalition and FreshDV. FreshDV has a video backgrounder on their workflow up already.
Here's a sneak peek at Warp Stabilizer a preview of new way to stabilize shaky footage in After Effects. After Effects Facebook says "It's a peek at CS5 getting better. For more information, come see us at NAB or stay tuned to this channel. More to come soon."
Adobe TV has a channel for other recent technology sneak peeks.
Update: "CS5 evolves" -- a little picture on front page of AdobeTV,
Filmmaker IQ included 7 tutorials from AEtuts Hollywood Movie Title Series. Below is a recent one not included. “After Effects Tutorial: Thor Trailer Titles” is from Chris Tarroza, who used the Shatter effect for his 3D text.
For additional resources on titles, see AE Portal posts tagged title.
Build a procedural crumble effect in After Effects using the Shatter plug-in in a unique way. We also composite dust elements from Action Essentials 2 and talk about following your dreams.
You can also download the project files.
For more info on the Shatter Effect, see this sample of resources:
CopyMask2Layer is a new After Effects script at AE Scripts:
When you copy a mask from one layer to another it often changes its position. With CopyMask2Layer you can copy masks while keeping them perfectly in place - even if the layers are moving and if the mask path is keyframed.
The demo video will immediately answer the questions you have in mind!
Back N Forth is a free sine wave generator preset for the position, scale, and rotation in every axis of your objects inside of After Effects:
What this means is that with this preset, you can automatically make your layers move from side to side (or up and down) in a motion that is always equidistant from the center on both ends! This is different from using something like “Wiggle” in that wiggle is more or less random motion, whereas sin waves are constant and fluid.
Author Neal Barenblat has another preset as well, Flicker On.
Not disimilar is Ease and Wizz, a script to generate alternative keyframe interpolations for After Effects (especially to the sine-like Easy Ease). Looking at pictures by Chris Meyer is the fastest way to see what behaviors you get with this script. Author Ian Haigh has a nice demo on AE Scripts; here's a preview:
Continuing with tangents off sine animation are some tutorials for creating animation of sines:
Update: animationPATTERNS,
by Markus Bergelt, is "a keyframe-based easing assistance, that allows
you to edit and create new easing types. It comes with a dockable
palette, a set of default interpolation methods like bounce, rubber,
pendulum... and is very easy to use! !animationPATTERNS does not work
with properties that already use expressions. They'll get replaced by
clicking apply pattern."
"After Effects’ Brush Strokes effect could easily be written off as a cheesy oil painting-style effect, but under the hood it has loads more potential."
Chris and Trish Meyer posted another part in their seriesCMG Hidden Gems: Chapter 18 – Nesting. The focus here is on how to efficiently navigate and edit a chain of nested comps, and looking under the hood a bit to help you troubleshoot. Especially interesting is coverage of ETLAT or “Edit This, Look at That,” which is the result of locking a Panel then viewing or working in another Composition. ETLAT lets you preview changes downstream while working in a nested comp, and beyond. AE Help explains:
"If a Composition viewer is locked, the Timeline panel for another composition is active, and the Composition viewer for the active composition is not shown, then most commands that affect views and previews operate on the composition for which the viewer is shown. For example, pressing the spacebar can start a standard preview for the composition visible in a locked Composition viewer rather than the composition associated with the active Timeline panel."
CMGpresented additional use cases for ETLAT. CS5 added several more several more features so that now "ETLAT behavior works for keyboard shortcuts for zooming, fitting, previewing, taking and viewing snapshots, showing channels, showing and hiding grids and guides, and showing the current frame on a video preview device."
People are sometimes surprised discovering Easter Eggs in After Effects -- apparent oddities in the interface. Some of these have been around for a very long time...
That's Old Age thinking according to Steven C. Schlozman, MD, who says that Zombie Autopsies should be the next step in understanding why such a large part of the population...
CS Next is CS 5.5 at PVC has details and links to videos and more. New features include Warp Stabilizer, Camera Lens Blur, stereoscopic 3D camera rig, light fall-off, source timecode, & more!
