EXCLUSIVES

After Effects 6.0: The Picture of Performance and Control
Words by Ric Getter
March 2004

For some years now, software-only video editing systems have been displacing their hardware-based predecessors. More recently, the programs and their extensions have been moving into the territory of special effects and animation software. This opens up the question: Is there still room for a program like After Effects Adobe®'s new version 6.0 provides us with an immediate and inescapable answer: Yes.

We'll get into some of the program's myriad of new features a little later. But for us, the single most impressive new element of the program is performance. When After Effects first introduced the RAM preview in Version 4.0, it was a major breakthrough for designers. With a relatively quick, albeit somewhat crude render, you could see the results of your work in real time with real images, rather than having to tax your (or your client's) imagination with wireframes or your patience with a disk-based render.

After Effects 6.0 takes an equally dramatic leap as it dives into the world of Open Graphics Library (OpenGL). If you are using a graphics card that supports it (and most of the newer ones do), OpenGL will offload the preview tasks from your CPU and RAM. The results, even with hardware that's not state-of-the-art, are impressive.

The Write Stuff

In terms of new features, the biggest news coming out of this update is text effects and animation. (Out of respect to both Adobe and Apple®, we'll consider this a coincidence.) If you've used other Adobe products, working with text will be completely familiar. What is truly impressive is the level of control you have over the text in the timeline. After Effects uses a device called text Selectors to manipulate single or groups of characters within a single layer.

Each selection can contain entirely unique properties, or similar properties offset over time. You'll discover another new interface feature to help with this: keyframes. Keyframes can now be copied or pasted between both text Selectors and Layers. The learning curve behind this new toolset is reasonably short, but it's something you'll definitely want to step through either in the manual or help files.

Messing about with animated type will give you a chance to play with some of After Effects 6.0's rather cool new features. One of the most useful (part of the Pro bundle only) is the Wiggler. With a name reminiscent of a 60's horror flick, the Wiggler is a multi-purpose randomizer that can be applied to most layer properties. You just crank in the limits you want to set, and the Wiggler takes care of the rest.

In this update, motion tracking took a giant leap with its enhanced interface and and 35X (not percent) speed boost. The overall effect is startling. You have your choice of single- or multi-point tracking as well as corner-pinning to overlay objects on things like TV and computer screens. If the results of the latter need some fine-tuning, the process can get tricky. But the feature's responsiveness minimizes the frustration. Motion tracking can be used with the new paint and clone tools, making this version a rotoscoping dream-come-true. Drawing from Photoshop® Beyond animated type, one other major enhancement in 6.0 is the addition of an integrated vector paint engine with a Photoshop-like interface. Even though many of the tools have the smooth, organic appearance of raster graphics, they are all

vector based and give you complete control, including scalability without degradation. Advanced keyframing can be brought to bear in real time or after the fact.

Version 6.0 offers a host of new and enhanced keyframe assistants provided by Adobe and, in the Pro bundle, "light" versions of plug-ins from third-party developers. There are far too many to even consider mentioning, but the one we had the most fun with was Convert Audio to Keyframes. The feature sets keyframes (that can be assigned to any property or set of properties) based on the amplitude of a selected audio track. The end result will have people asking how many all-nighters you pulled working on the sequence. Right now, there's no way to control the sensitivity of the assistant, so you tend to get an awful lot of keyframes. This is something we'd like to see in a future release.

It's a foregone conclusion that Adobe After Effects remains at the top of the list for graphics animation professionals and there are enough substantive new features (not to mention the cornucopia of incredibly slick goodies) to make this a must-have update.

But this is also a program well worth considering even if animation and effects is an adjunct to your primary role. The new video editing add-ons like LiveType and effects capabilities embedded in video editing programs still can not compare with what can be done with After Effects. The exquisitely tuned, responsive interface is literally years ahead of the competition. The result is a perfect environment to explore, experiment and push your own creative envelope.

After Effects 6.0 > requires OS X 10.2.6 and 150MB hard drive space > Price: Professional bundle, $999; Standard $699; upgrade pricing (including Standard to Pro) also available > From: Adobe - www.adobe.com