Adobe After Effects Review
Adobe passed a wave of pleasant surprise with the release of CS4 Premium Package (included Adobe After Effects), showing multimedia industry the whole new set of possibilities to seamless video integration and development. Now available with this suite is a plugin to edit the R3D High Definition Raw camera Files After Effects. This is the outcome of the Adobe’s matching hands with the Cinematography Giant Red Camera Company.
That is not all. Now the time lines are searchable with keywords specification. There are arrangements for composite navigation too. You can seamlessly export the rich media to Adobe Flash CS4 Professional keeping the layer and KeyFrame Data intact for later editing. XMP metadata can be added to project till final rendering for better asset management and copyright tracking. They have also worked out mobile device authoring. This will enable you to see the video as it will look in different devices.
You can also import the 3D layers that were laid in PhotoShop as they are. So you will not get a 2D layer taken from a specific angle, you can have the whole structure and layer in 3D. These are extremely significant for a serious video editor and film maker. Now purchasing a new i7 core enabled machine has become an excuse for upgrading your present system configuration.
We were extremely eagar to lay our hands on Adobe After Effects and here are the conclusions that we have at the end of using After Effects CS4 on a project. We wanted to test out the photoshop file import first so here we go…
We created a cube in Photoshop CS4 and imported it in After Effects. And we were impressed as we had the full 3D Volumetric space retained. It was not just the snapshot of the cube taken from an specific angle. We could rotate the cameras as well as any other 3D layers in after effects using the same functions as the functions used in CS3 for a Camera Rotation around the X,Y and Z Axis. But as these are afterall layers, the effects can only be applied over time.
The other stunning feature that we came across is the Unified Camera Tool. This tool allows you to take the advantage of the multi-mouse button to control the camera moves such as zooming, rotation and moving around a 3D Object quickly. These option can be accessed from the Upper Composition.
In all, we are highly impressed with Adobe After Effects CS4. We highly recommend upgrading from the CS3 package to the CS4 package. Eventhough, it is a heavily priced pacakage, but it is an indispensable tool for a serious professional in the multimedia industry dealing with a large Video Editing project. Maybe you will even need to upgrade the system for using this outstanding Package, but all the investments are worth undertaking for the sake of seamless integration and management of work load with CS4.
