Saturday Showdown : Introducing Adobe AfterEffects CS6

Welcome to the first episode of Saturday Showdown. In this episode we are going to introduce to you the latest Adobe AfterEffects CS6. Now as you know that Adobe has stopped support of AfterEffects and Premiere Pro for the 32 bit (x86) machines from CS5, this version of AE will work on 64 bit (x64) only. So first check your PC to make sure that you are using a 64 bit version.

Here is the demo video from Adobe TV.

Along with this, a small industrial review of AfterEffects CS6 by 3D World:

Nuke, Fusion and Motion (the latter available only as part of Final Cut Studio) are all capable of turning in a great job, but it’s generally agreed that After Effects holds the title of industry leading compositor.

And with its Adobe CS integration, it is just as suited for use by 3D animators as it is by video pros, 2D animators and multimedia producers.

As with most incremental upgrades, After Effects CS5.5 does a lot to shore up the application as a whole, and thus limits the new features to a short list we’ll look at in a moment.

Under the hood, 5.5 builds on CS5’s transition to a true 64-bit workflow.

A vastly improved disk caching system ups the default from just 2GB to a whopping 20GB – more than capableof dealing with today’s huge HD files.

We weren’t able to do a direct comparison test, but Adobe claims this provides significant playback gains.

After Effects CS5.5 also now displays each layer’s caching individually, enabling you to know just what content is in the cache.

The most-touted new feature is the Warp Stabilizer, an advanced stabilisation toolset that not only automates target creation, but also synthesises image content to avoid heavy cropping (stealing some technology from Photoshop’s Content-Aware Fill).

It’s a genuinely useful tool for film and video work, but will be of less use to the 3D animator.

After Effects’s stereoscopic workflow now streamlines the entire process to make it a bit less complex and a lot more functional.

The stereoscopic process is still challenging, but is becoming more mainstream every year.

It’s also a natural opportunity for 3D animators who use software that likely already has stereoscopic-aware toolsets.

Lights in After Effects’ 2.5D world finally allow a natural fall-off. While it’s no replacement for 3D applications, 2.5D can save loads of production time, and Adobe keeps making it more and more usable.

Hope you enjoy this edition of Saturday Showdown. Stay tuned to our blog for more cool stuffs.