After Effects Next

Adobe has revealed the new features they’ll be showing off at NAB. Here’s some of what’s new in After Effects:

• Cinema 4D Lite and live 3D pipeline between Cinema 4D and After Effects
• The Refine Edge tool, which adds crazy good soft edge matting to the already amazing Roto Brush.
• Snapping. This doesn’t sound big, but it actually is. Make a cube in seconds rather than minutes.
• Bicubic resampling. Ahem. Finally.

Read more here. And here’s a good rundown of what’s new in Premiere—looks like they focused on solid usability features rather than glitz, which is great to see.

Now, back to After Effects. Cinema 4D Lite will be bundled with this “next” version, and you’ll be able to create a C4D scene right from within AE. You create the 3D animation in C4D, but you can change your view on the scene using the AE camera. Then, when you render your After Effects project, the C4D scene is rendered on-the-fly. This is not just a welcome simplification of the standard render-import-render workflow, it puts powerful 3D features into any After Effects session. Pretty cool.

Creative Cloud subscribers will get these new features as soon as they are released, which, I suspect, will create a lot of warm, fuzzy feelings about the whole software-as-a-subscription model.

A big, personal congrats to my friends on the After Effects team. Nice work all!

A Night to Remember

Last night was a rough one for the Visual Effects community.

I was about to embark down the road of writing up the evening’s events, as if I was some kind of journalist.

But I’m not. I’m a director, and a visual effects artist. I’m a fan of film who fantasized about making movies ever since seeing Star Wars at age five. I’m also a survivor of a VFX company bankruptcy.

So I know what it’s like to be an artist who feels overworked and under appreciated.

And I know what it feels like to start your dream company, and see it collapse.

I also know what it feels like to be a director who can’t afford all the VFX I’d like in my own work.

And here’s what I have to say:

Congratulations.

Congratulations to the visual effects crew of Life of Pi. I am simply blown away by your work. Your tigers and waves and artistry and technical mastery made me laugh and cry and revel in how wonderful movies can be. I know how hard it is to do what you did, and even though I know exactly how you did it, I have no idea how you pulled it off.

Congratulations to Bill Westenhofer, for your amazing work to be sure, but also for the nonobvious gift of being cut off at the exact right moment to make the experience awful enough for all involved that the world took notice. You did the right thing by starting off with proper acknowledgments, and then the right thing again by jumping right into the controversy. You came off as a class act, and as is so often the case with visual effects and cinema, you’ve captivated the world’s attention with what they didn’t get to see.

Congratulations to Claudio Miranda, who I know in my heart appreciates the hell out of the work that shares the frame with his. Although he failed to mention the VFX crew as their images danced behind him on stage, he later acknowledged it to press backstage.

Congratulations to the 400+ VFX artists who demonstrated in a way that got all the right kinds of attention. That’s not easy. As a nation, we suck at it. As a group of nerdy artists, you nailed it.

Congratulations to Ang Lee, for both your talent behind the lens, and also for the gift that awaits you. You’ve put your foot in your mouth twice now about how you wish visual effects could be less expensive, and in doing so, I dare hope that you’ve made it nearly impossible for yourself to continue to ignore the nuances of the situation. A wonderful education awaits you. Please listen to the thoughts and frustrations of the visual effects artists whose work you presided over so masterfully.

Their stories are true.

Adobe Anywhere

Back in May I wrote:

The “big iron” days are over. Simplicity is the new powerful. Fast is the new good. The computer is the new hardest working guy in the room. Except it’s no longer in the room.

Looks like Adobe agrees:

Promising!

Update on Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 12:25PM by Stu

The press release lists After Effects among the supported apps.

SpotCast

Ron Small of Sway Productions invited me onto his new podcast called SpotCast, which focuses on the craft of commercial directing. I’m in wonderfully good company there—he’s also interviewed Jason Wingrove, Adam Lisagor, and Vincent Laforet.

You can listen to the show at the SpotCast site, but really you should just subscribe in iTunes.

I very much enjoyed my chat with Ron and love that he’s taken on the task of this show. I like the way our episode turned out, and I hope you do too.