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AE 7.0, some good features, incomplete interface.
I’m posting this out of frustration, but since no man is an island, I’m curious to see if anyone out there agrees with my critique or if I’m alone. So, don’t take this as an attack on AE… it’s my bread-winner.
Does anyone else feel that the interface for the newest After Effects seems to be one step forward, a step sideways, and then two steps back? Now, I’m not knocking the newest features, such as 32bit colour, HDR support (better than PS CS2 in fact) and an integrated Timewarp. But seriously, there are only a few new features like this compared to all the hype about the interface.
I must ask what’s so great about it anyway. I definitely don’t find it more efficient at using space than floating windows. When I’m not using my effects pallette, I just leave a little bit of it sticking out behind one of my other windows. I don’t want to ~ it and make it take up the whole screen, cuz then I can’t see the image. I don’t always work with a broadcast monitor. In fact, I rarely want any window to take up the whole screen, except when I’m previewing a render, and 6.5 already had that via Apple+Shift+\. Who needs a fullscreen render queue at the touch of a button? And I often use more than one app at the same time and like it showing, say, a PDF colour pallette for the job, or a reference of some other kind. A 3Dish display seems much more efficient, if a little messy, than a flat 2D one. And if you’re a Mac user like me, Expos
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2 Replies
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[Zack Nederlander] “Who needs a fullscreen render queue at the touch of a button?”
LOL… that’s funny. But I find myself using ~ when I’m animating masks at 200% in the layer window…
Anyway… I’m sure there are others that dislike the new interface, but my experience is that 9 out of 10 people love it or learn to love it. How long have you been using 7.0?
[Zack Nederlander] “In fact, I don’t see how these features cater to professionals all that much.”
Well… most of us find that we spend less time moving panels around, I actually don’t like my effect controls behind another panel etc. So I spend less time with the UI, and more time animating and compositing.On the other hand, I’m working on a combined dual monitor desktop of 3200 x 1200, but I can see how on a 12″ display it would get a little crowded…
Did you look at the workspace presets by the way? You can switch between different workspaces easily (and even using keyboard shortcuts), which might help out in your case.
Bar3nd
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Hi Zack,
now I use AE 7.0 for four weeks – and think the UI is a good idea. I had the same problem like you with a rendering window three monitors wide… and fixed it with grouping it left to the timeline window and saving the whole. Maybe that helps you?
Best regards
Axel
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