AE7 thoughts

[Mylenium]

[eric rosner] “I was wondering if there were any general, early reports on AE7….yeah?, nay? or el stinko…thanks for any information. I have heard glowing comments from people being paid by Adobe to say positive things but reading comments here…..seems like the hand has greased the palm….hmmm imagine that…”

That is an completely unfair comment. Neither of the people involved has been paid by Adobe to say positive things and if you take the time to read my review, it indeed openly criticises some shortcomings and tries to view other things as neutral as possibly can be done. I’ll easily admit that it’s not easy containing ones excitement when being able to review a program before other users and it may lead to some false euphoria, but please don’t insult anyone for being human.

That aside, you shouldn’t let your own frustration blind you. Like I also said in my review, the new options and tools offer a sound foundation, but their implementation is anything but complete. I can agree that it is disappointing to still have to use Color Finesse for CC when AE itself offers 32 bpc already, but it shouldn’t stop you from doing your work.

I also feel that people still have many misconceptions about AE 7. Yes, there’s now a proper graph editor, but did they say anywhere that temporal and spacial interpolation are linked? No! Yes, there’s now support for better OpenGL, but did they say that buying a better grphics card will accelerate the hell out of AE? No! I could go on quite a bit more, but it all comes down to the fact that although AE hasn’t changed that much on the surface, alot is going on under the hood that will only take off maybe in the next release.

Lastly I have to say, that people perhaps should be more realistic. Even the best programming team can only do so much work in any given time frame. It’s easy to request features, but it’s much more complicated to implement them in a stable and coherent app and workflow respectively. If Adobe always gave in to users demands without thinking about long-term effects, we’d have an AE that could do everything, but nothing right and trust me, you wouldn’t use such an app even if it was free. In that light it is naive of people to think they can include completely different code and tools from a company they just acquired half a year ago or on the other hand expect AE to turn into a completely node based app.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Barend Onneweer]

[eric rosner] “I have heard glowing comments from people being paid by Adobe to say positive things but reading comments here..”

I’m just going to assume you don’t mean any of the COW leaders by that, because that would be a pretty serious insult.

Have you actually worked with 7.0 for a couple of weeks now? If not, I’d recommend you keep your opinion on this release to yourself.

Sure, 7.0 isn’t heaven, but for me it’s proven more productive, faster and more stable than 6.5. If you want Shake, buy Shake. If you want Nuke, buy Nuke. If you want to crash all the time, buy Combustion. Try judging AE for what it is. The most versatile animation/compositing application out there, at a seriously decent price. There’s no app out there that lets me switch from film compositing at 2k, to creating motiongraphics in a heartbeat.

Bar3nd

Forum COWmunity leader for:
ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS
MAGIC BULLET SUITE
INDIE FILM & DOCUMENTARY

[Editing-jos]

I dont even consider AE as full postproduction/filmproduction.
Because it basic tools like CC arent good enough!

AE is king in Motion Graphics. Nothing comes close imo!
Not even Motion with its 323milion presets.

Adobe did an OK job but they should have called it 6.8 instead of 7.0.
Cause beneath the new GUI isnt there much new stuff. And some old stuff like the Graph editor isnt fixed like it should be. Which imo is the basic of making good animations, specially in 3D.
just my 2 cents

[Taoufik]

Hi,

In my opinion Adobe has got a lot of inspiration from other products. The Graphic user interface, the graph editor makes me remeber combustion.

Adobe people comon let’s be more creative

[Barend Onneweer]

[editing-Jos] “I dont even consider AE as full postproduction/filmproduction.”

Well, I do.

And with me there’s ILM, The Orphanage, and many other studios that use AE occasionally or even as their workhorse. Did you know that After Effects is the main compositing tool used at The Orphanage?

Bar3nd

Forum COWmunity leader for:
ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS
MAGIC BULLET SUITE
INDIE FILM & DOCUMENTARY

[Eric]

Start reading some of the ae7 gripes on the board already….yikes

…first off, going back in time…ae 6…didn’t work, period…Adobe really screwed us over (at least on osx)…crash after crash. with BS error codes that maybe the boys at Adobe found humorous but I certainly didn’t’ (ie CRASH ON A MAGIC SPELL…did you ever get this one…total BS)…and I don’t care if they blamed Apple…if you know your product doesn’t work, then don’t release it….ae 6.5..ok, it worked..yeah imagine that….now ae 7…the graph editor is nice.. sure the interface is ok…but…that is it? Give us something Adobe…who cares about Adobe bridge… and here come the errors…

Believe me I want to love ADOBE, I owe them my career…it is just I hate to hate them…Adobe should be blowing away the competition…they SHOULD be releasing an AE that competes with Shake or Nuke or Combustion….BLOW US AWAY!!!….And for christmas sake, just realize that Apple is a company too…they are in business to make money…

I love the fact that a few years ago,,,Adobe is saying BS about Apple and focusing on PC…so Apple says FU and starts coming out with their own software…now Adobe cries all and bad mouths Apple…unbelievable BS…..

Whatever…Apple now has all the cards…fast processor, amazing os….momentum, money, steve jobs….so Adobe, swallow and develop, cause new kids on the block are coming.

[Barend Onneweer]

[eric rosner] “I love the fact that a few years ago,,,Adobe is saying BS about Apple and focusing on PC…”

Show me where or shut up already! You’re just making this stuff up!

Bar3nd

Forum COWmunity leader for:
ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS
MAGIC BULLET SUITE
INDIE FILM & DOCUMENTARY

[Editing-jos]

They are not focusing on PC.
But full universal binary for the intelmacs will be released in 2007 maybe later.
Adobe doesnt feel like ‘recoding’ all the soft now. They will do it in the new cycle of 18-24 months. To bad for mac users!

[Mylenium]

[editing-Jos] “They are not focusing on PC.
But full universal binary for the intelmacs will be released in 2007 maybe later.
Adobe doesnt feel like ‘recoding’ all the soft now. They will do it in the new cycle of 18-24 months. To bad for mac users!”

Huh? Most Macs out there are still PowerPC, especially the powerful ones (Quad G5). Really, you Mac fanboys should see things more realisticly. Unless Apple completely switch over to Intel only (which might not happen for the next 2 years because they still have valid contracts with IBM), there is no pressing need to convert all apps to Intel or UB. Unless I have a complete incorrect view of the Mac world and you all are doing all your work on MacBooks and Intel iMacs already, that is.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Ron Lindeboom]

Eric,

First off: I just got back into the office this morning after being gone for a day to spend some time with my father. If I had seen this when it first went up yesterday, I’d have given you about 30 seconds to apologize to the leaders and others you have insulted or you could just get out of the Cow and stay gone… Capeesh?

You are quite entitled to your opinion but the only one getting paid around here is the Cow itself — to run banners. We do NOT tell our leaders or members what to say and as Mylenium points out in his reply to you, there are a number of points in his review that address what he doesn’t like in AE7. Still, all-in-all he gave the package high marks — as have pretty much all the people we know who have had a chance to work with it for some time.

We didn’t write the review, he did. We didn’t tell him what to think nor did Adobe. To be quite honest about it, the ONLY area of the review where Adobe asked Mylenium to reconsider his point of view was in the animations pre-sets — something which Mylenium sees little value in but many other users will see value in. His other criticisms, they merely took notes on and I am sure added to the list of things to consider for future revisions.

We don’t have paid writers, per se, on staff in the Cow. We prefer to have articles and reviews that are written by actual working artists and content creators who write from a real-world perspective of using these tools in the trenches — not have professional journalists who crank out articles about tools they never use in the real world.

Many of our leaders get to participate in the beta programs and so by the time these tools are released, they have quite an understanding of them and where the real strengths lay. Because they understand things at a level that you may have missed with a cursory glance, does not make them morons. And just because people do not agree with your point of view does not make them corporate shills trying to con you into upgrading so they can make a few bucks — which is EXACTLY what you have implied and which if I do not get an apology out of you today WILL be the reason that you are banned irrevocably from the Cow.

My personal opinion is that the new interface and integration is adding a LOT of power to the Adobe apps that place it to where it rivals much of the functionality found in high-end suites like those from Discreet — that’s an opinion that I share with Scott Billups, a man whose film credits include work with Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. I get advertising from Adobe, Scott doesn’t. You can accuse me all you like that my opinion is up for sale, I can live with that — I’ve been doing this for 11 years and learned long ago that people will think whatsoever they will. My friends and the people I care about know who and what I am and I am content with that. You do not know me nor do I care much about your opinion from what I have seen of your behavior.

You have a few hours, Eric, and then I am going to hit the “jettison this jerk” button if you haven’t apologized to those whose character you have maligned and whom you have insulted.

The clock’s running…

Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net