COW Tutorials: After Effects Graph Editor Demystified

[Editing-jos]

Thanx for your contribution.
I bet lots of people will benefit from it.

But you forgot to mention that the Graph Editor still sucks 🙂
Spatial and temporal still seperate. Common.
We just want normal splines with full bezier control.
I’m forced to use lightwave for my 2.5D animation I’m doing right now :((
Just because I cannot control the camera in 3D space like I want.

[Spritemaster]

This must be the third time you’re complaining about this issue here. I don’t manage this forum, but I suspect it’s not meant for raving and venting frustration. If you have a problem with AE, don’t use it, or write Adobe and complain.

“We just want” – that means, you. “We” want many things, but everybody has their priorities. Sure, it would be nice to have a full-fledged animation engine inside AE – and why not 3D modeling, rendering with Mental Ray and character rigging? – but let’s remember this is a COMPOSITING package that has grown, and is still growing, into a motion graphics powerhouse.

The Graph Editor doesn’t “suck”. It will be put to great use by thousands of professionals worldwide to create some stunning visuals. If you need to control a camera in 3D space “like you want”, do the logical thing and use a 3D package (you wanna use Lightwave, use Lightwave, but if you feel you’re “forced” to use it, consider switching to a more modern app like XSI).

So give us a break, will you?

AA

[Mylenium]

[Editing-Jos] “Thanx for your contribution.
I bet lots of people will benefit from it.

But you forgot to mention that the Graph Editor still sucks 🙂
Spatial and temporal still seperate. Common.
We just want normal splines with full bezier control.
I’m forced to use lightwave for my 2.5D animation I’m doing right now :((
Just because I cannot control the camera in 3D space like I want.”

Oh please, haven’t we been thru this already? If you think you can’t manage AE’s admittedly sometimes awkward keyframing, that’s entirely your thing. I know I halfway can(and on top of that also in LW, Maya and Cinema 4D) and the new Graph Editor makes it much more simple, regardlesss of the insufficiencies it has. Perhaps you should set aside your frustrations for the moment and put more effort in managing your tools instead of complaining to the wrong people… You know, you could always write feature requests to Adobe.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Editing-Jos] “I’m forced to use lightwave for my 2.5D animation I’m doing right now :((
Just because I cannot control the camera in 3D space like I want.”

Yes, and Lightwave can’t composite like After Effects can… What’s the point? Use apps for what they are written for. No one application is going to be the “Swiss Army Knife” that contains all the tools to solve every possible need and situation.

Please heed people’s requests that you write your feature requests to aftereffects@adobe.com. If you don’t, please keep in mind that we can and do remove people who persist in beating the same tired drum day after day.

You seem like you can’t post without highjacking the topic and turning it into your private little rant on how AE isn’t what you want it to be. Well, you can talk yourself blue in the face or you can “learn the power of the workaround” until the day comes when all these tools do everything you wish. Over the years, I’ve learned that there is always a workaround and there are no perfect answers. The real creatives get their work done and the others bitch to the trees just to hear themselves talk and feel important.

In almost every major studio that Kathlyn and I have visited over the years, there are daily workarounds — often, very clever ones — and these creative solutions are what makes them worth the money and gets them the jobs.

That’s my two cents on it…

Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net

[Thehardmenpath]

Keep doing those tutorials, Mylenium. For those who have never used AE7 they are giving me a valuable experience. One day I will use it for the first time and nobody will notice, so to say.