OTish: Adobe Release

[Andrew Kimery]

[Jeremy Garchow] “What is confusing to me, is the branding. I assume Adobe is still figuring this out.”

Part of the branding problem was the use of the world “cloud” in the name and part of the branding problem is some bloggers/writers/forum posters, etc., unintentionally spreading inaccurate information in a modern day version of the game ‘telephone’. The first part would’ve been solved pretty quickly if the second part had actually read press releases (instead of just the headline) before their fingers hit their keyboards.

Adobe starting out with CC and then going with CC2013, CC2014, etc., isn’t backtracking or rebranding, it’s just the newest version of naming convention they started over a decade ago. If you go way back to the first CS it was just called CS (as opposed to CS1) and the next version was CS 2.

With regards to updates, CC was never, ever going to be a stream of pushed updates like, say, Google Docs. From the get go Adobe said up to at least old 5 versions of the apps (starting with CS6) will be available to CC subscribers. New version releases were always a part of the plan with the difference being the new releases weren’t the end/all be all when it came to new adding features. In the CS days if a new feature wasn’t ready in time for launch it either got put out too soon or held back until the next CS release. Now new feature upgrades can, and are, released between major versions.

Obviously there’s a natural limit to releasing things when they are ready because they aren’t going to release a new feature for, say, AE if it breaks part of the compatibility between AE and PPro. Features like those obviously have to be coordinated between teams.

CC2015 uninstalling old apps by default is new though and a rather unwelcome, IMO, default behavior. Having the option is nice, but the default should be to leave everything in place.

[Walter Soyka]

[Charlie Austin] “Apple has apparently fixed that for Adobe with Metal in 10.11. I hope they thank them. :-)”

No. Metal is an Apple-branded, platform-specific GPU API. Metal will not do anything for apps that are not specifically written for Metal.

When you see “Metal,” think “Apple-flavored OpenGL + OpenCL.” OpenGL and OpenCL have been around for years, but since Ae (in most cases) doesn’t use them, there is no acceleration. It will be likewise with El Capitan, unless/until Ae adopts GPU acceleration [link].

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Charlie Austin]

[Walter Soyka] “No. Metal is an Apple-branded, platform-specific GPU API. Metal will not do anything for apps that are not specifically written for Metal. “

True, but from what I can glean (and understand lol) it is a very nice API

[Walter Soyka] “It will be likewise with El Capitan, unless/until Ae adopts GPU acceleration [link].
“

I’ll go out on a limb with a WAG and say they will adopt it. Perhaps not right away, but they will. 🙂

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Jeremy Garchow]

Not sure about blaming this on bloggers here.

I’ll look back but I’m pretty sure throughout all the cloud pricing and SOX stuff, one of the advantages of CC was being able to release features when they’re ready and getting off of a yearly cycle, and yet, here we are.

I understand compatibility issues especially when it comes to interoperability between different video applications, but it sure seems like a yearly release schedule with some apps getting more updated than others, just like CS (if you were a CS user).

CC installed without deleting CS. CC 2014 installed without deleting anything. CC 2015 nukes it all by default.

It’s not super consistent, but maybe that’s why Adobe is now defaulting to previous version deletions so that you don’t have 4 years of application versions installed and it feels like one version. For instance, Ae 2015 projects will open in 2014 without having to save down (as its still v13.x in 2014 and 2015).

[Andrew Kimery]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Not sure about blaming this on bloggers here. “

I didn’t blame it on bloggers alone. I blamed it on everyone that saw the name “creative cloud” and then went off halfcocked at their keyboard w/out ever reading the info Adobe was releasing. There was a lot of misinformation floating around and the only reliable sources were Adobe themselves (either official press releases, blog posts or people like Dennis and Todd that post here at the COW). Occasionally I still run into people that think the apps won’t work unless you are always connected to the Internet (like it’s YouTube or something).

[Jeremy Garchow] “I’ll look back but I’m pretty sure throughout all the cloud pricing and SOX stuff, one of the advantages of CC was being able to release features when they’re ready and getting off of a yearly cycle, and yet, here we are. “

Here were are and Adobe releases feature upgrades throughout the year as well as full version releases. New version releases were always going to happen and Adobe said as much. It doesn’t function like Google Docs (where it’s just ‘Google Docs’) and Adobe never said it would. When you have as many apps that talk to each other as Adobe does it makes since to have all the major releases happen at once, but that’s only superficially like the CS days. New features (typically more minor features) can be added any time (not just with major version releases) and things like AE getting a massive, under-the-hood overhaul are possible.

I feel like Adobe was pretty clear with what the plan for CC was but I made it a point to read what Adobe said it was going to do vs read what other people assumed what they thought Adobe was going to do. I even remember, even some tech large tech sites reporting on it and making it sound like Adobe was going the way of Google Docs. Misinformation all of the place.

[David Powell]

The ability to map nudge with trim, is huge to me. Having non-contextual mapping on the keboard is ridiculous. Now if they can just make markers target driven and make patching more friendly, I can move half of my FCPX work over to Premiere.

[Walter Soyka]

[Charlie Austin] “True, but from what I can glean (and understand lol) it is a very nice API”

Sure. Apple has done a good job bringing nice technologies to their developers. I don’t mean to knock it at all. But what’s really nice about the API is the performance you can get with it.

Interestingly, Metal is kind of the opposite of other recent Apple technologies. While Apple has been rolling out new higher-level functionality to developers (Core*), Metal is, well, closer to the metal. A lot of the performance gains with Metal come from reducing the overhead inherent in higher-level, more abstract APIs like OpenGL. It’s largely about reducing the GPU’s dependence on the CPU during graphics processing. It’s all the rage in graphics programming right now — the same thing Microsoft is doing with DirectX 12 and AMD is doing with Mantle, which Kronos is adopting for Vulkan.

[Charlie Austin] “I’ll go out on a limb with a WAG and say they will adopt it. Perhaps not right away, but they will. :-)”

Presumably if they are publicly talking about it a developers conference, yes. But we’re very short on actual details right now.

Walter “Not a professional GPU developer, but I did once hack together a basic GPU-accelerated Ae plugin” Soyka

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Andrew Kimery]

[Walter Soyka] “Walter “Not a professional GPU developer, but I did once hack together a basic GPU-accelerated Ae plugin” Soyka”

But did you do it while staying at a Holiday Inn Express?

[Walter Soyka]

[Andrew Kimery] “But did you do it while staying at a Holiday Inn Express?”

Of course. How on earth else would I have ever figured it out?

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Scott Witthaus]

[David Powell] ” I can move half of my FCPX work over to Premiere.”

But why? Only half?

Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter