SAD

[Barend Onneweer]

Interesting. Personally I don’t know anyone that would go back to 6.5 from 7.0…

As for Maya – I think its learning curve would be too steep for the bulk of AE users. C4D on the other hand.

Bar3nd

Raamw3rk – digital storytelling and visual effects

[Chris Smith]

I feel half that way. Mostly that AE still doesn’t have a modern color corrector, roto tools, or a tracker that’s not near garbage (All things Combustion has had for years). The OBJ import doesn’t bother me because that’s what I use a 3D program for, but I DO recognise that having basic 3D object functionality can be useful at times (Like when ILM filmed steel wool burning and mapped it onto a low poly copy of a space ship in Flame to comp over a 3D render to look like it’s burning). But I certainly wouldn’t go back to AE 6.5.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[Mylenium]

[TonyLeTony] “I fear that unless Adobe significantly updates AE 8 to include 3d obj import and other big time features, it’s status in the production world will be reduced to “toy””

Unlikely. You see, as much as I understand your grievings, they are based on your personal experience and needs. I believe AE is targeted at different markets, has been and always will be, and while Adobe certainly would love to build a reputation for top-notch feature film quality compositing, they are certainly smart enough to see that it cannot hold the cup to Fusion, Nuke or others. They will definitely make improvements to minimize that gap, but we’ll have to see how it turns out.

As for the rest – having a name for high profile work may be prestigous, but it’s completely irrelevant for doing business. It also does by no means downvalue AE to a toy. You have to realize that After Effects is everywhere and that by its widespread presence, it guarantees enough revenues for Adobe. That’s all that matters (on a strict business level). Most likely the number of AE licenses sold easily beats the sales numbers of all other compositing tools on this planet combined together. So are all those millions of users using AE and not Fusion, Nuke or whatever stupid using such a “toy” as you put it? I think not. People have solid reasons for using a certain program, and yes, sometimes its just the simple fact that AE is cheap.

Also let yourself be fooled by common mislead beliefs in the “highend-ishness” of other tools. Some of those big-time features are just paper tigers as sometimes they are not really relevant for certain workflows. Yes, FBX import sounds nice on paper, but unless a proficient 3D artist prepared the model correctly (UV maps etc.), it’s still useless. You see, there are secondary workflows associated with this kind of stuff and at this point any company has to consider larger issues. On the other hand the seemingly old and toothless cat that AE is easily beats other programs in other areas like text animation, the number of available plugins and a few other things.

I could go on about this for hours, but let’s cut it short: AE is where it is for a reason and not by sheer coincidence because it can’t play with the big boys. Any such assumption is simply wrong and it also will be for v8, regardless if Adobe integrate your wished-for features or not.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Michael Munkittrick]

[TonyLeTony] “it’s status in the production world will be reduced to “toy””

A personal observation, but certainly from the minority side of the fence. There was a time when I felt that AE 4 was the end-all, be-all of desktop compositing…and then came 5. Faster, more integrated tools and a whole host of additional features that just a year prior were bought at an additional cost often costing hundreds more. 5.5, 6 and now 7 follow that trend nicely making tools that were relegated only to the old iron like Discreet’s Inferno and Quantel systems. Sure there are people who will not find immediate uses for the software package, and many might just want to maximize compatibility with other outside studios, but the toolset has grown nearly 100% since I purchased my first After Effects.

[TonyLeTony] “How I wish Adobe would have bought Alias”

Yeah, that was the general thought among a lot of Abode and Alias people alike, but Adobe has almost single handedly advanced the desktop digital revolution and any money spent to acquire a tool that is already at its pinnacle would prove to be a poor investment over time for profitability. Traditionally, Adobe makes very staunch, even robust acquisitions based on a tool’s potential in the years to come, not its current marketability.

Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia was a step that cost countless assets to be pumped into a suite of tools that were by many accounts already finely tuned. Moreover, this purchase took the legs out from under its only head-to-head rival in each packages specific niche. Reducing your competitors not only allows you to breathe in for a moment, but it also create innovative ways for these legendary software giants into one, mega-sized, and integrated solution for almost anything. This logic might be bad for the consumers, but let’s be realistic, Adobe is a corporation FOR PROFIT, and that profit fuels an entire industry of creative software.

Ultimately, there was no perfect path for After Effects to follow due to the millions of opposing points of view and ideas of perfection. I personally would have liked to see a more robust implementation of OpenGL for the elite video cards. My NVIDIA Quadro can whip through a 900 frame animation with hundreds of items and depth of field far faster than AE can drop a 300 layer After Effects composition to disk

[Mylenium]

It’s so nice reading you “old” people’s posts and feel the eloquence that I lack. ;O). Thanks Michael.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Majorasshole]

I would rather have AE integrated into Maya or 3D Studio Max (like Video Post) as a real compositor, than try to cram all those refined 3D tools into AE. Discreet has some integration with Max and Combustion. In that you can have both applications open and have them update in real time between the two.

[Alexander Gao]

I read on thinksecret that Adobe Photoshop CS3 IS going to contain some 3D object import capability… Maybe that could be a hint?

Thanks,
Alexander Gao

“When the revolution happens, I’ll be leading it.”