[Nick Berrisford]

I am sure this was done the same way the new Sprint (?) ads were done (i’ll see if I can dig up that link). It’s stop motion with people using small colored pen lights etc. to create the shapes and “move” them around in space. There may be some post work to clean it up and comp it, but it’s good old fashion long exposure stills with a moving light source. You COULD do it with Particular. But it wouldn’t have that organic look that the video does. Though it would be easier to make your shapes, you’d need to tweak it to give a real organic feel.

[Nick Berrisford]

The upgrade needs a CS2 serial number from an actual suite, not just serial numbes from CS applications. So the upgrade is uninstallable without a Suite serial number. I was in a similar situation – I owned all the applications but had bought them all seperately over the years. Adobe wasn’t really into negotiating on that and I finally got someone at Adobe to assign a case to see if they would issue me a CS2 serial number so I could upgrade, but I never heard back and attempts to contact tthem to follow up were just too frustrating.

[Nick Berrisford]

I just wanted to thank Graham Jones (and others) for their suggestions and input.

While the suggestions haven’t solved my issue and I still get failed renders and the occasional crash, the frequency of them has dropped. Part of my problem is I am tied to using a collection of projects and comps that require certain memory intensive plugins and the problematic CC filters.

For those in that same boat, I have a suggestion that has helped me at least get something rendered and finished even if it isn’t the ideal and efficient workflow.

What I have resprted to doing with some of the memory intesive plugins in certain layers – and the CC ones – is prerender these layers when I have them looking the way I like them. I then replace those layers with a full quality QuickTime version in order to render the final full comp. It doesn’t work 100% of the time, but more often than not I avopid failed renders and eventually I get my stuff rendered. Which wasn’t happeneing for a while.

Thanks again.

Here’s looking at the full version of CS3 coming out and all the third parties releasing UB versions soon!

BTW, does anyone know if CS3 will again ship with the CC filters? I noticed the Beta version available for download doesn’t.

[Nick Berrisford]

Couldn’t disagree more. AE 7 is much easier to use, is a more workable interface and is definitely a step forward. And this was driven home to me very solidly recently when I freelanced for a company that only had 6.5 on it’s graphics stations and I had no choice but to work with their equipment.

I can’t see how anyone would feel that 7 is a BAD thing. Nothing important or worthwhile from 6.5 has changed significantly and there have been great improvements as far as usability of the interface.