[Taliesn Jones]

I’m sorry , but when the resident moderator of this list , apparently a professional representing Adobe ,
informs me that “You don’t have enough RAM to feed even the 4 physical cores in your computer..”
when I clearly stated up front that I had a Core2 Duo with 8 GB of RAM , “…so the question of whether hyperthreading works in your case is moot.”, I was simply reacting to a rather condescending arrogance in his not even bothering to read/comprehend my rather up-front & earnest question.

Instead he reinforced how sensitive Adobe is to this question apparently inn that he assumed I hadn’t upgraded to AE CS4 9.0.2 or hadn’t adjusted the “Render Multiple Frames Simul Multiproc” setting instead of offering a simple & straight-forward answer of whether it’s worth upgrading to a Quad Core i7 iMac w/ pre-loaded Snow Leopard & with the full compliment of *16 Gb Rack o’ RAM enhanced by these proper *Pref* settings would definitely give one the substantial performance they seek…or not.

I ask you is that too much to ask of this list. Instead I’m still left hanging with no straight answer either way as if how dare I even ask what’s wrong with Adobe AE CS4’s performance at all. I dutifully read all of the links he offered me and i still have no clear confirmation as to whether AE CS4 performance is worth the upgrade.

Instead of all of this hyper-sensitivity I was honestly expecting someone whom had indeed faced my my decision , went for it , and was glad to offer their direct hands on experience either way. I would’ve been more than thankful and complimentary , but I’ve been a working professional with Adobe AE since version 6.5 and joined the Cow atleast 6 years. I guess I expected a better repsonse. I can;t beleive that out of all of the working AE CS$ OSX professionals on this list not a one stepped up to the plate to offer a basic *real world* response. Oh well. Times change I s’pose.

[Taliesn Jones]

What I was looking for were OSX/AE folks who have themselves or can provide links to OSX/AE folks who have upgraded to the Nehalem MP from the Core2Duo’s with all the prerequisites ( ie: AE 9.0.2 , the FULL compliment of RAM their Mac can hold , the correct AE prefs set allocating all the RAM usable by AE CS4, etc. ) In my case I’m currently running on Leopard OSX 10.5.8 because of all of the warnings of higher end apps like AE CS4 having “issues” playing well with the Snow Cat.
With Core2 Duo settings of :
Mem & Multiproc settings: 2 processor cores/Installed RAM 8 ( the most a Core2Duo can harbor /Total AE mem usage 7.06/Min allocation per CPU_2GB( last stop is 2.09 )/ Longer RAM Preview-Faster Rednering slider dead center ( Perhaps I should dispense with RAM Previews altogwther and go for the QT render all the way every time?/Foreground Mem Use 1.1GB/Background Mem Use_5.97_2.98 per CPU_CPU’s to leave for other apps “0”. I have been turning all other apps “off” which kind of defeats the usefulness of Bridge app.

All AE settings being equal as inset for optimum usage on a Quad Core i5 ( 2.66GHz) or i7 ( 2.8GHz ) 27″ pre-loaded with Snow Cat 10.6.whatever , with a *full* rack o’ RAM.
With all of those stops pulled I’m asking those who use AE CS4 OSX 9.0.2 running the latest Snow Cat if the performance difference is that much more substantial on a Quad Core i7 ,yada ,yada ,yadas as opposed to what I’ve got as to warrant the upgrade investment.

Hated to get that anal about such a basic question one would simply ask a friend who had just done same , but judging by Todd’s answer I was obviously not specific enough. Getting a straight & sans equivocated answer is sure like handling Mercury

[Taliesn Jones]

“You don’t have enough RAM to feed even the four physical cores in your computer, so the question of whether hyperthreading works is moot in your case. You need 2GB per process, plus some left over for the operating system.”

I thought I had clearly laid out , right out of the gate , that i was using a “24” iMac ( Core2 Duo 3.0.6 GHz_8 GB RAM/GeForce 130 ) …sooooo that’s clearly 4GBs per Core , no?
Was I really being too cryptic ?

That said ,ya know this entire response was the type of *quasi-answer* I was hoping I could avoid and rather get a clear , hands-on, from the trenches response telling me Yes or no and then the ” this is why” links which you have offered.

I’m thankful for the links , but an actual response saying “Yah or Nah and here’s why” would been even more liberatingly succinct.
I thought I had clearly laid out , right out of the gate , that i was using a “24” iMac ( Core2 Duo 3.0.6 GHz_8 GB RAM/GeForce 130 ) …sooooo that’s clearly 4GBs per Core , no?
Was I really being too cryptic ?
However , you are right , I did *not* mention that I have *indeed* applied AfterFX CS4 9.0.2 ).
I would of course gone directly to the Prefs_Render Multiple Frames Simul” just out of sheer desperation having used AE since 6.5 version. This is what originally pushed me to invest in *Motion*. Well , that and *Motion’s* far further advanced *animated brush engine*. I always had imagined that AE would one day become this Photoshop with a timeline , but here it 2010 for crying out load……..

[Taliesn Jones]

I do appreciate the *work around* Andrew , but it was one of thiose *compoud filter* recipees that I’d forgotten and left alone thinking that , with all of Adobe’s promo-babble on streamlining an integrate suite of its grafx products , Adobe would finally migrate Photoshop “Styles” into AE and finally allow *animation* of their parameters.
Though , thanks to you , it all came back to me once I took your suggestion. I can animate the movement of individual color bands on the Colorama color wheel as well as blend one custom color ensemble into another. however I am not at all thrilled with the *cycling* of the colors because of that absolutely annoying hard line demarcation between the color at 360 degrees and back to 1 degree. *No* amount of finaggling with the color arrows for spreading out a blend does anything to get rid of that hard demarcation line. Why is there not a continuous *seamless* blend right out of the gate not requiring yet another workaround?
Obviously this issue about straight-forward animatable Gradients in particular , and PShop *Styles* in general , has not just occurred to me since not only *Motion 2* has a more straight-forward and direct means ( and not some compound filter formulae ) and *now* here news of Zaxworks , thanks to the 2nd responder , with the direct equivalent to Adobe PShop’s *Styles* as a plug-in. I’m glad someone finally *got* the message and actually *did* something to address it.

[Taliesn Jones]

No offense to you personally , but your citation of this one instance is pretty thin at best. I thought that
I made clear that what I , and apparently a lot of others are looking for , was Photoshop *Styles* impoted into AE7.0 with their FX settings *intact* , showing up in the *Effects* panel and thus *all* of the settings parameters *Animatable*. Like I said in my initial post, I have a raft of really sweet custom Styles that are next to impossible to recreate using AE approxiantion of Photoshops Styles. It just shouldn’t be this hard.
Thus your example falls far short of the mark , but not as far as the Adobe AE code engineers who continue to ignore this very *obvious* oversight in Adobe’s quest to blow its own horn over making all of their image-processing apps into one happy family suite of integrated tools. C’mon Adobe , this is the 21st century for crying out loud. All you’ve done is lately is finally organize the Ui while *Buying up Macromedia*.
Sounds just like a page right oput opf MSFT’s playbook.( Ha!)
Just one frustrated digital artist to another.

[Taliesn Jones]

I hear the term Photoshop “drop shadow” and one can not but be referring to “styles” which , according to a demo guy that demoed AE7.0 , is now *recognized* in AE7.0 when imported from PShop. This caught my attention because it meant some styles can also be *animated* within AE7.0 as well.
Do with this information what thou will. 😉

Taliesn

[Taliesn Jones]

” 6.5 was a release for motiongraphics artists, with loads of new effects bundled, text animators etc…
..7.0 seems to focus on improving workflow (I for one work a lot faster in 7 than in 6.5), and control over what you’re doing. ”

Well apparently AE *needed* these performance upgrades or Adobe wouldn’t be making this the core focus of the 7.0 release.It’s almost as if the prevailing attitude is* Glad Adobe has finally gotten around to this* more than ” ’bout damn time!”. How long before Adobe made AE “dual processor aware* for OSX. Granted this is an OSX-centric ranlet , but for crying out loud here we are at the cusp of the transition to Intel-based OSX which will be powering whatever new Intel-based workstation hybrids
and Adobe only just got around to this level of performance optimization across the board…. with their market cap and thus financial resources.

Now a wholotta resources at Adobe will be trained upon canabalizing what’s useful in the recently acquired Macromedia carcass to see what marketable pelts can be made from it. Meanwhile a lot of digital artists who learned to look at After FX as a kind of Photoshop with a timeline. I’m sure that I’m not alone in the expectation for Adobe *finishng* what they already started by the original decision to include the rudimentary brushengine of PShop and make that animatable in barely more than an elementary level stuck with a still very elementary airbrush footprint.

Bottomline: Well now with the results of this 7.0 release out in the marketplace I can only hope that other digital artists who would love to animate what they can already do deftly wieling atheir digital paintbrush will start lobbying Adobe like a house afire for even just a plug-in release.
Hell I’ll start by getting Adobe’s attention the only way I beleive will have some chance.
” Hey Adobe , I’d *PAY EXtra* for a *TIMELY* relase of a plug-in module that contians *ALL* of the features of the PShop CS2 brushengine and IllustratorCS2 made AE-animatable. Hell , offering a fully loadedd *animatable* brushengine just might encourage the younger generation with an incentive to actually want to learn & practice brush tecnnique rather than producing another wave of cut & paste collage-jockeys.

There , I had to get that out.
Feel better now 😉