[Todd Kopriva]

> RTFM? What manual? 😉

> I am one of those guys who reads the manual, when provided. I miss the books they used to include with the software. While the html/web version has its benefits, the physical manuals allowed me to actually read them while offline. For some reason, I just can’t sit there and scroll through the weblinks or pdfs in their entirety, especially when they are scattered across different disks and in different folders.

You can still order a printed copy of the After Effects Help document (which goes by the name ‘User Guide’ in its printed form). I don’t recommend it, though. I’ve made about 300 fixes and additions to the online version since the books were printed. If you want a hard copy, I recommend printing the PDF that you can download from the top left corner of any page of After Effects Help on the Web. You’d just be out the cost of ~400 sheets of printer paper, which is less than the cost of the printed user guide. I update the PDF version each time I update the HTML on the Web (about once per month).

It’s a little frustrating for me to hear people complain about the books no longer being shipped with the software. As the person who made those books, I can assure you that you get much better and more complete information when we have an extra couple of months to work on the documents. Having the books translated, printed, bound, and put into boxes in time for the software to be put on shelves used to cut out a tremendous amount of the time that we otherwise would have had available for creating the material to help you to use the software.

By concentrating on the web and PDF versions, we can make the information better, more searchable, and more up-to-date.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

Different plug-in makers have different policies. Sometimes plug-ins work fine across multiple versions of the application, operating system, and hardware.

In other words, it depends.

Sorry I couldn’t give a more cut-and-dried answer.

If you have questions about a specific package, then maybe someone here can answer more specifically (as would the plug-in vendor).

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

As I’m sure that many of you have noticed, I tend to answer a lot of questions with a polite version of ‘RTFM’. In the case of After Effects, the ‘T’ actually stands for Todd’s, so this shouldn’t come as any surprise. 😉

One of the reasons that I do this is because I think that directing newbies off to the documentation is a good way to save the time of the experts on the forum and give them more time to sink their teeth into the juicy and interesting questions on the forum.

I always wonder why someone like Kevin or Dave or Bogie would type the same few paragraphs time after time when they could just dispense with the repetitive questions with a link (to Help or to a previous thread)… and then spend several paragraphs on someone with a problem that takes some real thought.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

> are there big differences from ae cs3 to cs4,

Yes. And some small differences, too.

Here’s a list of the UI changes from After Effects CS3 to After Effects CS4.

Here’s a list of the new and changed features from After Effects CS3 to After Effects CS4.

Regarding the naming… We find that it’s easier to use the “CS4” name to make it clear that certain cross-application features (like Dynamic Link) are in synch between two applications. Most people wouldn’t remember that After Effects 9 works with Premiere Pro 4. But since they’re both “CS4”, it’s easier. That said, we still use the numbers in a lot of places where that is what would communicate more clearly.

(No, I’m not in the branding department, and none of this is my fault.)

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

The entire point of anti-aliasing is to make things look better, where better means “smoother, less jagged” (at the expense of some softening).

What’s better for you in this specific case is something that I can’t know with only words, no pictures, and a different set of aesthetics than you.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

I can confirm that setting a layer to Draft quality prevents anti-aliasing. Whether that will look better or not… That’s another question.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

I found Roland’s tutorial with this search.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

There are quite a few ways to move things back and forth between Premiere Pro and After Effects. You can copy and paste; you can import projects; you can import rendered intermediate files; if you have the Production Premium or Master Collection suite, then you can use Dynamic Link…

Here’s a page that summarizes the interaction between After Effects and Premiere Pro:

“Working with Premiere Pro and After Effects”

If you are going to use a rendered movie file as an intermediate, then be sure to use a lossless codec. A tried and true intermediate format is a QuickTime movie with the video encoded with the Animation codec at the highest quality setting.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

Here’s a link to the feature-request form.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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[Todd Kopriva]

Yes, there’s a spell-checker script.

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Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
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