Adobe Creative Suite 4 Announced! After Effects New Features : Adobe After Effects

> But I thought that all of you who have posted requests to this wishlist
> might like to get specific responses to some of the items on this list.

I have one very simple question. To which wishlist should I post my wish?
I used Ultra back in the day when it was supported and new features were
being released. Since it was acquired by Adobe, it's been pretty much dead.
Based on scant comments from Adobe, I had assumed the Ultra technology would
be folded into AE, but apparently I was wrong. So, where do I post my wish
for new features and new virtual sets? Ultra was not included with CS4, and
the Ultra forum is dead. If not here, where?

Best,
Christopher

was really really hoping they'd add some kind of quick extrusion/bevel functionality.

many times i just want to do the most basic of extrusions to text or shapes, and Invigorator is just too cumbersome.

....or at least allow the Shatter extrusion trick to work again (seemed to have become broken in CS3).

also hoping they changed the speed graph curve to be shown like in 6.5.

Holy Cow!... seriously?... these are the new features in CS4? No real-time audio? No real 3D support? No 64-bit support? We already own Mocha AE (as I suspect most studios do), and we own ToonIt!, which, by reviews spanks Adobe's implementation. No ability create folders in a timeline? What has Adobe been doing the past 18 months?... oh yeah, trying to tie-down AE to their other products. Thanks but no thanks Adobe. My partners and I have been looking at the features of the AE CS4 and I hate to say it, but we'll be sitting out on the CS4 round. Hopefully Adobe will pull its stuff together for CS5. CS4 should have merely been an incremental free update.

There's a lot to like here. The filtering of the project and the timeline window by keyword looks really promising, not just for finding stuff, but also as a more nimble alternative to Shy Layers. And XML-based project files (I'm unclear: is this something you have to explicitly choose when saving? Is there an option to save this way by default?) will be great if for no other reason than that Spotlight should be able to index AE project files now.

On the other hand, I'm not getting any sense that the problems with multiprocessing and caching have been addressed. More options for the MP preferences are a good thing, but they won't solve the problem of my never knowing when starting a big render whether multiprocessing is going to halve the render times or double them. MP is a crapshoot. So much so that whenever I'm in doubt, I just leave it turned off, and this means that probably 6 of my 8 cores go to waste most of the time.

I'm also really disappointed not to hear anything about improvements to the motion graph. The existing motion graph is hard to read and completely obscures the timeline. This is a serious workflow problem for me.

I'd be interested to hear more about changes to the scripting side of things. In particular, will scripts and/or expressions have access to fonts and other text attributes that are currently off-limits?

When the graph first came out, I put in my request to have it float in a new window. I think it's probably more difficult to do that than it sounds - I'm no coder. BUT, if it could be put into a new monitor, it might be a little easier to navigate (and you'd see which keyframe you're effecting).

From the Ultra Product Manager:

In CS4, Ultra is no longer included in Production Premium. In order to
make the Ultra technology available to a broader set of customers, we’re
investigating ways of integrating the Ultra keyer and virtual set technology
into other Adobe applications for future releases.





Customers can continue to use Ultra CS3 by making sure that at least one
other CS3 Production Premium application (such as Adobe Premiere Pro CS3
or Adobe After Effects CS3) installed on their computer. CS3 and CS4 versions
of Adobe software can safely coexist on the same computer.

Over all, AE CS4 is a major disappointment. I am saddened...

I hope that some serious thought and improvement is put into CS5.

really? overall CS4 is excellent. Users who have specific needs might be disappointed because they didn't get what they want in this release, but over all - considering the amount of interactivity between the applications in the Creative Suite, CS4 is a huge new set of features.

I'm a little bummed because the release has made me recognize the inevitable death of PPC a few months before I want to start coming to grips with it, but better=better.

If I already have an Intel machine, the $599 upgrade for Production Premium would be well worth it: After Effects, PremierePro, Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, Soundbooth, Encore. (plus you also get OnLocation, Bridge and Device Central).

I hope the fine peoples from Adode After Effects did improve the CURVES AND LEVELS TOOLS. I suggest if I may: Copy the codes from Photoshop and paste it to After effects.
It is painful and frustrating to even think about how bad the Curves and Levels Tools are in After Effects.

Adobe never said that Ultra would be added to AE, so I can't complain too
much in the AE forum. It just seems like such a great fit, Ultra technology
in AE. The concept of tracking sets is soooo cool. Serious Magic was too
small to create a large library of tracking sets, and they lacked the vision
to release an SDK so that third party companies could make significant
contributions to the library. When Adobe purchased SM, I thought, hey, this
is great, Adobe understands the benifits of creating an SDK. Unfortunately,
Adobe apparently lacks the resources to continue work on Ultra in a
meaningful way, and it's been a dead fish on the beach for more than one
full release cycle. Lack of vision, lack of resources, lack of commitment
to an otherwise compelling product. Very disappointing indeed.

Best,
Christopher