After Effects CC 2014 New Features

Adobe has update After Effects in the Creative cloud subscription to version CC 2014.

Built in keying has been enhanced with a Key Cleaner to fix compression artifacts in a key. And Advanced Spill Supressor does an impressive job of removing spill. Won’t touch Red Giant’s keying suite, but will improve Keylight in certain situations.

You can now link individual masks to effects on a single layer, and dissolve effects to lessen effect. This will clean things up by letting you so different masked effects on a single layer and track each mask individually. And you can get those masks from layer masks in Premiere Pro.

You can create Live Text Templates to leave individual text editable in premiere, especially great for lower thirds.

I/O has now been replaced by the Mercury Transmit engine from Premiere Pro, which should be faster.

Like the rest of creative cloud, there is Type Kit desktop font integration.

The iOS Kuler is now integrated into an After effects Panel.

Curves have been improved.

Mocha has been updated to version 3.2.1.

Not as big of an update as Premier Pro, but impressive nonetheless.

Adobe needs to do something about 3rd party Plug Ins to make it easier to upgrade

With the release of Adobe Creative Cloud 2014, we have yet another set of programs installed in our computers, which is nice, as the last version will keep working for old jobs (and when plug ins have not been rewritten yet), but it makes for a pain in the ass in getting plug ins working again.

After Effects has so many places plug ins can be installed. In your Library folder and in the Plug ins folder in it’s application. So you have to painstakingly either re-install all your plugs in or go through and copy plug ins over between versions.

Photoshop used to do this well, with a 3rd Party plug-ins folder. So when you installed a new version you could just point Photoshop to this folder, and all your 3rd Party Plug-Ins would be there. Of course in true idiotic fashion they removed this feature.

And sure, some old plug ins will not work, but they could do a browser style plug in checker, which checks if your version works, and you could have a way to force them to work (or at least try to work) if it doesn’t know (as is possible in browsers like Mozilla Firefox).

This would just make everything so much easier and smoother with every upgrade! And since all CC users are in Creative Cloud, they will getting all the new updates, and likely implementing them!

Please Adobe do something about Plug-In Management and do it soon!

VideoCopilot with Adobe Creative Cloud CC 2014, Element 3D not working yet

Update on VideoCopilot Software and Adobe Creative Cloud CC 2014. Looking over at the Forums, it seems that everything except Element 3D is working with Creative Cloud 2014. And according to Andrew Kramer’s Twitter Feed, they are working on it.

With Red Giant working, and everything but Element 3D working, most of my plug ins are good. Now time to check on Re:Vision plug ins!

StudioDaily has a first look at the new Adobe Creative Cloud Video Suite Features

StudioDaily has a great first look at the new features being released with the latest Creative Cloud release.

Effects Masking and Tracking within Premiere Pro sounds like an awesome addition, as are Master Clip effects, which will make color correction a breeze.

As for SpeedGrade the direct link to Premiere Pro feature where you actually open your timeline in SpeedGrade would seem to answer about half of my issues with SpeedGrade. Now they just need to get some curves going in there.

The ability to apply filters per mask in a layer will greatly speed up effects, and simplify timelines. And the Live templates features is very very cool. Where you can set text lines in After Effects to be editable by an editor within Premiere to quickly make lower thirds and the like based on a graphical template.

All in all it sounds great, and I hope the download is available soon!

RedGiant Universe is out of Beta

Red Giant has released version 1.0 of it’s new GPU accelerated Universe Plug ins. These include 31 free GPU accelerated plugs ins and currently 19 Pro plug ins that can be had for $10 a month, $99 a year or $399 for a lifetime subscription. And they promise dozens of new tools in 2014 alone. Already these protools include a version of Knoll Light Factory, Toonit and Holomatrix.

I love Red Giant’s stuff, so this is a great thing. Not sure about all these subscriptions though. So far the small businesses I work with have been very averse to a monthly fee, but the free plug ins are great to have.

Adobe has announced an upgrade to the Creative Cloud Video Suite for NAB

Rich Young a the ProVideo Coalition has the news on this exciting next release of Adobe’s Creative Cloud Video Suite.

Looks like Adobe is taking aim at the finishing power of AVID with the ability to add effects to Master Clips in Premiere, as well as edit Text from After Effects Projects within Premiere.

Scott Simmons has a more extensive look at Premiere.

And as for After Effects, the effects on a per mask basis is pretty exciting, as it will change the use of layers and adjustment layers within After Effects.

Chris and Trish Meyer look deeper at After Effects.

Looking forward to it. The fast update cycle is pretty awesome. I would like to see AVID come close.