AEScripts has a new one, Layer Library which lets you create prestes of groups of layers and properties to be used between different projects in After Effects. It is listed at $29.99, but is name your own price.
Very cool, especially for those we often do repeated tasks between projects.
FCP.Co has an article on installing a PC GTX570 in a MacPro to get better OpenCL performance in FCP X, but it will also increase your CUDA power for Premiere Pro and After Effects CS6.
Still you can score over 1000 on Luxmark if you go for a GTX670 instead (which has a huge amount more of CUDA cores, and can still draw it’s power from the internal power supply instead of say a 680, which would require an external power source to run), but they are not as well supported on the Mac. Either way you will need to go to Netkas to get some instruction and some help (though some of the help can be rather surly, but it is worth it if can really beef up using your MacPro). Someone at Netkas has also figure out how to Firmware update recent MacPro’s to the latest firmware for the newest itineration, allowing beefier XEON’s into your old MacPro.
The instructions are pretty easy, but I have found that they don’t always work, so think about re-installing your NVIDIA drivers once you are done, as that did it for me.
You will also need to do some hacking to Premiere Pro and After Effects to get them working with the CUDA cores on a new video card.
VideoCopilot has announced a free Halloween Pack for Element 3D is coming soon. NICE! Free is always good.
I really do need to spend some time playing with Element 3D in the near future.
Todd Kopriva has the announcement at his blog. Looks like Ray Tracing fixes, and Kepler updates. Wonder if those would translate to a Mac with a Kepler card in it? Anything with CUDA updates is good in my opinion.
Actually reminds me that I need to replace my Quadro 4800 with my GeForce GTX 285, which the recent NVIDIA update should have helped with the crashing issue I was having.
StudioDaily has an awesome article on how they are using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 on SNL. They were in Final Cut Pro and decided to move to Premiere Pro, especially because of the workflow with After Effects.
Still I am surprised it is all Mac, but they obviously had Macs for Final Cut. So far I am impressed with CS6, but there have been some stability issues for me, especially with CUDA, though hopefully that last NVIDIA update fixed that. I would think PC’s would be faster and more stable, though I do still love my Mac. They had just better make a really kick ass MacPro really damn soon!
CoreMelt has released the free ActiveText plug in for creating text with pre-animated templates, no keyframes.
I am not too much of a fan of templated effects, but you really can’t argue with free.
Pond 5 has released a new plug in to search for stock footage from within Premiere Pro. You can browse their library, and automatically import free watermarked clips into your project, and if you purchase the clips, you can automatically conform to replace the clips with full versions! A very cool idea!
Adobe has released a webinar on “Speedgrade for Aspiring Colorists.” It is done by editor and colorist Jeff August, and includes Lin Kayser the inventor of Speedgrade in the questions. They also have an earlier Webinar on using Speedgrade by Patrick Palmer.
Adobe has announced the collaborative editing tool Adobe Anywhere. You can check the less than 4 minute video on it at Adobe TV. Basically using the new Mercury Streaming Engine, media for an edit can now be kept centrally on a server, and be edited on a local network or anywhere with a good internet connection as long as you have a good CUDA video card to work with. And as you edit you can share you sequences and the cuts instantly show up at different ends.
A very exciting prospect for remote editing. In fact this could be HUGE! This way an edit house could keep media locally and still have editors working remotely. Talk about enhanced security!
Still think they need an iChat theater type component, so you can show what you are viewing.
onOne software has announced it’s new Perfect Photo Suite 7. A revamp of their already awesome photoshop and lightroom plug-ins, with new versions of Perfect B&W, Perfect Protrait 2, Perfect Layers 3, Perfect Effects 4 and Perfect Resize 7.5 Pro and older version of Perfect Mask 5 and Focal Point 2. This is an awesome company too. They gave all their 64 bit upgrades free for their users, so that has created some serious loyalty at least with me. It ships in Late October.