So Adobe has you thinking about forking out some cash for their new Creative Suite 5. Will it improve your broadcast workflow? Will the 64-bit solution make a big difference using more of your system’s RAM? After taking a look at the new After Effects CS5 features I realized this was a real upgrade and it’s worth the price. Below are a few features I’m looking forward to using in my day-to-day motion design work.
Roto Brush Adobe says with this revolutionary After Effects tool you’ll be able to isolate foreground elements from the background in a fraction of the time. I’ve had a few sports projects that would have looked so much better if I would have had the time to cut out athletes in action. A typical broadcast project is requested at the very last minute and time is precious. With this tool I believe projects can look more refined while using this shortcut. Imagine if you have to make a quick basketball open for playoffs coverage. If you have access to good footage you have the possibility of making it really sing.
Roto Brush Tool in Action
Color Finesse and Color LUT Now take the playoffs coverage open and tweak the colors with new Color Finesse and Color LUT support. Adobe says Color Finesse LE 3 has finer control over hue and saturation, and the ability to save the settings as color lookup tables (LUT). Then use Color LUT to get consistent color (pictured below) throughout your project.
Color LUT Effect
FreeForm “FreeForm offers After Effects a huge feature that used to push artists to other systems; no longer must a job go to Flame for what Autodesk calls “extended bicubics,” and the result is fully integrated with AE’s own 3D camera and lighting system. How cool is that, integrating curved 3D planes into After Effects?” -Mark Christiansen, author of After Effects CS4 Visual Effects & Compositing Studio Techniques
Adobe has bundled FreeForm with After Effects CS5. FreeForm has features that give you control over the mesh, giving you the ability to create complex distortions in true 3D space. This gives you more control and more accurate results compared to AE’s 2D Mesh Warp. Imagine using pictures to create the arena’s crowd dark and muted behind the basketball player as he dribbles by.
Adobe has a lot more features like Mocha version 2, Auto-Keyframe mode, and Refine Matte effects. These and dozens more user-requested features like the ability to align layers to comps are included. What new features do you like and more importantly what features will you actually use in your real-world projects?
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