Steve Forde at Adobe

Before I have an ‘Occupy After Effects’ movement on my front lawn – I wanted to provide some clarity on the decision we made, and why we made it.  For reference:

• Render Engines and the Joy of Legal Obligations – Part 1

First off – this decision was not made while we chomp our cigars with feet on desk counting cash.  It was a legal requirement that came in at the 11th hour of CS 5.5 for which we had no capability to rectify in the timeframe (and still have reliable / stable software).  It’s that simple. No conspiracy.  No cash grab.  Simply making sure we are playing by the rules and not breaking the law.

Did we like it? – hell no.  Are we doing something about it? – hell yes.  Can I tell you what that is? – unfortunately – not at this time. (isn’t this fun?)

We cannot disclose what we are doing about it as we would also be breaking another set of financial and legal rules that every public company in existence MUST follow – not just Adobe.

Again – it is not the answer I would like to give – but it’s the truth.

What I am really happy about through all this though are 2 things:

1. People care enough to let us know when they think we are doing something wrong.

2. The render engine sure gets a LOT of use!

Therefore – please understand the current licensing issue for the render engine is not what we want, and is not some conspiracy to make a few more bucks.  That we are exploring ways to get to a viable solution sometime in the near future that gets back to an easy way to deploy the render engine – while still meeting those pesky legal obligations.

S.

Wanted to do a shout out to 2 companies that have really been going all out in terms of their workflows with AE.  In September, Autodesk released a new compositor link feature for AE that works with 3ds Max.  What blew me away was it can create a link between the two applications, so if you make a change in one application, you can see the change in the other.  Check out:

• 3ds Max Compositor Link

A few weeks ago, Maxon, the makers of Cinema 4D came out with an update to their plugin for AE which allows you to literally create a .c4d file from within AE. Combined with the ability to make a .aep within Cinema 4D – you have great interop when jumping back and forth between the applications.

• Cinema 4D to AE R13

What this means?  Any method that can streamline the process of going from an idea to what you see on the screen, irrespective of tools is paramount in my book.  Both companies produce GREAT products.  Check it out.

S.

Adobe’s Todd Kopriva jotted this down before he heads out for a much deserved break. He mentions the top feature requests we receive and some thoughts on what we are doing / have done with them.

• Top After Effects Feature Requests

Was trading emails with good mate John Nack and he noted this video of Vincent Laforet talking about how he relies on AE, Premiere Pro, Story and more..:

S.