We did this a couple of months ago, and it was quite interesting.

So, check out Michael's post and give us a call.

"Today we are announcing that the next version of Adobe After Effects will be a native 64-bit application."

Michael also goes into more detail about what "64-bit" means for After Effects users.

Simon Hayhurst has also given the news on the ProVideo Coalition website:

"CS4 will be the last version of Adobe's leading video applications to support 32 bit operating systems."

In this article, Simon also provides links to an FAQ list about the transition and a white paper about the benefits of using After Effects and other applications on 64-bit operating systems.

If you have questions about the future of After Effects and other Adobe digital video applications, leave a comment for Simon on the article on the ProVideo Coalition website or a comment for Michael on his blog post. Don't ask me, since I'll just direct you to Simon and Michael.

For a little more information on the benefits that you can get now using After Effects CS4 on 64-bit operating systems, see this post: "CS4 Production Premium on 64-bit operating systems".

He defines terms like script, expression, effect, plug-in, filter, and (animation) preset. Most important and useful is the fact that he distinguishes between these terms and steers people away from common confusions between them.

I try to define terms in context in After Effects Help, usually in the first or most prominent place that each term is used. For example, words like composition, render, and export are defined in the sections "About compositions" and "Rendering and exporting overview", respectively. But it's sometimes good to have someone bring it all together in one place to untangle some of the confusion and misusage.

I appreciate that Adam has taken my definitions and added to them. (That's why we have the Creative Commons tag on the bottom of each page of Help on the Web---so that y'all can reuse the material as long as you attribute it and don't sell it.)

Thanks, Adam!

Today, he also uploaded descriptions and links for these scripts to the After Effects Exchange website, where I set three of them as staff picks. Because they're great.

I can't tell you how much of a relief it was to see something get posted to the After Effects Exchange that wasn't another commercially licensed project template. Though we do allow and even encourage people to post commercial items on the Exchange, it's nice when people post freeware, donation-ware, or even try-and-buy items. I know that people want to be able to get compensation for their work, but I also like the fact that the After Effects community has historically been a remarkably open, sharing, and supportive community.

I think that the folks at After Effects Scripts (most centrally Lloyd Alvarez) have really hit on the right balance with their pay-what-you-want scheme. Each item has a suggested price, but you can modify that price up or down (even to zero) when you check out. There's one exception that I know of, and that is the unbelievably useful Immigration script.

So, come to the After Effects Exchange, download some free stuff, maybe get some non-free stuff, and then head over to After Effects Scripts to get even more stuff that's as free as you need it to be. But be nice. The system that Lloyd and associates have going on only works when we're all nice---or when enough of us are nice, anyway.

Oh, and don't forget that you can search the After Effects Help document to find links to individual scripts that I link to in context for specific tasks.

See "Known issues with Adobe After Effects CS4 in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)".

Here's a list of his scripts that I find especially useful:

• Queue_Comp_Sections: Use multiple guide layers to designate multiple time spans to be rendered and exported separately through the render queue. As Chris puts it, "This is sort of like having multiple work area settings for a composition."


• Project_Items_Renamer and Selected_Layers_Renamer: Rename compositions and footage items selected in the Project panel or layers selected in the Timeline panel. You can search and replace text in the names, append characters to the beginning or end of the names, or trim a specified number of characters from the beginning or end of the names. The layer renamer also allows you to replace the names with a series of numbers.


• Selected_Comps_Changer: Change the composition settings for multiple compositions selected in the Project panel.


• crg_Text_from_File: Create one or multiple text layers based on the contents of a text file. You can either create one text layer from all of the text, or you can create one layer for each line in the text file. The script also provides options for leading and other spacing.

There are many more scripts on his site; the ones above are just the ones that I have found especially useful.

Oh, and there's a Donate button on his site. I can confirm that it works. I'm just sayin'.

If you want to find even more useful scripts, check out the "Where to find additional useful scripts" section of After Effects Help, where Chris is now listed alongside such creators of useful scripts as Dan Ebberts, Jeff Almasol, Paul Tuersley, Mathias Möhl, Charles Bordenave (nab), and Lloyd Alvarez.

survey 1

survey 2

Thank you.

I'd like to get some feedback on how these sections are working. Feel free to leave a comment on this blog entry or, if you have something specific to add to one of the pages, go ahead and leave a comment on the Help document itself.

• "Rotoscoping introduction and resources"
• "Keying introduction and resources"
• "Motion tracking overview and resources"
• "Color correction and adjustment"
• "General workflow in After Effects"
• "Examples and resources for text animation"
• "Expression examples and resources"

If, as I hope, these overviews and collections of tips and resources are helpful, then I'll do more of this kind of thing.

Yeah, it is that. But it's so much more.

In part 1, Chris gives a lot of real-world insight into planning a project, including all of the things that you must do outside of After Effects if you want to be successful and have happy clients. He talks about researching the audience, the viewing environment, and the client. He talks about getting reference photographs. This is the kind of up-front work that can make or break a project. I'm adding a link to this part of the series from the "Planning your work" section of After Effects Help (which also, by the way, contains a link to one of my favorite articles by Aharon Rabinowitz).

In part 2, Chris goes into deep detail about building 3D scenes and objects in After Effects. He has some good explanations and tips about collapsing transformations, precomposing, and parenting.

In part 3, he goes into more detail about the importance of textures, lights, and shadows in making a synthetic 3D scene look more realistic.

As Chris himself points out, this isn't a tutorial series in the sense in which the word 'tutorial' has been used too much lately. He doesn't show the click-by-click steps that the viewer can follow without actually building any understanding. Rather, this is a series that aims to demonstrate and explore some important concepts in the context of a real-world project. I think that this gets back to the root of the word 'tutorial': it teaches.

Great work, Chris!

This update is full of a bunch of little changes---mostly clarifications, links to tutorials, and some minor restructuring. I won't bore you with all of the changes here.

There is one big change, though: As many people have requested, I've put all (and I do mean all) of the After Effects CS4 keyboard shortcuts on one page with anchor links. Several people asked that I do this so that they could search on a single page rather than having to click through several individual category pages and search on each of those.

Let me know what you think of this change. Sometimes it's hard to strike the right balance when parsing a large document into discrete web pages. I want to make sure that this is working for y'all.

Finally, I again urge each and every one of you to add comments to the pages of After Effects Help on the Web. Those comments are the source of a lot of these updates. Have you recently watched a video tutorial that taught something about After Effects especially well? Then leave a comment with a link to that video tutorial. Did you recently post a template project, script, plug-in, or animation preset on your website that you'd like to share with other After Effects users? Then leave a comment with a link. Got a tip? Leave a comment. Got a correction? Leave a comment.

Here's an example of a page with a comment from David Bogie that is likely helping every person who reads the page. Thanks, David!

Just sign in at the bottom of the relevant page of After Effects CS4 Help on the Web and click the Add Comment button that appears.

As I mentioned in a previous post, users of After Effects CS4 should update to After Effects CS4 (9.0.2) to prevent some problems with crashing and freezing on start under Snow Leopard.

See this previous post for some additional details.

One problem that I've just recently become aware of on Snow Leopard is from Frank, a reader of this blog: "Unfortunately it is no longer possible to use After Effects in a different language in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Apple has removed the option to deselect languages in the finder info window."

So, here's a tip: Search for the word 'error' plus the error code surrounded by double quotation marks, like this search for the error code 7 :: 66. Implicit in this tip is that you should be using the After Effects Community Help search to do your search.

You'll notice something when you do many searches for After Effects error codes: You get many (most) of the best and most useful results from Mylenium's After Effects error code database. The guy who maintains that database is one of the most helpful and knowledgeable folks in the After Effects community, Lutz Albrecht. Another thing that you should notice is the Make A Donation button in the upper-right of the pages on his site. I've used it. I'm just sayin'.

It turns out that there are some additional reasons to update After Effects CS4 for use on Snow Leopard, too. In some circumstances, updating fixes some problems with After Effects not starting (or freezing on startup) on Snow Leopard.

Michael Coleman is tracking these issues on his blog.

But there's one issue that I wanted to make sure that everyone saw:

After Effects CS4 (9.0.0) on Snow Leopard doesn't work well with Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing. You must update to After Effects CS4 (9.0.2) if you are going to use Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing on Snow Leopard.

Of course, there are so many other reasons to update that you've already done it, right? Right?