Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced Adobe After Effects 6.5, a new version of its award-winning motion graphics and visual effects software. Significant new features, including Animation Presets, an advanced clone tool, and tighter integration with the other Adobe video products, help professionals meet production challenges and demanding deadlines.
After Effects 6.5 is a core component of the Adobe Video Collection 2.5, which includes new versions of Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, Adobe Audition 1.5, and Adobe Encore DVD 1.5. Together, these products deliver a complete digital video and audio post-production platform for video and audio editing, motion graphics, visual effects, and DVD authoring at a fraction of the cost of competing solutions.
After Effects 6.5 includes new Animation Presets enabling users to save any combination of layer properties, including text animation properties, and easily apply them to other layers. More than 250 text Animation Presets were added to create sophisticated text animations and more than 60 new effects enable users to create visuals including light rays and 3D particles.
“After Effects 6.5 is a huge leap forward,” says Matt Silverman, director of effects and design at Phoenix Editorial in the press release. “The new cloning and tracking features are top-notch, and allow me to complete shots directly in After Effects without having to move to other dedicated paint or tracking tools. Including Cycore FX and Color Finesse is icing on the cake.”
The new advanced Clone tool provides a visual overlay of the clone source, and five user-definable presets make it easy to rapidly shift between clone settings. To assist users in matching footage from different sources, After Effects 6.5 Professional adds three grain management tools and both editions include one-click tools like Auto Color, Auto Levels, Auto Contrast, and Shadow/Highlight. For advanced color correction, After Effects now includes Color Finesse from Synthetic Aperture, a professional 32-bit floating point color correction system. In addition, motion tracking in After Effects 6.5 Professional has been enhanced for greater accuracy and flexibility.
Inside After Effects 6.5, previews and support for OpenGL are faster and more accurate. In addition, After Effects 6.5 has been optimized for the latest Intel and Macintosh G5 systems. New scripting support in After Effects 6.5 Professional enables users to write scripts to streamline their work and disk caching vastly improves real-time playback.
After Effects 6.5 offers tighter integration with other Adobe video products including Adobe Photoshop CS, Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Encore DVD. Text from Photoshop CS files — including text on a path — is fully editable. Users can copy and paste content directly between Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, keeping motion paths and keyframes intact. Adobe Encore DVD menus can be imported into After Effects to be animated, and After Effects layers can be transformed into Adobe Encore buttons.
Pricing and Availability
Adobe After Effects 6.5 for Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Mac OS X, will be available in the second calendar quarter of 2004. The estimated street price for After Effects 6.5 Standard will be US$699; After Effects 6.5 Professional will be US$999. Registered users of either version of After Effects 6.0 can upgrade to the new version for an estimated street price of US$99.
Adobe After Effects 6.5 is part of the Adobe Video Collection 2.5 Professional Edition for Windows XP, which includes Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects Professional, Adobe Audition, Adobe Encore DVD, and Adobe Photoshop CS for an estimated street price of US$1499. The Adobe Video Collection 2.5 Standard edition, which contains After Effects Standard and does not contain Photoshop CS, will be available for an estimated street price of US$999.
Information about pricing, support policies, and other language versions is available online at [url=http://www.adobe.com/motion]http://www.adobe.com/motion[/url]
Anyone get the feeling that today was the Video Production Christmas? Man! TONS of new goodies for the Video Pro. What’s next?
How comparable is this to Apple’s new Motion app? If it’s similar, Apple kicks butt on pricing: $299 v. $699.
Apple sure seems to be getting a lot more aggressive about pricing lately (except LCD displays).
I’m pretty sure AE has many more advanced features than Motion has. That said, Motion is 1.0. Give it another 3-4 point releases (which shouldn’t take that long if it develops at the rate FCP has) and I think it will be quite competitive with AE.
It won’t take that long for moton to over take Adobe After Effects, it’s interface is jsut beautiful as FCP4, and all other apple programs
motion has some bad ass shiz that after effects doesnt have but I say give motion a year and it will be a true competitor. The truth is i dont like motion graphics i think they are tacky in most cases looks like motion will be able to handle all the simple graphics i will be doing (FASTER AND EASIER) is my favorite part about apples pro software.
Gotta love video.
is there a video demo of Motion anywhere? haven’t seen it. either way, when you combine all of the apple video products: livetype, fcp, motion, soundtrack (even garage band) – and if you can pull off shake – HOLY MOSES! there isn’t anything that compares across the board. beautiful GUIs, smooth operators, apple scriptable, all optimized for G5!
When will Apple just force Adobe to stop developing for them? as soon as apple ships an image app that competes with photoshop, i suppose.
Motion is NOT going to take the place of AE. They will appeal to different customers and most pro’s interested in Motion will use both. AE is a great app, AE to Motion will be like FCPPro to FCProExpress.
nah i would be glad to dump AE theres just too much junk in the trunk. it makes the work flow very slow and annoying. Already I can’t wait for motion 2 Im guessing that will be the time I can abandon AE like the Joe Dirt it is.
Given Apple’s fast track on software developement, I would say it won’t be long until Motion slaughters AE. Put it on Windows Apple! Even though I love AE, Motion at it’s present state offers some compelling advancements, plus it’s built by Apple. Heres a few I like…
1) I really like Motions particle engine, 2) It accepts all AE plugins like FCP, and has really cool ones included, 3)Behavors are just so rocken-cool, I love the idea of producing motion graphics on the fast track without being bogged down on the geek side like AE. 4)the whole look of the program makes After Effects look archaic!