Posted by Mark Colegrove on Aug 17, 2012 | 6 comments

Publisher: Adobe
Platforms:  Mac & PC
Description: Motion Graphics Software
MSRP: $999 (Full Version), $175 (Upgrade), or $49.99 per month (with a Creative
Expected Release: Available Now
Official Website: Click Here
Samples: Click Here
Demo: Click Here
Special Discount: N/A
Critique Issue: Issue #76 (8/12)
Critiqued By: Mark Colegrove
Final Score: 9.0

The latest release of Adobe’s After Effects (CS6 if you’re counting) is a monster. While the crux of the program remains the same, there are several new changes that make this update a major one. Let’s delve right in…

Ease of Use

For those new to After Effects, you’ll find the basics fairly easy to step right into. The interface is sort of a combination of Premiere and Photoshop. Your composition serves as your time line, made up of stack-able layers, which you can manipulate with key-frames. It’s not rocket science… until you start playing around with some of the more advanced features. The layout in CS6 is relatively unchanged, so users of older versions will not have a learning curve.

The layout remains unchanged. Of course you can customize your workspace however you'd like.

After Effects CS6 has (finally) added “Extrude,” which makes doing simple 3D extruded text easier than ever. Extrude eliminates the need for a separate plug-in and ultimately saves you some cash!

Extrude works for EPS files as well, and the results are impressive. The scaling reacts to lighting and camera with ultra-realism. Although After Effects product manager, Steve Forde has stated that After Effects will never be a 3D modeling program, finally having Extrude as part of the package will add a lot of quick and easy production value to your otherwise 2D animations. For those of you (like me) with no desire to ever be a 3D animator, being able to quickly dabble within After Effects is a wonderful addition.

Depth of Options

Now back to the world of 2D animations, and within that world, just about anything is possible with After Effects CS6. Either with the existing software, or through a host of third party plug-ins from companies like Boris FX, GenArts & RedGiant, just about anything is possible. For anyone complaining that their favorite plug-ins don’t work with After Effects, have no fear to jump over, as all of the most popular developers are now working closely with Adobe to deliver the goods.

New to this edition, is a positively brilliant new feature called “Track Camera.” When applied to your hand held footage, Track Camera instantly creates key-frames around the camera’s movement.

Once the camera is tracked, it creates little anchor points on your video that you can attach text to. Simply right click and select “add text and camera” and you're already just about done.

This opens up a lot of new doors. For example, a common effect that has been seen a lot in recent movie trailers is text which moves with the camera. Doing this within After Effects is now easier than ever. Simply use “track camera” on a clip, and snap your text to it. You’ll see it follows the camera movement within the 3D space. You can even add a bit of the previously mentioned “extrude” for added effect.

In addition any masks that you create will follow the camera’s movements and it works well with the Roto Brush Tool (which was previously introduced in CS5). This sample below was hand held (although I tried to keep it as steady as possible). By tracking the camera and using the Roto Brush, I was able to make my subjects arms glow blue with pretty accurate precision. If I wasn’t able to track the camera this would have taken quite some time to work through frame by frame.

Performance

CS6 is being touted as the biggest release in quite some time for After Effects, namely because of one major update: the Global Performance Cache. Previously, when working on a composition, if you made a change to one layer, you’d have to go back and re-render everything to playback in real-time. Well, I’m pleased to say that from here on out you’ll only have to render everything once. The Global Performance Cache stores each individual layer’s render files on a scratch disk, so that changes can be made easily, and playback will still be instant. This even holds true when you close and re-open the program. You can set how much storage will be used for the global performance cache in your preferences. This will save anyone and everyone who uses After Effects, even just for quick little projects, a ton of time.

Value

After Effects is a must have for anyone who hopes to do any motion graphics beyond the simple stuff available immediately in your editing software, and as the pricing structure is similar to Premiere (see my breakdown of pricing and the different bundles/upgrades available in my Premiere Pro CS6 review), my recommendation is to go with either the Production Premium bundle (which also includes Premiere, Photoshop, Encore, Media Encoder, SpeedGrade & Audition) for $1899, or to get After Effects as part of the Creative Cloud subscription program, which gives you 2 licenses to any and all software in the entire Adobe Creative Suite for $50 per month. The latter may be ultimately the more affordable option for all you microfilmmakers out there.

Final Comments

After Effects is a pretty essential tool for most filmmakers who are incorporating any type of graphic treatment to their work, and this latest update is a major one specifically designed to increase the speed at which you can create, without waiting on your computer. This alone makes this update more or less essential for anyone who relies on After Effects as part of their normal work-flow, but the addition of the camera tracking feature and extruded text are also HUGE.

Mark Colegrove

Mark Colegrove is the director of 2008's horror/comedy Isle of the Damned, which is self-distributed through his production company, Dire Wit Films. Based in Maryland, he currently produces corporate video and is working on his second feature, Driven to Succeed, a driver's ed comedy.