Let’s cut through the marketing. Adobe has a new, giant box of software. It’s a giant box of software you’re probably going to get if you do visual work. It’s finally a box of software that runs on Intel Macs at speeds that don’t make you feel like your Mac Pro is a blue&white G3. And it does a bunch of stuff that you’ll have to, well, learn.

We’ve got enough of a preview, though, to see that there’s a lot to be truly excited about. Most importantly, Photoshop finally understands time and animation, enabling all kinds of artistic effects working directly with animations and video and painting on frames. And After Effects finally eases some animation tasks, opening up some unique effects with vectors and 2D. For visualists wanting to build better materials for live and interactive production by creating more original footage, all of this opens up some interesting new possibilities. (Disclaimer: what looks great on paper means nothing until you’ve tested this. So consider this a preview until we get out review copy.)

So, getting straight to it, what’s cool for visualists in CS3? We’ll be answering that question over the coming months, but here’s the shortened version, plus the arcane and bizarre ways CDMotioners intend to warp Adobe’s tools beyond their PR firm’s wildest expectations:

Flash, All Integrated Up

1. Native Photoshop and Illustrator import. Finally, you’ll be able to work with full-fidelity, seamlessly-imported files from other tools. Some people love Flash’s own vector tools, of course, but no one won’t love the ability to link up with Photoshop and import, complete with layers. CDMo is excited about: insane, multi-layered graphics for VJing in Flash.


2. Edit audio cues easily. Part of why I’m excited about Soundbooth CS3, Adobe’s new audio app, is that it’s perfectly-suited for editing audio for Flash (and, other marketing ideas beside, I’m fairly certain that’s how the tool came about in the first place). More on Soundbooth over at Create Digital Music.

After Effects, Now Better at Animation

1. Shape Layers. Draw and animate vector shapes in After Effects, without leaving the program. CDMo angle: I could see doing a whole gig’s footage with this feature alone.
2. Puppet. Manipulates and warps 2D images for animation. CDMo angle: Your challenge is to use this without looking like all the other motion graphics artists who are about to overuse it. I’m sure it can be done; I love the impact of manipulating 2D and quasi-3D After Effects.
3. Brainstorm. Generate and preview “animation variations.” Again, AE goes to better animation.

While After Effects is a 3D environment, it’s generally used in quite a limited way, being comprised mostly of 2D surfaces moving in 3D space. Steve Kilisky (After Effects Senior Product Manager) has recently posted some great work by designers pushing After Effects’ 3D capabilities to the limits:

AE or 3D looks at a superb animation (44MB download) by Chris Zwar, who has in the past been a CreativeCow contributor.

In terms of what was AE 3D- the answer is practically everything. The curtains drawing back at the beginning were a piece of stock footage but everything else was done inside AE. Even the curtains which don’t draw back are solids with fractal noise. The bouncing balls were CC spheres (with expressions to squash and bounce them appropriately), the “gun” at the end was a CC cylinder, the wooden blocks which form the rings and the “Challenge” pattern were just 3D solids arranged by expressions, etc etc.

CreamyOrange - Extreme 3D explores a similar fairground theme. Putting together a ferris wheel, roller coaster and spinny chair thing using AE, Photoshop and Illustrator. The final piece was comprised of 7000 3D layers, and seems to have triggered a rendering bug in AE (which Steve has comitted to investigating).

It’s great to see artists and designers pushing the limits of software, but even more refreshing is that the developers (and product managers) are blogging publicly to acknowledge the work these people are creating and troubles they’re encountering.

Has it really been 2 months since episode 1 of Steven Watkins‘ Backspace podcast was released?

Episode 2 came out on Friday. It doesn’t quite recapture the ethereal feel and technical polish of that first episode, but it’s still very impressive work for a one-man band (showreel here).

Previously:
Interview with Stephen Watkins.
Backspace Episode 1.

A combination of frenetic CDM backend design work and all of my clients finally giving me materials 2 weeks before I leave to holiday in Vietnam has kept me from writing, and for that I apologize. Peter has or course kept up the fantastic content, but there is some more material which needs to be spread around and I can’t see any time to write full news posts before I leave. So here it is condensed, and almost editorialization free:

Visualist News

Open Source Film Footage: Stray Cinema

Stray Cinema is an online community where you are able to download and re-edit the raw footage from a film we have shot in London. This will provide people from all over the world with an opportunity to create their own version of the film. Stray Cinema will navigate the film experiment out of the online digital world, into the ‘real world’ with a screening of the top five films in London. The footage shot in London is the first of many open source films to be provided by Stray Cinema.

Lost in Light will transfer 8mm to digital for free* (so why don’t you shoot some 8mm).

New AE Plugin: ZbornToy.

Here’s a fresh new way to composite externally rendered 3D images in After Effects. The plug-in ZbornToy takes grayscale depth maps and magically let’s you continue tweaking and change many parameters from within AE.

Tasty 3D Business: Behind HP’s “Hands” commercials. Java-based 3D sketching. Fine art 3D rendering, and more.

Adobe’s November Plug-in Guide: The November version of the Plug-In Guide is now available. It contains listings of all known plug-ins for InDesign, Acrobat and Illustrator. Categories include Shrink-Wrap, Catalog & Database, Newspapers, and Freelancers.

Outside Hollywood:

Tutorials and Howto

Looping Fractal Noise: Fractal Noise is the swiss army knife of AE plugins. Newbies may pass over it because of the cheezy default plugin look, but seasoned pros can use it for anything which requires random or organic movement and looping motion; clouds, flame, water, slime, morphs

Beaming Up effect in AFX.

Hidden Illustrator<->Photoshop integration

Background: The compositing model (i.e. the layer blending modes & options) used by Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat is different than the one used by Photoshop. Therefore some blending options in Photoshop (for example, complex “Blend If” settings) can’t be replicated in Illustrator. As a result, when you place a PSD file into Illustrator, the blending is isolated. That is, the PSD is treated as things a little world unto itself, and the blending modes within it don’t interact with anything else in the Illustrator document. Objects like drop shadows (set to Multiply mode) only multiply against other things inside the PSD.

AE Keyframe Boomerang Effect: Part 1.

In this tutorial, Creative Cow Leader Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how to handle the annoying (and sometimes crippling) boomerang effect, in which a layer moves randomly between two spatial keyframes that are exactly the same.

Using After Effects 7 on Intel-Based MacPro Computers. Ed.: This one is interesting as an alternative to booting into Windows, but don’t get too excited: basically, you have to humble your Mac Pro into running Rosetta and find some way of not having the machine die. In the meantime, I have to admit, I’m getting more addicted to running the Adobe software on Windows, anyway — sorry, Apple. -PK

DIY: Building your own computer for Digital Video. Ed.: See also our DIY Shuttle XPC assembly, which is kind of the portable version of this — only cheaper, and I didn’t dress up like Darth Vader. This looks great as a desktop machine, however, and you’d be hard pressed to match bang-for-buck and customization on the Mac. -PK

Videos

The Rapture – “Whoo! Alright! Yeah Uh-Huh!”: Great animation, great motion tracking, great feel. Rocking clip.

RC plane with Remote Head-Mount Gyroscope-Controlled Camera Plane: We now officially live in The Future.

After months of closed beta testing, Bome’s Midi Translator Pro (Windows only) has finally been released for public consumption. Midi Translator is a powerful addition to your midi kit, allowing you to translate midi messages into different midi messages, qwerty key presses (control non-music apps with midi controllers), or to stop them completely. The latest versions include the following new features:

• Keystroke as Incoming Action
• Rules: variable assignments, mathematical expressions, jumps, and conditional execution
• Timers: repeated or delayed execution of Translators
• Changed to file-based approach: presets are now saved in project files (*.bmtp).
• A migration wizard will savely convert your old presets in the registry.
• Added log window for convenient verification (debugging) of your translation presets
• MIDI device selector in Tray menu
• Reload MIDI device list if a device is plugged in
• Add separate keystroke press/key release Outgoing Action
• Allow compound MIDI IN messages, e.g. NRPN and RPN messages

Italicised features are available in Midi Translator Pro only, which costs 59 Euro. Bome’s Midi Translator “Classic” is still free for personal use, or 29 Euro. The classic version will be enough for most uses, although Pro gives you some serious midi ninja options, and is required for to make the BCD2000 jogwheels work properly in Traktor.

 Midi Translator is extremely powerful, and reasonably confusing. I have some half-finished presets here for Resolume, After Effects, Premiere and Photoshop which have been waiting around for the public release to prod me into completing and posting them. So look out for them soon. In the meantime make with the downloading, and hit the comments with your midi translation ideas and setups.

I interviewed Stephen Watkins of the beautiful Float video podcast earlier this week. Unfortunately his site, Backspace, was taken down due to bandwidth overusage. It’s back now, so here’s the interview to go with it:

You mention on your site that you’re interested in Podcasts as a delivery medium. Do you subscribe to any video podcasts have any sites which are regular sources of inspiration?

My iTunes is overflowing with video podcasts of all genres from the hilarious Ricky Gervais podcast to my current favourite, the Portable Film Festival Videocast. I also spend a bit of time at motionographer.com which is a fantastic watering hole for motion graphics. The fantastic thing about podcasts is that they are accessible, global and most importantly free. There is something invigorating about being able to share your content and videos with people from around the world.

What do you think makes podcasts work for artists, and is there a revenue stream at some point? (Or does there even need to be?)

Podcasts work for artists because it is a way to broadcast your work (generally) free of censorship and advertising restrictions. In terms of obtaining revenue I guess this depends on the individual artist. You have to ask yourself the question, are doing this for the money? or are doing it to just get your work out there. However, financial income could come in a more indirect fashion such as the exposure of your work leading to freelance work.

What’s your background in moving images? What happened before Float?

I have been studying in a graphic design course for the past 4 years so most of my motion graphics skills have been self taught. However, the basic principles of design remain the same across graphic design and motion graphics. Before float I have created a few other films for various projects ranging from a film for a local city council to some personal experimental pieces.

Can you give us a little technical information: Hardware and software used? Project timeline? Budget?

I run on a G5 powermac and created Float using After Effects 6.5, Final Cut Pro 5 and Photoshop CS2. Float was also filmed on a Sony PD150. Float took around 30 hours to create not including a days worth of shooting and rendering time. The cost of creating Float was essentially nothing as I was able to borrow most equipment free of charge from my university. I was also provided with free website hosting from www.wdata.com.au

Adobe’s Bob Donlon has a great step-by-step tutorial on putting together 3D Pan & Scans in After Effects.

This is a great weapon to have in your visual arsenal. Generally clients seem to be getting better at providing reasonable amounts of raw materials and resources for visual gigs, but occasionally you’ll get someone who emails you a couple of JPGs and a PDF logo and expects a half-hour visuals dvd in return. This technique can be a great help, and photoshop’s healing brush can make short work of those background edits.