But, and there’s always a but, they missed to do something good with what they started in CS4: the community help.

In CS4, when you went to the support page, you could browse/search the « official»  help pages and extend your search for community help. Community help is a google search optimized and used only on websites added into the Adobe database as good sources of information. So searching for « expression»  for exemple could link you to the official help page, but also to Dan Ebbert site, aenhancers forum, Creative Cow, VideoCopilot and so on… That was brilliant.

They even added the possibility for users to add comments and links directly in the official help pages to even build a better help.

On that aspect, CS4 was a breakthrough compared to CS3. So the question was how Adobe could benefit from that and bring it a step further in CS5. Well, the sad news is that they’ve done horribly wrong.

First of all, they removed the breadcrumb navigation table of content on every pages of the official help, making the browsing experience really, really bad. The Toc is still available on the home page of the official help, but if you have to go back to it everytime you want to switch to another page, it’s bad bad bad design.

Even the official support page doesn’t have a link to the official webpage in it’s main navigation bar. it is hidden under « additional help» , putting the valuable information a step further away from the user.

So you could say to yourself that you just might use the search feature to find your content. Nop, the results are not that relevant anymore, and the chance is high that it’ll give you results from other products.

Last but not least, they’ve build something that looked good on paper, but that is really bad designed for now: the community help client. It’s an Air application designed to regroup and auto-update all the help pages from your product.

How can it be bad you may ask ? Well, they have removed the table of content (Toc) from every help page, the search gives you anything but the pages you’re looking for, and the app isn’t even convenient to use. It’s so bad that I even set it’s pref to load the browser version instead.

And to be completly honest, I don’t even try to use the CS5 help page anymore, and I’m not going to add comments until it’s fixed. For now I’ll be using the CS4 help.

I’m really sad because I really enjoyed the CS4 help, and it made me add comments and join the community of people who cares. All that have been squashed away by poor design decision, and worst of all, without bringing something else to compensate.

We are now forced to access the documentation with what they think is the « good»  and « only way»  to do: searching. And the worst part is that the official help pages are fully loaded with good info. They just don’t want us to ready them easily anymore.

So what is the plan for the next version ? I’m betting Adobe will reduce once again the scope of it’s help, and eventally get rid of it and will only rely on community help. Sure it may never be the case, but considering they just have made an unbrowsable version of their help, and hid it under an « additional help»  menu in the support page navigation bar, why wouldn’t they get rid of it ?

So if by any chance an Adobe rep finds this page, please, fix your help system, and stop trying to force us in what you think is (or what you think the metrics says is) the only paradigm. I don’ t agree with what Steve Jobs says about Adobe, but at least, he know how to design and good online help (check iTunes one for exemple)

[ EDIT ] You’ll find a much more up-to-date version on toolfarm website.

With the CS5 announcement getting closer and closer, several plugin developer / manufacturer announced their upgrade policy to 64bit. Remember, none of your 3rd party plugins will work in AE CS5 due to 64bit.

Scripts and Pixel blender plugins should work.

I decided to regroup all the news on this page to keep it simple for people to track any announcement.

Video Copilot

Twitch: 64b version announced / FREE upgrade (source)

Optical Flare: 64b version announced / FREE upgrade (source)

Red Giant Software

Individual plugins: 64b version announced / $29 Upgrade fee (source)

Magic Bullet Suite: 64b version announced / $99 Upgrade fee (source)

Trapcode Suite: 64b version announced / $99 Upgrade fee (source)

Cycore Effects

Cycore SD: Included in AE CS5 (source)

Cycore HD: 64b version announced / Upgrade fee TBA / FREE for new purchasers (source)

RE:Vision FX

Individual plugins: 64b version announced / Upgrade fee TBA / FREE for new purchasers (source)

DigiEffects

Individual plugins: 64b version announced for Camera Mapper, Fallof Lighting, Aged Film / FREE upgrade (source)

New plugins: 64b version announced for Freeform 3D Mesh Warp, Freeform 3D Displacer / No upgrade necessary / (source)

Damage 2.0: 64b version announced / $49 Upgrade fee from Damage 1 (source)

Freeform: Included in AE CS5 (source)

I emailed Robert Sharp from DigiEffects to have a status update on their other plugins:

Atmosphere, is already ported to 64b / Upgrade fee TBA

Delirium will be ported to 64b, but no specific timeframe.

Aurorix, Berserk, Simulate Illuma, Simulate Camera and Buena Depth Cue will NOT be ported to 64-bit.

Frischluft

Individual plugins: 64b announced / FREE Upgrade (souce: the AE ML)

Imagineer Systems

Mocha for AE: bundled with AE CS5 (source)

Mocha Shape for AE: bundled with AE CS5 (source)

Other plugs: unknown

Synthetic Aperture

Color Finesse LE: bundled with AE CS5 (source)

Color Finesse: 64b announced / Upgrade fee TBA / Free for new purchasers (source)

Gen Arts

Sapphire Suite: 64b announced for version 5 / $599 Upgrade fee from Sapphire 2 (source)

Automatic Duck

AD Pro Import AE: 64b announced for version 5 / Upgrade fee TBA

The Foundry

Keylight: Included with AE CS5 (source)

Boris FX

Boris Continuum Complete: 64b for version 7 (coming may 2010) / $295 upgrade fee from v6 / Free for new purchasers (source)

Zackwerks

Individual plugins: 64b version announced / Upgrade fee TBA (source)

Thanks to Wes & Rob for the updates on Automatic Duck & Gen Arts !

Thanks to Joe for Zackwerks info !

Other plugs: unknown

So your favorite plugin isn’t on that list ? I’ll be updating this page regularly and with NAB next week, news fill fall like autumn leaves, so be sure to come check it often.

2 days ago, Todd Kopriva, Adobe After Effects Documentation Lead, wrote on his blog about 64bit and detailed that AE CS5 will require OSX 10.5 or later for Macs, and Windows Vista 64 or Windows 7 64 for PCs. No mentions about Win XP 64.

So, to clear things up for good, I decided to wrote him an email to get the info straight from the horse mouth.

And the answer is: AE CS5 won’t run on Windows XP x64.

Be sure to register quick on Adobe website.

So, as you know, Michael Coleman, project manager of AE, announced on his blog that the next version of After Effects will be 64bit.

But you might wonder to what extend this will impact your workflow, or the plugins you already own.

First of all, if you’re on Windows XP or prior, it means no luck. You’ll have to upgrade to Vista or 7. If you’re on a Mac OS prior to Snow Leopard, you’ll be in the cold too.

[Edit] MacOs 10.5 is also 64bit capable, so you’ll be able to run AE 64 on Leopard & Snow Leo.

Why is that ? it’s because these are 32bit OSes (and Win XP 64bit was not not supported in CS4 so it won’t probably be suported by AE next). In order to AE 64 to run, you need a 64bit OS. Snow Leopard is 64bit. On Windows, you will need the 64bit version of Vista or 7. If you have windows 7, all the versions came with both 32bit and 64bit installers, so chance is that you are already running a 64bit system.

But what is 64bit anyway ? 64bit is way more than 2×32bit. To keep it simple, 32bit systems couldn’t use more than 4gb of ram. When AE was a 32bit app it could never use more than 4gb of Ram on a single process. With 64bit, this limitation is gone, and I assume you know how much AE loves Ram.

More Ram equals to longer Ram previews, to bigger compositions, and less « Memory buffer errors»  assuming you have more than 4gb of Ram on your computer.

So it’s all good news right ? Wrong.

The flipping side of the coin is that AE 64bit will only run 64bit plugins. Photoshop users have already gone to that in CS4 on Windows with Photoshop CS4 64bit, but PS was still available in 32bit. It won’t be the case for AE. As Michael Coleman pointed out, they made the hard choice to only go 64bit and not support 32bit anymore because of time constraints. They could have done a 32/64bit version but they choose not to. So if AE 64 was out today, none of your plugs would work.

If you’re like me, you probably won’t be able to make serious work without some Trapcode plugs, and some « insert your favorite plug here»  plugs. The good news is that plugin developers are working on 64bit version of their plugs, and Michael Coleman assures us that a lot will be available during the AE 64 launch window.

This raises 2 questions: will the plug upgrades be free ? will all the plugs be converted to 64 bit ?

Simple answer: probably no and definitly no.

Some plugin developers will offer free upgrade, but not everyone as porting complex plugs from 32bit to 64bit requires more than a simple clic of a button. My personnal feeling is that most upgrades will be free, but that’s just assumption. Some plugin developers already announced that they won’t be porting their whole library to 64bit, and that oldest plugs will probably be ported on a case per case basis. On the other hand, Andrew Kramer announced on his blog that free updates to Twitch and Optical Flares will be available when AE 64 launchs.

So, to sum things up, chance is high that you will have to upgrade your OS, then AE, and then your plugs. That’s not an easy step, a cheap step, but it’s sure a good start to finally use all the power 64bit is giving us.

A last word about the Mercury engine from Adobe Premiere Pro 64. I’ve read here and there that the Mercury Engine (which uses Cuda acceleration to do realtime wonders) will be used in AE 64 and pointing to the AE 64 press release as a source. Well sorry to disappoint people wanting RT in AE 64, but it is clear in the press releases and tech demos that Mercury Engine is only announced for Premiere Pro 64. So unless they keep it under wraps for AE 64, it won’t be in AE 64.

Nouveau script: Immigration de Lloyd Alvarez

En plus de la nouvelle version d’aescript dont on parlait ici, Lloyd a pris le temps de sortir son nouveau script Immigration, qui aide à l’importation des séquences d’images.

J’ai eu la chance de pouvoir beta tester le script avant sa sortie et je ne vous le dirais qu’une seule fois: si vous bossez avez des séquences, achetez-le. Oui, vous avez bien lu, j’ai écris « acheter» . Immigration est le premier script distribué en shareware, ce qui ne nous rajeuni pas, nous autres vétérans du net qui avons téléchargé les démo des jeux ID Software a 14400 bauds dans les années 90.

Mais là, vous vous posez deux questions: combien ça coûte, et est-ce que j’en ai pour mes 20$ (14€) ? Pour commencer, vous pouvez vous l’offrir pour 10$ (7€) pendant une durée limitée, et a ce prix la vous repartez avec des fonctionnalités plutôt cool:

Déjà, vos séquences apparaissent sous forme d’un seul fichier. Ensuite Immigration analyse en récursif les sous dossier et vous pouvez importer toute la hiérarchie de dossier ainsi que les séquences directement dans After. SI jamais vous devez remplacer une séquence-v1 par une séquence-v2, ou même un groupe de séquence, ou encore plus fort, une hiérarchie de dossier, vous pouvez ! Et ceux d’entre vous qui bossent avec des passes de rendu 3D pour les compositer dans After savent de quoi je parle. Jetez un oeil au tutorial pour découvrir un tas d’autres options, et après ça, vous serez plus qu’heureux de vous offrir ce super script pour 10/20$

Today i’m proud to finaly say that sParticular v1 is done and released. It has been ready for a few days now, but I was waiting for the new aescripts.com version that Lloyd was preparing behind curtains.

The new aescript.com will be an online ressource for scripts, but not only from Lloyd anymore. He has opened his website to script developers, and I’m sure it will become an even more important place for scripts addicts.

So be sure to check aescripts.com/sparticular and sParticular homeland. Hope you’ll enjoy it !

sParticular dispo sur la nouvelle version d’aescript.com

Aujourd’hui je suis fier d’annoncer que sParticular, mon script pour Particular est enfin frais et dispo. Il attendait sagement dans sa chambre depuis quelques jours que Lloyd Alvarez mette les dernières touches à la nouvelle version d’aescripts.com

Cette nouvelle version proposera désormais des scripts de plusieurs auteurs et ne sera donc plus cantonnée aux excellents script de Lloyd. D’ici quelques semaines, je suis sur qu’il deviendra le site de référence pour tous les scripts addicts.

Alors, allez jetez un oeil suraescripts.com et sur la page de sParticular. J’espère qu’il vous plaira !