Adobe After Effects 8.0 tracking for mid-2007 release
Exclusive: Adobe Systems Inc. plans to introduce a major update to its After Effects motion graphics and visual effects production software in the spring of 2007, according to a company roadmap viewed by AppleInsider.
The new version, referenced internally by the code-name "Meatloaf," will be the first version of the the visual effects package to ship as a Universal Binary optimized for Apple Computer's new Intel-based Mac systems.
Though many of the software's specific feature enhancements remain shrouded in secrecy, it's expected to deliver additional user interface and OpenGL improvements when it makes its debut as After Effects 8.0 towards the end of June.
For Adobe, the release will mark the second major update to After Effects in less than 18 months.
This past January, the San Jose, Calif.-based software developer released a feature-packed update in Adobe After Effects 7.0. That version introduced a re-designed, unified user interface, accelerated high-fidelity OpenGL 2.0 support, and a comprehensive set of Flash Video (FLV) export capabilities.
Licenses for the professional version of After Effects currently cost $1000, while the standard version fetches $700.
In related news, AppleInsider reported this past weekend that Adobe also holds plans to deliver an early public beta of its highly anticipated Creative Suite 3.0 software bundle for both the Mac and Windows later this month.
The beta release, which will pack developmental versions of popular Adobe applications like Photoshop and Illustrator, will be available as a download to current license holders of Creative Suite 2.0 as early as this week, sources have said.
On Thursday Adobe will hold a conference call with analysts and members of the media to discuss financial results from its fiscal fourth-quarter of 2006. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call estimate the company will earn 33 cents a share on revenues of $670 million, up form 30 cents and $510 million during the year-ago quarter.
The new version, referenced internally by the code-name "Meatloaf," will be the first version of the the visual effects package to ship as a Universal Binary optimized for Apple Computer's new Intel-based Mac systems.
Though many of the software's specific feature enhancements remain shrouded in secrecy, it's expected to deliver additional user interface and OpenGL improvements when it makes its debut as After Effects 8.0 towards the end of June.
For Adobe, the release will mark the second major update to After Effects in less than 18 months.
This past January, the San Jose, Calif.-based software developer released a feature-packed update in Adobe After Effects 7.0. That version introduced a re-designed, unified user interface, accelerated high-fidelity OpenGL 2.0 support, and a comprehensive set of Flash Video (FLV) export capabilities.
Licenses for the professional version of After Effects currently cost $1000, while the standard version fetches $700.
In related news, AppleInsider reported this past weekend that Adobe also holds plans to deliver an early public beta of its highly anticipated Creative Suite 3.0 software bundle for both the Mac and Windows later this month.
The beta release, which will pack developmental versions of popular Adobe applications like Photoshop and Illustrator, will be available as a download to current license holders of Creative Suite 2.0 as early as this week, sources have said.
On Thursday Adobe will hold a conference call with analysts and members of the media to discuss financial results from its fiscal fourth-quarter of 2006. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call estimate the company will earn 33 cents a share on revenues of $670 million, up form 30 cents and $510 million during the year-ago quarter.
Comments
8.0 better have some Motion like OpenGL acceleration ..... some simple scenes are 10 times faster in Motion than in AE7.0
...reminds me... gotta get me some Adobe stock...
(edit: Think I'll wait for it to drop to a more reasonable 25 or 30 before buying)
I'm planning on upgrading majorly here in a few months and this article is really good news, i just hope adobe rises to the occasion and really makes AE shine. I went into a local store to test how fast the current AE (7.0) runs on these xeon chips, and i was greatly underwhelmed. And when i opened the activity monitor it was only using about 127% of overall processing power (out of 400%, since its 100percent per core) . I understand theres alot of translation happening during rendering thru rosetta, but i also understand how fast these mac pros are.
I just hope software companies (namely adobe) will take into much consideration, hardware of the future. Write programs that address more ram, processors etc than are feasable today, so that 2 years later you softwre will still be on the up and up.
either that or i hope apple figures out some way of doing OS-level anti-hyperthreading so that the 4, 8 or however many cores a computer has can be made into one or 2 outrageously fast cores...... this way, no matter how far these developers are behind, if you spend over 3 grand on a machine to be a powerhouse, when you take it hope and crank it up, its a real powerhouse!
public beta anytime soon?
How come we didn't get a 7.5 this time around? There were some good improvements between 6.0- 6.5, and 7.0 has some serious bugs in it. Ever tried hiding the app - it freezes and you gotta force quit, no chance of saving what you've done either. The 3D engine is still inconsistent within nested comps, and masks mess up if they're more than one or two comps down (and forget using them with 3D).
Well. they just released the first update to 7 today. Haven't installed it as I'm at work and we only have 6.5 here, but that hiding the app and it freezing has left me wanting to destroy something on several occasions. Hope that is addressed. edit: This has been addressed according to the release notes (it's the first entry),
luke
Ok so I use after effects to some extent and what they really need to do (in my non-programmer) opinion is figure out a way to leverage all the power in the Mac Pros and machines with more than just 2 cores. With it being a UB obviously, they need to find a way to multi-thread it for 4 or 8 cores and plan way ahead since by the time they get around to updating it again, there will be plenty machines out with 4, 8 or maybe even more cores. With that program it should be able to use every morsel of power those computers can pump out. There is no reason why a computer as powerful as a Mac Pro 3.0 Xeon, with 2gigs of ram and an X1900 512MB Ati card should be rendering frames the same speed roughly as my 15" 1.67 G4 powerbook (even though its going through rosetta).
I'm planning on upgrading majorly here in a few months and this article is really good news, i just hope adobe rises to the occasion and really makes AE shine. I went into a local store to test how fast the current AE (7.0) runs on these xeon chips, and i was greatly underwhelmed. And when i opened the activity monitor it was only using about 127% of overall processing power (out of 400%, since its 100percent per core) . I understand theres alot of translation happening during rendering thru rosetta, but i also understand how fast these mac pros are.
I just hope software companies (namely adobe) will take into much consideration, hardware of the future. Write programs that address more ram, processors etc than are feasable today, so that 2 years later you softwre will still be on the up and up.
either that or i hope apple figures out some way of doing OS-level anti-hyperthreading so that the 4, 8 or however many cores a computer has can be made into one or 2 outrageously fast cores...... this way, no matter how far these developers are behind, if you spend over 3 grand on a machine to be a powerhouse, when you take it hope and crank it up, its a real powerhouse!
public beta anytime soon?
I cant believe that there's a AE user that doesnt know about Nucleo plug in. Google it up and your complaint will be no more :-)
I dont think it's really too much to ask of Adobe to incorporate Nucleo into next version. Very likely it'll be part of Pro bundle.
But even with using 4 cores at full blast in Quad G5 , AE is slow..... OpenGL is where huge gains in speed are to be had but Adobe has been slow to adapt.
Are they again waiting for Apple to inroduce Shake's successor which is suppoused to have Motion's OpenGL acceleration ?!
Final Cut Pro, like any application, has its rough areas but I still find it to be very intuitive. Premiere Pro is a solid application as well. I'm expecting a BIG update to the Final Cut Studio bundle at NAB 2007. Apple spent most of 2006 delivering Universal Binary versions of the Pro apps. It's really been two years since we've seen some major changes in Final Cut Studio and Logic Pro. I'm expecting a Big Bang of new features come next spring as NAMM and NAB allow Apple to trot out new applications.
If I was in your situation I'd grab a Mac Pro and run Adobe Production apps in Bootcamp. It's native speed.
I for one would love to see Adobe go head to head with Apple on OS X. They have excellent pricing on their edu software and I'd certainly setup up a Adobe studio as well.