Adobe After Effects CS4
Buy Adobe After Effects CS4
Price: $99
Much-needed production features, such as keyword-searchable timelines and projects and nested composition navigation that shows hierarchy in a graphical flowchart format, have been added to this new version. In keeping with the overall application integration touted in the other CS4 updates, you can now export rich media from After Effects to Flash CS4 Professional while still retaining layer and keyframe data for further editing. This means a project you create in After Effects CS4 will transfer all the layer and timeline data over to Flash for further programming and video production for online distribution. This new version also improves asset management and copyright tracking by letting you add and maintain XMP metadata throughout your After Effects projects from start to final render. Mobile-device authoring has been integrated into the workflow, complete with multi-device previews for most popular phones and PDAs.
After Effects, the popular postproduction tool for video professionals, offers numerous workflow improvements for the CS4 release. Echoing its partner CS4 applications, these improvements include pull-down menus for flipping among various workspaces and easily resizable panels. In addition, you can search timelines and projects. For example, typing "PSD" within a search field will bring up Photoshop files related to your project. That time-saving improvement alone might be worth the upgrade price for a well-funded production studio. Plus, there's XMP metadata support for managing assets. Working with 3D imagery expands, as you can import Photoshop Extended 3D layers into After Effects. Plus, 3D compositing gets more control with a Unified Camera tool for viewing every angle, as well as independent animation of X,Y, and Z frames. Creative Suite 4 integration also includes the capability to export layered After Effects work in the new, XML-based XFL format for Flash CS4.You can also import FLV media.
Adobe has added much-needed production features to After Effects CS4, such as keyword-searchable timelines and projects and nested composition navigation. In keeping with the inter-application integration touted in the other CS4 updates, you can now export rich media from After Effects to Flash CS4 Professional while still retaining layer and keyframe data for further editing. (We'll talk more about integration with Flash below.) Even better, After Effects CS4 improves asset management and copyright tracking by letting you add and maintain XMP metadata throughout your After Effects projects from start to final render. After Effects CS4 also integrates mobile-device authoring into the workflow, complete with multi-device previews.