NEWS • FEBRUARY 26, 2001
After Effects 5 Goes 3D
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Getting expressive with Expressions
Another major new feature in After Effects 5 is a scripting function called Expressions. Expressions are JavaScripts that allow you to create arbitrary relationships between parameters for things like procedural-type animations without using keyframes. With expressions, you can create a live relationship between the behavior of one property in a composition and the
behavior of almost any other property on any other layer.

For example, you can link the opacity of one layer to the scale of another, while the tracking of path-based text can be linked to the rotation of another layer.

To create these types of expressions, you drag the expression picker from the property that is to be animated to the property that the animation will be based on. After Effects automatically creates the expression for you. You can also drag the picker between the Timeline and Effect Controls windows.

For those familiar with JavaScript, you can also write your own scripts by defining variables and using other basic JavaScript programming concepts. There's also a popup list of common After Effects functions to speed the process and to eliminate errors.

Application integration
On the integration side, Adobe has upped the interoperability between After Effects 5, Photoshop 6, Premiere 6 and Illustrator 9. In the case of Premiere, Adobe's added new support for embedding project links in After Effects movies.
If you need to make a change to a movie after you've brought it into Premiere for editing, use the Edit Original command in Premiere 6.0 to open the original After Effects project. After you make your changes, the movie is automatically updated in Premiere. It also retains settings in the filters common to AE 5 and Premiere 6 and keeps them editable.

For Photoshop 6, as with AE 4.1, you can import Photoshop layers, adjustment layers and transfer modes. Now in AE 5, in imported Photoshop images that use 16 bit color, all color information is preserved. It also adds support for Photoshop 6's vector masks. In After Effects 5, these masks appear on the layer they are applied to and can be manipulated independently.

As with Photoshop, layers from Illustrator 9 files can be preserved. After Effects 5.0 builds on this integration with support for preserving transparency settings and transfer modes. It also adds support for PDF files.

And the rest ...
There are literally hundreds of new features in After Effects 5, and we aren't going tot cover them all. But here's a look at some of the other major new features added in the new version.

• For one, After Effects 5 breaks the 2 GB file size limit (on both Mac and Windows).
• AE 5 can also output directly to the Flash format (SWF).
• On the interface side, Adobe has added a number of enhancements
• Instead of using dialog boxes to change property values, you can now enter values directly in the Timeline and Effects Control windows or scrub across a value to interactively preview property value settings. When you scrub a value, the Comp window updates dynamically.
• A single Import dialog box lets you import footage, Premiere and After Effects projects and layered Photoshop and Illustrator files, as well as subsets of a sequence.
• Specify a different starting timecode for each composition. Frequently
  used composition settings can be saved as custom presets.
• Ability to specify Motion Blur shutter angles up to 720 degrees for each composition and phase controls that determine when the shutter opens relative to the start of each frame.
• Preview a single layer.
• Create and save custom Workspaces.
• Change the sequence in which effects are applied to a layer by dragging to reorder them directly in the Timeline window.
• For keyframes, you can drag up or down over more than one stopwatch to animate multiple properties.
• The Effect Controls window now includes stopwatches for setting keyframes.
• The time bar for the active layer now has a textured appearance.
• The work area is easier to distinguish from the rest of the composition, as it
  appears white while the rest of the timeline has a subtle gray background.
• Markers can now be locked, and Transfer Modes now appear in a panel that can be hidden or displayed independently.
• Footage window improvements. Preview footage and comps that use a non-square pixel aspect ratio without distortion by choosing Pixel Aspect Correction.
• QuickTime footage playback is also improved.

Pricing
Adobe says After Effects will be released some time in the second quarter, not likely before the NAB convention in April. Pricing on version 5 is $1,499 for the Production Bundle and $649 for the standard version. Upgrade from the 3.x/4.x Production Bundle to the 5.0 Production Bundle Cost $299. Upgrades from the 3.x/4.x standard version to the 5.0 standard version cost $199. The upgrade from the 3.x/4.x standard version to the 5.0 Production Bundle costs $499 within the first 120 of version 5.0's release.

French, German and Japanese versions are expected to ship in the second quarter as well. Pricing and ship dates for these will be released separately.

For more information, visit http://www.adobe.com. Also be sure to visit DMN TV for exclusive QuickTime coverage.

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