In nuce: At this year’s Adobe Max creative conference, which began yesterday, 18 October, and will continue until tomorrow, 20 October, the software company Adobe has already made some exciting announcements – including the release of version 23.0 of After Effects. At the same time, the beta version of the software will be made available. On the other hand, the Substance 3D Collection will be expanded in terms of functionality. Among the innovations that are relevant for VFX artists are Substance 3D Modeler and Substance 3D Sampler. Adobe describes the Substance 3D Collection as a coherent ecosystem filled with applications and content relating to 3D design. The Substance 3D Collection is intended to simplify work on creative projects, particularly in conjunction with Photoshop and Illustrator.

New in After Effects: Selectable Track Mattes, new Animation Presets, and More

In toto – After Effects: Here are some of the most important new features of the new After Effects. The blog post by Senior Product Manager Eric Philpott provides a detailed overview.

• Revised workflow for matte layers, allowing each layer to be used as a track matte. The Track Matte drop-down menu is now located in the Timeline panel for this purpose. As just mentioned, this allows each layer to be defined as a track mat. The advantage of this is that instead of creating individual mattes for each layer, a single matte layer can now be assigned to several target layers. More information on how to select Track Matte Layers is available at helpx.adobe.com .
• Native, hardware-accelerated H.264 encoding has been added – can now be run directly in After Effects. This eliminates the need to use a media encoder.
• 50 new animation templates (presets) for motion graphics – this includes keyframes, effects and expressions. If, for example, an elaborate effect with specific settings for keyframes and expressions has been created, all these settings can be defined as a separate animation template. How exactly this works is also explained at helpx.adobe.com.
• Support for OpenColorIO colour management and the ACES colour space (Academy Color Encoding System). Further information on colour management and colour space is available at helpx.adobe.com .

• The workflow improvements mainly concern timeline navigation and the Composition Presets Lists.
• In After Effects Beta, users can import 3D models directly into After Effects. This works with the .obj, .gITF and .glb file formats, making the workaround of importing 3D models via a third-party plug-in a thing of the past.

In toto – Adobe Substance 3D Collection: Here are the two most important new features for VFX artists. The corresponding blog post by Adobe Group Manager Marc Hamaker provides further information. Incidentally, Digital Production reported on the release of the Substance 3D Collection on 24 June last year.

• The Substance 3D Modeler is being introduced. According to the developer, the creation of 3D objects with the Modeler is to be simplified, coming closer to the drawing of 2D images. The developer compares working with the 3D Modeler to clay, which artists can edit in a VR environment. On the one hand, 3D objects can be created using gesture control; on the other hand, it should be possible to quickly switch back and forth between the VR headset and desktop computer. Modelling in a VR environment should be particularly useful for defining the rough shape of a 3D object. With the subsequent further processing on the desktop PC, artists put the finishing touches to their creation.
• The functionality of the Substance 3D Sampler has been extended. According to Adobe’s blog, the sampler can now transfer series of images into a photorealistic 3D model or, for example, transfer a photograph into an HDR environment. This is made possible by AI-based and photogrammetry tools.

Click further: For an outlook on the future of After Effects, we recommend our advertorial in which we spoke to Adobe’s Principal Product Manager for Motion Graphics Victoria Nece at the IBC (International Broadcast Convention) about updates to After Effects.

Sources: cgchannel.com, helpx.adobe.com ( about the After Effects beta)

The post Adobe announces the new After Effects! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Adobe releases its Character Animator in version 22.5. The Character Animator is a real-time tool for motion capturing and character animation. We last reported on the Character Animator on 9 November 2021 , when it was released in version 22.0.

New functions: At the heart of the new features is the Starter Mode, which is available to all users free of charge. Starter Mode primarily offers functionalities relating to the presentation, recording and exporting of characters. However, the free version of Starter Mode is limited in its range of functions compared to the paid version. Nevertheless, the following functions are also available to users of the free Starter Mode.

• Contains sample puppets: It is also possible to import puppets.
• The settings for the behaviour of your characters: Simply drag and drop from the behaviour panel, which you can find at the top right of the user interface.
• You can customise the backgrounds using the background button.
• Adjust aspect ratios: So that your character fits into the film image.
• Triggerable poses, emotions and backgrounds: Can now also be displayed in the preview.
• Quick export function: Export animations directly as an H264 file.

Click further: You can get an overview of the features in Character Animator 22.5 at helpx.adobe.com. The following video uses application examples to illustrate the advantages of Starter Mode.

FREE Adobe Character Animator: Starter Mode

The post Adobe releases Character Animator 22.5! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Adobe releases version 8.1 of Substance 3D Painter – the 3D texturing tool. According to the developers, Substance 3D Painter 8.1 focuses on improvements to product design workflows.

Feature delights: Here are some of the functions that users can look forward to.

• New colour management with Adobe Color Engine (ACE): This enables ICC profiles (“ICC” stands for “International Color Consortium”). The advantage of this: You have matching colours – across software boundaries. The software concerned naturally includes Photoshop.
• Support for physical size of Substance materials: Adjust scaling and tiling within a fill layer projection by controlling the size in Substance materials. Why this function is worthwhile: To adapt materials to surfaces according to their actual size. This eliminates the hassle of guessing which size might fit.
• New Bakers: Included are three new Bakers – Bent Normals Baker (beacons of occlusion directions), Height Baker (beacons of the differences between low and high poly mesh as a greyscale texture) and Opacity Baker (creates a black and white map showing holes in a high poly mesh).
• Improved pipette (Eyedropper) and material selection (Material Picker): The improvements are designed to make colour management easier – including: A new selection mode (Picking Mode) for colours, new Eyedropper buttons (with which you can capture colours without first selecting the Colour Picker) or Eyedropper keyboard shortcuts (quickly switch between the “Picking” and “Painting” actions). This is just a brief outline of the improvements.
• New and improved 3D noises: Contains over 100 templates (presets). Each noise now has predefined settings, so that a total of 105 presets are now available for seven noises.

Click further: To find out about all nine features of Substance 3D Painter 8.1, click on the corresponding release note.

The post Substance 3D Painter 8.1 released! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Adobe releases version 3.3 of its Substance 3D Sampler. Users can look forward to new tools, new content and – of course – new functions designed to simplify working with materials and ambient lighting.

The new features of Substance 3D Sampler version 3.3 – an outline: Below are some of the new features that immediately caught our proverbial user’s eye. Why don’t you jump along!

Content-Aware Fill: In Adobe Photoshop, Content-Aware Fill is used to remove parts of an image while leaving the surrounding area – around the removed part of the image – unaffected. In Substance 3D Sampler, this feature is now used to keep PRB materials and ambient lights clean.

Spherical Projection: Makes it easier to navigate – and make changes to – 360-degree environments. Adobe has published a video worth watching about how “Spherical Projection” can be used to accommodate 3D ambient lights within such a 360-degree environment, which we have linked below.

First Steps With Sampler: Light Environment

Brush Toolbar: Thanks to the new user interface, you can move the toolbar to any position within the 2D view – regardless of whether it is aligned vertically or horizontally. Use the “e” key to switch between the brush and eraser tool. According to the description, the new tiling options should make painting even more convenient.

Clone Stamp: Now paint multiple Stamp Strokes from different sources – all in a single layer. You can also access your stamp history via the layer stack. You can now display the result of your stamping directly in the Brush Preview before you start drawing.

Click further: For all other newly added functions, click through the corresponding release note.

The post Substance 3D Sampler 3.3 released! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

In nuce: Adobe releases an update for Premiere Pro, which optimises workflows for video and audio editing on the one hand and improves performance on the other.

What new features can you expect? The focus is on the new feature called Remix, which went into beta at Adobe Max 2021 and is now officially available in Premiere Pro. Audio editors can also look forward to Adobe Sensei’s artificial intelligence. The new release also answers the question of whether export for 10-bit 420 HEVC formats is supported. In addition to these major new features, you can also expect smaller functional additions.

What is Remix? This new feature utilises Adobe Sensei’s artificial intelligence to allow you to adjust the length of audio tracks with just a few clicks. According to Adobe, editors can use Sensei to adapt music clips to video content at high speed.

What can Speech to Text do? With the “Speech to Text” feature, as it is called in German, you can now also use transcription offline. In addition, Speech to Text should now work up to three times faster. In addition, the feature should now work up to three times faster than before on computers equipped with Intel Core i9 or Apple M1. On computers with other current processors, the speed should at least double.

What about the export for 10-bit 420 HEVC formats? This export should work ten times faster from now on. Thanks to the new hardware-accelerated encoding in Premiere Pro, editors using a Windows system with Intel or NVIDIA graphics processors can now work more easily with colour-intensive 10-bit and HDR formats.

Is GPU acceleration available for additional effects? According to Adobe, the “Linear Aperture” and “Block Resolution” effects now work faster thanks to GPU acceleration.

Has Canon EOS R5 C camera support been added? Yes, Premiere Pro now also supports video material from the Canon EOS R5 C.

Click further: For more information about the update to Adobe’s Premiere Pro, read Anton Knoblach’s ( Product Manager Video at Adobe) blog post – or click on the two videos below, which explain the improved transcription and artificial intelligence of Adobe Sensei.

Take a Fantastic Voyage: The opening image with the yawning cat of prey and the contemplative lady comes from Adobe’s promotional film “Fantastic Voyage” for Photoshop. The clip is worth a click on 06.11.2020 .

Use AI to Retime Your Music with Remix in Premiere Pro

Transcribe Videos 3x Faster with Speech to Text in Premiere Pro

The post New features for Premiere Pro! first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

The fantastic journey with Adobe

How to enhance a journey on public transport? Beat music in the ear canal, beat literature between the covers of a book – or people-watching in the passenger compartment, perhaps?

Not crazy enough for you? Not enough Emerald City on the horizon, you complain! Not enough monster octopuses on the underground roof, you complain? Not enough LSD-induced hallucinations, you croak?

Then first watch Fantastic Voyage by Adobe and then the associated making-of – so that the LSD-like movement through the city centre will soon be a success.

Fantastic Voyage

 

The post Fantastic Voyage | VFX-Breakdown first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Patrick Poti.

Adobe recently published the major autumn release of the Creative Cloud apps. Adobe presented the new features at its own conference, Adobe MAX 2017, among other events. But it wasn’t just the latest technologies that were on show – with a focus on Adobe Sensei, Adobe also gave a preview of which tools are possible for future releases.

Scene Stitch

Scene Stitch has similar functions to the familiar content-based touch-up, but also allows you to automatically add image elements from collections.

Puppetron

Puppetron enables the transfer of different visual styles to the target image based on sample images. Adobe imagines this technology to be particularly useful in Character Animator.

Project Scribbler

Deep learning for drawing and sketching: Project Scribbler is designed to help with the visualisation of ideas and processes both photos and your own sketches. It can also be used to colour black and white images.

Project Deep Fill

Also based on Adobe Sensei, Adobe wants to improve existing content-aware features with Project Deep Fill in order to achieve more realistic and customised results.

Project Cloak

There was also an eagerly awaited feature in the tech preview: With Cloak, Adobe wants to bring content-based touch-ups from pure image editing into the video context.

Adobe has not announced when the technologies shown will find their way into Creative Cloud products. You can find more tech previews here.

The post Adobe MAX 2017: 11 future technologies first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.