LAS VEGAS — Adobe (www.adobe.com) is an the NAB show with a number of improvements to its Creative Suite, though the company is not formally announcing a version number.
Adobe Anywhere is a new creative workflow platform that allows pros using Adobe tools to work together, regardless of their location, giving them access to centralized media and assets. Anywhere will launch at the NAB show next week. According to Adobe's Michael Coleman, a studio would install Anywhere software on a Windows platform and then users would be able to collaborate via the company's Prelude and Premiere Pro applications.
Anywhere takes advantage of the Mercury streaming engine, which allows users to see the same assets at the same time, but without having to transfer files. Users are always looking at the real assets, at full resolution, rather than proxies.
Adobe's Al Mooney highlighted some of the advancements in Premiere Pro, which was used to cut four recent Sundance submissions. Premiere Pro now integrates the Speedgrade color engine and comes with pre-baked looks that can be easily applied to footage. The looks are set, and do not offer tweaking. Also new is Open CL and CUDA support on both Mac and Windows. In addition, VST3 plug-ins are supported, as are hardware control surfaces.
Adobe's Patrick Palmer highlighted advancements in the Speedgrade application, which Adobe had acquired from Iridas. The color tool has a new user interface that makes features easier to find. The development is based on user feedback and is laid out with a Media/Color/Render/Result workflow. Shot matching is now easier, and thanks to the new layout, users working on a single screen will be able to better see tools such as scopes and the preview window.
One of the most interesting announcement came from Adobe's recent partnership with Maxon, the maker of Cinema 4D. The new After Effects release will take interoperability between AE and Cinema 4D to new level. Company research showed that pros doing broadcast design work use the two applications hand in hand, so Adobe looked at applying its dynamic link concept to the workflow. The result is that After Effects now supports .C4D files. In fact, the Maxon Cinema 4D engine is now inside of After Effects. Cinema 4D Lite is included with AE, allowing users to work with real 3D geometry within the application. Users never have to render out of Cinema 4D to get material into After Effects. In addition, AE users can create new Cinema 4D files within After Effects.
Adobe's Steve Forde highlighted some of the other advancements that After Effects received, including the new Warp Stabilizer VFX tool, which adds track points into a scene. Users can also “reverse stabilize” to lock in angles on objects. A new rotoscoping tool - Rotobrush - speeds up the process by allowing users to quickly refine edges. A demo showed how footage that might have been discarded can now be used in a production.
Adobe is providing a special offer aimed at video pros in North America to join Adobe Creative Cloud. The company is offering a rate of $29.99 a month for their first year, which marks a 40 percent savings off the regular price of an annual membership.