After Effects 5.5: more 3D for Adobe's motion graphics and effects software.(Evaluation)

ADOBE SYSTEMS' After Effects motion graphics and effects package has had a long history in the animation and motion graphics community. The software is the de facto standard for motion graphics designers, but After Effects has also found a solid following in the animation and special effects communities. Version 5.5 offers a significant number of advances that make it an even better choice for anyone involved in creating moving images.

After Effects is available for both Mac and PC platforms. As with any compositing application, a fast hard disk and lots of memory are a plus. The software is also multithreaded, which means users with machines with multiple processors will get an added boost in speed.

The most important feature added to After Effects in Version 5 was 3D. Having 3D in a compositor can be a real lifesaver, as it allows you to easily animate the layers of your composite forward and back along the Z-axis. This means that artists no longer have to "cheat" the third dimension. Version 5.5 builds on this foundation with a number of tools to flesh out the 3D environment. Multiple viewports are now available, and the software has improved the way it handles intersecting layers.

Another advantage of 3D is the ability to have multiple cameras and lights in a scene. Cameras allow you another way of moving through the composite. Lights give you the ability to highlight an area of the scene, and colored lights let you tint it. Lights can also cast shadows, and in Version 5.5, colored shadows are supported.

For those who use 3D software, the production bundle can now import camera data from Alias|Wavefront's Maya and Discreet's 3ds max, which enables it to seamlessly integrate with a special effects pipeline. In addition, the production bundle supports full 16-bit images, which makes the package usable in feature film production. The software can import and export industry standard Cineon and RLA files, and on the PC, After Effects now offers full support for DV-based codecs.

Among the more important additions are enhancements to the masking tools, which are essential for special effects work. The Smart Mask keyframe assistant makes it much easier to animate transitions between complex masks. After Effects can now add motion blur to masks as well as duplicate mask shapes, and masks can also be created and edited on the fly in the composition window. Each mask can ...