Adobe After Effects CS6 review

Adobe After Effects has a huge user base in the motion graphics and animation sectors, and Adobe After Effects CS6 enables you to deliver more cinematic visual effects and sophisticated motion graphics than ever before!

Our Verdict

The Global Performance Cache is amazing, as it basically means that you have much more power to experiment with effects without waiting around for the rendering of your PC to catch up. As such it's worth, to a deadline-conscious compositor at least, the cost of an upgrade - or Creative Cloud subscription- in itself. The 3D camera tracker and ray tracer renderer are also very welcome additions, probably the Wow features in this release, though it has to be said we have a soft spot for the Illustrator integration too. Variable mask feathering has been long requested by the AE faithful, so that patience has been finally rewarded. Having sung the praises of After Effects CS6, there were things we weren't so keen on. We don't like the fact that Photoshop Video Layers and Pixel Bender are not presently supported. And we'll probably have to invest in an NVIDIA Quadra card or similar after being tempted by the thought of GPU-accelerated ray-traced 3D rendering. This may be problematic for those on a MacBook Pro or Windows laptop. It's also worth noting that the ray tracer does not support layer styles and certain masks and effects, nor is underlying transparency preserved, or tasks like lighting blending modes and track mattes supported. However the ray tracer renderer will deliver a very decent level of photorealistic quality using only the power of the CPU, so don't let this put you off upgrading.

For

  • You no longer need to re-render cached items
  • Cache Work Area In Background
  • 3D photorealistic Ray Tracing renderer
  • Masks can now have variable feathering
  • Illustrator and Avid/Apple editing integration

Against

  • Photoshop Video Layers not supported
  • Pixel Bender Effects not supported
  • Rolling Shutter Repair could be improved
  • Limited range of supported cards for GPU acceleration

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Adobe Afgter Effects CS6

Adobe After Effects has a huge user base in the motion graphics and animation sectors, so any update to the power of this venerable compositing workhorse will be eagerly scrutinised by those working in broadcast and cross-media applications. Luckily for those artists (and Adobe), After Effects CS6 will do nothing to tarnish its status and appeal.

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The Verdict
9

out of 10

Adobe After Effects CS6

The Global Performance Cache is amazing, as it basically means that you have much more power to experiment with effects without waiting around for the rendering of your PC to catch up. As such it's worth, to a deadline-conscious compositor at least, the cost of an upgrade - or Creative Cloud subscription- in itself. The 3D camera tracker and ray tracer renderer are also very welcome additions, probably the Wow features in this release, though it has to be said we have a soft spot for the Illustrator integration too. Variable mask feathering has been long requested by the AE faithful, so that patience has been finally rewarded. Having sung the praises of After Effects CS6, there were things we weren't so keen on. We don't like the fact that Photoshop Video Layers and Pixel Bender are not presently supported. And we'll probably have to invest in an NVIDIA Quadra card or similar after being tempted by the thought of GPU-accelerated ray-traced 3D rendering. This may be problematic for those on a MacBook Pro or Windows laptop. It's also worth noting that the ray tracer does not support layer styles and certain masks and effects, nor is underlying transparency preserved, or tasks like lighting blending modes and track mattes supported. However the ray tracer renderer will deliver a very decent level of photorealistic quality using only the power of the CPU, so don't let this put you off upgrading.

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