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Subject: Re: [AE] a very important question for every After Effects user
From: Chris Zwar <chris@chriszwar.com>
In-Reply-To: <list-5344282@media-motion.tv>
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 21:30:37 +1100
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Message-Id: <949E19F1-8164-476E-BC68-6A3B54AB965E@chriszwar.com>
References: <list-5344282@media-motion.tv>
To: "After Effects Mail List" <AE-List@media-motion.tv>

On 12/01/2014, at 9:52 AM, Todd Kopriva <kopriva@adobe.com> wrote:
> a very important question for every After Effects user, from product =
manager Steve Forde:=20
> http://adobe.ly/1exI6tI

I don't feel strongly enough to answer the actual question on the forum, =
but I thought I would share a thought on this list.

After Effects holds an interesting position in the market because it =
straddles 2 different disciplines - design, and vfx compositing.  My =
initial reaction is that improving the raw performance of the =
application will mostly affect the visual fx / compositors more than the =
designers.  =46rom my experience, designers tend to design at their own =
pace and aren't limited by the raw horsepower of the machine they're on.

I often think about how great designs stay great over time, even though =
they may have been created using vastly different technology.  If a =
design isn't great is isn't because the computer was too slow, or didn't =
have enough ram, or the designer didn't own the right plug in.  I love =
the typography and graphic design from the Bauhaus period, it's still an =
inspiration today and it was all done pre-World War 2.  In the book "24 =
Hour Party People" there's a reference to the famous (almost godlike =
now) UK designer Peter Saville designing his layouts using strips of =
cardboard.

When it comes to motion graphics, some of the most influential and =
highly referenced pieces were created using older technology and it can =
be a shock to realise how old they are.  The titles to Seven were done =
in 1995, the green digital rain in the Matrix dates from 1999.  The =
famous interface scenes in Minority Report date from 2002, the opening =
sequence in "Stranger than fiction" was 2006. =20

It's a shock to work out the maths and realise that Seven is almost 20 =
years old, Minority Report is about 12 years old and so on, yet the =
graphics in these films are still hailed as benchmarks today.  Although =
those films no doubt had impressive budgets and timeframes, it wasn't =
the technology or the speed of the computers that made them great.  I =
really don't think that good design is restricted by processing power in =
the same way compositing is.

So basically- I'm all for a faster, more powerful application.  I'll =
never say no to faster rendering and faster performance.  But having a =
faster render engine or a multi-threaded application won't automatically =
make designs better.  Workflow tools, interface improvements, improved =
collaboration tools and so on - they're the sorts of things that help =
everyone do their job better, whereas making the application simply =
faster isn't going to have such a wide reaching effect.

Just thinking out loud=85

-Chris
=20=