When version 7 of Adobe After Effects was released, there were more tools and features than you could shake a stick at, and it seemed we wouldn’t need a new release for quite some time. But the introduction of the Intel Mac, as well as user demand for tighter integration between other Adobe apps, necessitated dropping the traditional dot-x (.x) release and unleashing Adobe After Effects CS3 (aka version 8) on the world. I reviewed the beta version, but the final release should be available by late summer.

Dramatic animations can be created in After Effects if given enough time, but when has a client ever given you that option? After Effects CS3 continues to add features that make life easier, no matter when the deadline. The biggest addition to After Effects CS3 is the introduction of Shape Layers. This new shape drawing tool lets you quickly create and animate vector shapes, complete with solid or gradient fills and strokes. Instead of jumping to Illustrator to create a shape, users can continue to work in After Effects, uninterrupted.

Multiple shapes can be grouped together, and by using shape attributes, a simple design can become quite complex. If you need to quickly create a textured background, throw on a couple of repeaters and maybe a twist or a warp, in a few moments you can have results that would have taken you hours in another application. One of my favorite attributes is Pucker and Bloat, which can be used to create a variety of complex designs with a quick drag of the slider.

The only issue I have with Shape Layers is it will probably take you some time to get used to the stacking order of attributes, as adding two Repeaters, which are used to duplicate and animate shapes, can cause very different results depending on which is applied first.

Be warned: As much time as Shapes will save when in a crunch, you’ll quickly eat up all that free time by tweaking and adjusting settings just to see what new shapes you can create.

To manage and enhance all these new choices, Adobe has introduced Brainstorm. With this tool, you can select one or many parameters of a layer and see variations on the theme. Yes, this is indeed very similar to the Variations tool many of you know and love in Photoshop. I loved using this feature to quickly modify my projects and I’m looking forward to using it to create an entire library of new presets to call up at a moment’s notice.

Despite it’s inherent cool factor, I wasn’t a big fan of the Puppet Tool when I first started using it. But after I got my head around the fact this is nothing but a highly accurate mesh warp, it’s become a very useful feature. The Puppet Tool works by placing a series of pins on an object (hands, feet, torso, and so on), with each having an area of influence that can be used to distort and move a user-defined mesh. As long as you don’t create an extreme movement, like a character reaching all the way across the screen, the distortion of a layer is kept to a minimum, requiring a close examination to see if the movement is real or enhanced.

One of the final new features I really dig is the ability to animate individual text characters in 3D space. Instead of using scale and skew selectors to imitate 3D movement, you can actually move these characters in 3D space, creating text that casts accurate shadows on itself and the surrounding environment.

Because this is such a welcome addition to an already-cool feature, I expect to see text animation jump to a whole new level this year.

When I got my hands on an Intel-based MacBook Pro, I was really disappointed in the speed performance when running After Effects 7.0. But After Effects CS3 simply screams as a Universal Binary application, cutting render times by 50 percent or more. This is due, in part, to After Effects’ ability to use multiple processors on the CPU to render multiple frames simultaneously. I did a test with Brian Maffitt’s TotalBenchmark, rendering once with AE7, then again with CS3.

Apple MacBook Pro
CS3 15 minutes 52 seconds
AE 7 35 minutes 57 seconds

HP Pavilion
(AMD Turion 64 Mobile 2.39GHz 2.0 GB of RAM)
AE CS3 31 minutes 8 seconds
AE 7 30 minutes 20 seconds
AE 6.5 28 minutes 47 seconds

PC users really need to pay attention to the system requirements, as After Effects CS3 is designed to run best on Intel processors. My HP Pavilion with an AMD processor didn’t fare as well.

An entire magazine could be devoted to covering all the new and cool features, such as tighter integration with Adobe Premiere, exporting Flash Video files with cue points, the ability to import Photoshop files with layer styles intact (yes!), color management, and more. For now, Shape Layers, Brainstorm, Puppet Tool and Per-Layer Text Effects are the big new features that’ll keep you busy creating dynamic and dramatic content for months to come. At first I was concerned Adobe wouldn’t be able to add enough new content to justify a full number release, but after playing with Adobe After Effects CS3 for the last couple of months, it is clear Adobe has packed so many new features inside, you can now crank any AE project up to 11.

Windows:

– Intel Pentium 4, Intel Centrino, Intel Xeon, or Intel Core Duo (or compatible) processor
– Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise (certified for 32-bit editions)
– 1GB of RAM for DV; 2GB of RAM for HDV and HD
– 3GB of available hard-disk space plus 2GB of space for optional content (additional free space required during installation)
– 1024×768 monitor resolution with 32-bit video card; Adobe recommended graphics card for GPU-accelerated playback
– For OpenGL support: Adobe After Effects supported OpenGL 2.0 card (NVIDIA recommended)
– DVD-ROM drive
– QuickTime 7.1.5 software required to use QuickTime features

Macintosh:

– PowerPC G4 or G5 or multicore Intel processor
– Mac OS X v.10.4.9
– 1GB of RAM for DV; 2GB of RAM for HDV and HD
– 3GB of available hard-disk space plus 2GB of space for optional content (additional free space required during installation)
– 1024×768 monitor resolution with 32-bit video card; Adobe recommended graphics card for GPU-accelerated playback
– For OpenGL support: Adobe After Effects supported OpenGL 2.0 card (NVIDIA recommended)
– DVD-ROM drive
– QuickTime 7.1.5 software required to use QuickTime features