Roger Fingas
Adobe on Wednesday announced a slate of impending updates to its core video editing software, Premiere Pro CC, with support for 360-degree and virtual reality videos. In addition, related apps like After Effects CC and Audition CC will also see new improvements.
Premiere Pro will gain a "field of view" mode for imported spherical videos, and let editors freely switch between monoscopic, stereoscopic, and anaglyph frame configurations. When exporting, users will be able to assign VR-related tags for compatible video players.
The software should separately speed up the editing process, by allowing people to edit while audio and video are still being ingested — often a time-consuming process — and take advantage of new keyboard navigation shortcuts.
Other Premiere improvements will include Twitter export, an upgraded Lumetri color correction module, and more titling and captioning options. New proxy workflows will be available for 8K, HDR, and HFR content.
After Effects' main upgrade will be a new audio/video preview engine with smoother playback. Gaussian Blur and Lumetri Color effects will be GPU-accelerated, and the software will get new 3D media export options.
Audition is getting an Essential Sound panel with easier mixing and presets, as well as a quick export option for pushing projects to Media Encoder. That app should have a better media browser panel, and support not just for Audition but also Character Animator CC.
Character Animator will incorporate a new puppet tag panel, making it possible to track puppets in the field of view, rapidly switch between facial profiles, and attach multiple motion trigger behaviors.
Stock CC, finally, is being more closely integrated with other Adobe apps, and given tagged and filtered search for faster access to content.
Adobe has yet to set a firm release date for the above updates beyond an "early summer" timeframe. People will, however, have to have an appropriate Creative Cloud subscription costing at least $49.99 per month, and more for access to Stock material.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
5 Comments
I'm going to a demo of this next week at NAB. I expect the whole conference to be VR and HDR heavy.
A few years ago it was all about 3D... I kind of think VR will be more like 3D and kind of fizzle for most things except gaming. HDR, that is the future.
So much for assertion that Adobe is just sitting on their ass collecting subscription fees. They are pushing out new features on a weekly/monthly basis. Lots of upgrades to all apps and better integration as well as interface improvements. I've always liked Adobe applications and they are only getting better.
I really wish a few companies would create viable alternatives to CC/CS that aren't "software as service"/subscription based. I'm lucky that my university still pays for the student license, but having to indefinitely pay $50 every month is just ridiculous. I feel like Adobe is really in a position to do whatever they want to their prices.