when will after effects use Metal.

[barubin88]

When will ae use Metal?

[Todd_Kopriva · Accepted solution]

‌Let me try to clarify:

What David showed on the Apple stage was a demonstration of the potential that Metal has for After Effects, as well as for other Adobe creative applications. In his role leading our R&D group, he has committed us to pursuing performance in general as well as specifically with Metal on the Mac platform. But that is not a statement about specific timing of when these features will be publicly available, nor is it a promise about exactly what parts of the application will be taking advantage of this technology when that time comes.

My statements here have been meant to prevent the misunderstanding that there is a specific short-term commitment to release features of this nature in any specific version of After Effects.

I apologize for the confusion.

[carlr89517913]

That is not a clarification. Your initial response "we have made no commitment to any specific GPU acceleration technology at this time" was false. Simply admit that and move on. If you had instead said "there is not a specific short-term commitment to release features of this nature in any specific version of After Effects" there would have been no news headlines, because everyone understood the WWDC technology demo was forward-looking.

Dave is the decision maker in this scenario. It's astonishing that someone from marketing would continue to double-down on the confusion caused by your initial mistake.

[sltplz]

Adobe optimizing their software? Please... We wait nearly 2 years to have an almost valid Illustrator on Retina hardware. They just laugh at us.

[PrintHouse]

Very good that he has committed you to increasing performance and responsiveness because your apps need that urgently, especially AI.

[barubin88]

Todd what is the deal?  Is adobe using Metal cc16 or what?

[Szalam]

barubin88 wrote:

why wouldn't you use metal? It seems to make ae faster.

I don't think you understand what you saw in the keynote. Metal wasn't "making After Effects faster". Metal was accelerating a few, very specific effects to demonstrate the possibilities of using Metal; it was not making After Effects faster across the board.

barubin88 wrote:

Todd what is the deal?  Is adobe using Metal cc16 or what?

Todd very specifically said that they have not committed to any sort of timeline.

I think Todd's clarification made things very clear about that (and about the whole confusion in the first place). Try to read through it again.

If English isn't your first language and you need us to try to explain it to you further, let us know.

[barubin88]

Hey Szalam,

I hope you are doing well and I appreciate you taking time out of your day to help me out. 

I'm not totally clear on what Todd is saying. I guess my main issue is that it seems that Todd's posts contradict what was said at the Apple event and what David posted yesterday.   Do you agree with that or am I missing something?

Have a good one.

[Szalam]

Reading Todd's post, it seems like he's saying the research and development team (who are independent of the AE team) are committed to improving performance across the board and Metal specifically is part of it. So, Adobe is working with Metal and other technologies to see how to improve ALL of their apps. However, the After Effects team specifically are not committed to using Metal in AE at any particular moment in time. They are working with Metal and a variety of other things to try to improve AE.

Just because Metal can accelerate one or two specific effects does not mean it will work in any sort of complex compositing environment. Todd is simply trying to keep people from having unrealistic expectations. Some folks seemed to assume from the keynote that as soon as they upgraded to El Capitan, AE would be 8x faster in every aspect. They completely misunderstood what was being said in the keynote.

I don't see Todd and David's messages as counter to each other. They are working with Metal (and other things) and will be bringing all of the best options to the Creative Cloud apps.

I've met members of the After Effects team, including Todd, and from conversations I've had with them, they are quite dedicated to improving performance as their number one goal with AE. I think that is a very worthy goal. I'm glad they're no longer wasting resources on flashy and useless features (like the ray-traced renderer) and are now focused on making software that increases my productivity and renders more quickly.

[gantabrelhoem]

whether you are juridically on safe ground not having announced a definite AE feature or a release date - it is quite awkward to show such a if-metal-then-"experiment" on this kind of stage. every viewer understood this as: we will have Metal support with the release of El Capitan and/or CC16.

you tricked the expectations of the audience knowingly. quite sad.

[Peru Bob]

At shows of all kinds (CES, car shows, boat shows, wholesaler shows),  there is experimental and cutting edge stuff being showcased.  Not all of it makes it to the finished product immediately and sometimes it never does.

[Szalam]

gantabrelhoem wrote:

every viewer understood this as: we will have Metal support with the release of El Capitan and/or CC16.

I agree with Peru Bob. At shows like this, I expect to see cutting edge stuff too, not just stuff that is coming out now. I saw it and thought, "Oooh, that's neat, I wonder if it will ever work in an actual production environment." I didn't think for a second that it was coming in the OS update or the next version of AE. However, I could see how it could be misunderstood that way.

[barubin88]

Todd if you make all the after effects announcements why is David making them for you again?

[Nils_C]

Well, whatever they go with it's clear AE has a very exciting future as responsiveness is the biggest handicap for working in AE right now for me.

So thanks to the engineer for exploring the options and thanks to Todd for steering the ship.

[ultrastatic]

There are a few things not quite right here:

- To get the 15 minutes of fame in the Apple spotlight, Adobe is "promising" stuff that we might not get. Not nice.

- Adobe is incredibly unfocused. How much of the dev resources actually go the applications that people use? Looking for new customers or looking to keep the old customers in?

- Actually all I need from CC is After Effects, because both Illustrator and Photoshop have excellent and cheap alternatives for my type of use. Is it still worth the costs for me? If you look at bugginess, few new features, speed issues, it seems that Adobe is looking to cut down expenses in the dev department for After Effects to fund a myriad of random apps and desktop applications..

- Bring in more developers. Sure that's not always the best answer, but AE needs to improve on so many levels.

[Matthieu-on]

I am waiting for it - me and my nMP dual GPU - watiing, waiting.. 

Any GPU support would do it..   just do it please.

[dissidently]

In direct answer to the OP's question...

As soon as they get a rapidly responsive UI, multi-core rendering, audio stability and guide snapping sorted.

Sometime in 2020, perhaps.

One thing at a time.

The rest of 2015 will be wasted determining who is responsible for communicating with the users, and how.

This will roll through most of 2016, too. With some sackings determining the results.

Todd, ever heard the the expression "Jump, jump before you are pushed"?

If not, now's the time to grasp its meaning.

[Climberfx]

So Todd_Kopriva,

I can say, if Adobe put your face on a public demonstration saying what you said to us here, you for sure would not have a job anymore. And Adobe would not exist too. Because we are who bring money to you man.

For me, a public statement is the true, and better you port all the programs to Metal as soon as possible man.

Stop your excuses, and do what your company told you do it.

[Szalam]

Climberfx wrote:

So Todd_Kopriva,

I can say, if Adobe put your face on a public demonstration saying what you said to us here, you for sure would not have a job anymore. And Adobe would not exist too.

Todd doesn't work for Adobe anymore.

Climberfx wrote:

So Todd_Kopriva,

For me, a public statement is the true, and better you port all the programs to Metal as soon as possible man.

Stop your excuses, and do what your company told you do it.

If you take a look at the sneak peak videos that Adobe put out for what is coming in the future version, you will see that they are beginning to bring GPU acceleration to After Effects in some useful ways. However, they never promised to "port all the programs to Metal" so demanding they do so isn't going to be fruitful.

[Climberfx]

After Effects for me just. Illustrator already did the faster zoom, so, i'm happy.

But i don't like lies to sell stuff, and then, when you buy it, the excuses appears...

That make me mad.

[Szalam]

Climberfx wrote:

But i don't like lies to sell stuff, and then, when you buy it, the excuses appears...

That make me mad.

I can understand lies making you mad. However, I don't recall Adobe saying anything that was a lie or even misleading regarding AE and Metal. I know some people misunderstood some things they said - probably due to a language difference, but I always heard a pretty consistent message from Adobe about this.

[Climberfx]

But I saw, and after they retract, trying to circumvent what was said. But anyway. Passed waters.

And was not language differences, beside my poor english typing.

"Adobe is committed to bringing Metal to all of its Mac OS Creative Cloud applications, such as Illustrator and After Effects I showed you today, as well as Photoshop and Premiere Pro. We are very excited to see what Metal can do for our Creative Cloud users."

[Szalam]

But they are working on Metal (and other ways to leverage the GPU) with AE. At least, that's what it sounded like when I talked with them at NAB last week.

And, as I understood it, Todd was saying that just because they've brought Metal to AE in internal testing for certain things doesn't mean it'll work for sure overall throughout the app, but they are looking into it along with other options. I understood what he said to be clarifying that a commitment to try it out (which they have done and are doing) is not a commitment to bring it into the shipping production version - especially not in the very near future.

As you may recall, AE is in the middle of a complete architecture change as it is, so I think Todd was just trying to keep people from thinking that the very next version of AE was definitely going to be accelerated with the Metal API (which a lot of people seemed to think).

If you've seen the sneak peek videos or the NAB videos, they are bringing some GPU acceleration into the next version of AE for some things, so they are doing what they said they would do.

[Climberfx]

I'm seeing all of then. Love the last one with Character animation demonstration Preview 4. And would love to join the pre release team.

I have a project at the present moment that would be delighted to insert Character animations on it. Studying the execution in the moment. For sure will be animated in After Effects, but maybe using Preview 4 if i can't get a pre release try out.

In the moment, i'm studying some tutors of Character...

Don't bother man, i know they are doing good stuff.

[Szalam]

You can do a lot in Preview 3 as it is (which you have now if you're a CC subscriber), but some of the new features in 4 look really useful! It's been pretty neat to see CA go from nothing to what it is now. Don't forget there is an Adobe Character Animator forum here too, so if you're not already active there, I'd suggest joining in with that community. Who knows? You may end up on the pre-release program that way!

[Climberfx]

I'm already there. In negotiations...

But as you said, can solve in Preview 3 too, but better if in 4.