Upgrade from Cs3 to Cs4 worth it?

J

Jim2000

Well-known member
Has anyone here upgraded from After Effects Cs3 to Cs4?

The last upgrade from Cs2 to Cs3 seemed worth it to me, but I think that this time around, there might not be enough improvements for it to be worth the cost.

Any thoughts?
 
in all honesty, I think this time around you would not get your money's worth. First of all, the main attraction for me in CS3 was the universal binary so I could use it on my Intel Mac.

This time around, the main upgrades are to improve the workflow, such as the flowchart view upgrade.

I have already invested time in getting proficient with CS3.

In conclusion, I believe that CS4 would be a better option if you were just beginning to use AE, but would not recommend an upgrade to current CS3 users.

my .02


Cam
 
I second that

CS3 does everything and more of what I need to do, cs4 is not much of an upgrade if you make a living from AE cs3

my .0002

cwiegert said:
in all honesty, I think this time around you would not get your money's worth. First of all, the main attraction for me in CS3 was the universal binary so I could use it on my Intel Mac.

This time around, the main upgrades are to improve the workflow, such as the flowchart view upgrade.

I have already invested time in getting proficient with CS3.

In conclusion, I believe that CS4 would be a better option if you were just beginning to use AE, but would not recommend an upgrade to current CS3 users.

my .02


Cam
Click to expand...
 
Not that we've jumped on the upgrade, though that's more due to our internal upgrade cycle more than anything else, there are a myriad of improvements that most pass off as insignificant. For me, some of the top features are the ability to individually keyframe X,Y,Z values, a camera tool that resembles 3D apps more with 3 button mouse navigation, improved multiprocessing and RAM usage, Auto setting for composition resolution that adapts the resolution at scaled resolutions, and a variety of other small UI tweaks. And, obviously, the excellent Mocha for AE tracker, one of the best planar trackers out there.

Yes, it may light on the candy features that make people go "ooo" and "ahh", but most of those features are never used anyways for real work. Save me time and improve upon on what's there and not working optimally and that's worth it. Although, I have deadlines, so saving time and being able to work faster is far better than a new Cartoon filter.
 
Regarding the Adobe's bundles, such as Production Premium:
I've read some early reports of instability with Photoshop, frequent crashes. That's a dealbreaker for me. It appears that there are some new UI additions that will improve the workflow, however an unstable app is a huge damper on productivity. In 6-8 months Adobe should do a point release that should address the stability issues. I'll give it another look then. Historically Adobe's .0 releases have had issues that were resolved with the .5 release (for ref see 5.0 / 5.5 or 6.0 / 6.5). Unfortunately it is the same mindset for just about every big software company, "Just get it out there - we'll fix the bugs later". Sigh.
 
I had forgotten about Mocha. That just might make the upgrade worth it, but I can't help but think that there wouldn't be a new After Effects release just yet if Adobe wasn't so concerned about selling new production and design bundles. It seems that with CS4, other programs got a lot more attention from the programmers. I figure I'll wait for CS5.
 
Man, I've been on a roll lately!
I got a great deal on CS4 for $640
then Red Giant just had their 40% sale, so I got the whole Trapcode Suite for under $500!
That's some amazing effects power for just over a Grand.
 
Thomas, where'd you get the deal on CS4? I hit the Red Giant sale too - picked up Colorista and ToonIt (need it for a project I'm working on).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top