In this tutorial we will be using 3D max to build a 3D crater and learn a variety of useful techniques.

I just want to encourage everyone who visits here to watch ALL of the tutorials here. Even if you think you don't want to learn about light sabers or slideshows, there is some great information in each tutorial that can be used in various creative ways. Plus 1 or 2 decent jokes... OK, there are no good jokes but some great tips! ... OK, good tips. But still.

For example:
Tutorial 62 (Colorful Universe) includes a free 3D orbit preset that can be used to animate a 3D carousel of icons or pictures.

Tutorial 12 (Elegant Slideshows) teaches you to offset layers equally; this can be used to offset several muzzle flashes for a machines gun or possibly a nail-gun.

Tutorial 67 (Advanced Car Hit) can be used to create an Advanced Bus Hit. Think about it.

In this tutorial we will learn the key functions of 3D matchmoving software (boujou) and demonstrate how to export the camera data and set up the scene geometry.

Part 2 and 3 will follow but this should help you understand where we are going.

It seems there is a lot of interest in the new CS4 so I've been spending some time making demos for a few of the new features. I'll post some stuff when I get a chance, I've been working on several new projects including a new DVD planned for November and the second part of the Meteor series. Until then...

So I'm a couple days late or so but I'm sure you've heard the news about CS4. Seems there are some solid features added and some great integration with flash and PS which will help a lot of people. Check out the Adobe product page for specifics.

Here are blogs to check as well.

https://blogs.adobe.com/keyframes/

https://prolost.blogspot.com/2008/09/ae-cs4s-best-new-feature-is-backwards.html

Admittedly I haven't reached the depths of every new CS3 feature but Adobe maintains the core functions of the application so that even our very first tutorial can be followed with the newer versions. One thing I heard is that CS4 should work better with larger projects and I hope that is true.

If you look at the big picture, After Effects 6.5 has enough capability to create things that would stop time and newer versions regard this as well. After effects is a compositing application and it is up to us to build amazing things. No new feature is going to do that for us...

Of course all of our products work with future versions of After Effects if you plan on upgrading now or in the future.