12 things we want in Adobe After Effects CS5!

After Effects is awsome, but there is some small issues or thing we think hope to get in the future. Here is some of my picks: 

IK-handles
I wonder why Adobe hasn't made this one before... Animators around the world are screaming for inverse kinematics in After Effects! Luckily we got "DuIK" who solves the problem temporarily, but this is really something we should be able to use a long time ago!

Trapcode plugins
Everyone uses trapcode plugins. At least everyone uses Particular! Sure, AE got CC Particles, but you know, nobody really uses that on a daily basis! Therefor After Effects shoud come bundeled with this awsome plugins from Trapcode! Please Adobe! Do it for us!
 
Fix the memory issue!
I wonder why this still is a problem. There is nothing more irritating than getting the memory error during rendering because you use motion blur, have too large pictures in the comp or for some other reason. Adobe, you should fix this problem like, yesterday!

Better Camera controls
You do not want to move any After Effects camera, because a problem lurks behing every keyframe! Sure, you may parent the camera to a null, and that may solve some problems, but that don't hide the fact that After Effects camera controls are horrible! In a matter of fact, they are so bad that I sometimes dream of smashing my computer, reaching into the screen and burn down the AE-camera! Dmn! I hate that camera... And while we're at it:

Fix Bezier issue
Ach! Bezier on keyframes sometimes make the world a horrible place! The objects starts to jump around, takes a suddern turn for a second or makes everything wrong! Why, oh why does this happen?! An why can't it just work the way it's supposed to?!

Folders in timeline
This would make the world so much better! I won't necessarily have to pre-comp everything to keep it clean. You did it with photoshop, you can do it with After Effects too Adobe!

Real Open GL intergration
Yes, yes. AE supports Open GL, but you know what? The support sucks! Almost always when you turn on Open GL, something goes wrong. Whe picture won't display properly, the comp lags, and so on. So please make the usage of our graphics card in a good way in the future!

Masks with custom feathering
Masks are awsome! Digital artists can't live witout masks. But AE just has this standard old fashion mask. If I want to change the edge feathering on only some of the points, that is impossible in todays AE (without mixing diggerent masks and layers). Just take a look at the x-spline-mask in Mocha! Works like a dream! Give us something like that!

Lip-sync solution
Turn opacity up to 100%, two frames, turn down again. Repeat next frame, but different layer. Lip-syncing in AE is really boring and takes a lot of time! I know you can use time remapping, but that is also time consuming without a handy UI built with it. Adobe, you can learn a lot from Trick of Scrips Thumbnails-plugin for Flash.


Volumetric Objects
This one should be easy. Just let us make easy objects like a cube, sphere, cone or a diamond without having to work for hours parenting and rotating layers! We have seen plugins for AE that can do basic 3D, so why can't you?!

Camera Mapping
That would be awsome! Be able to model really simple objects, like a plate or a box to map on a picture and make awsome shots. Yes, every 3D program does this, but wouldn't it be awsome for AE to do it also?!

Surface-tracking
Sure. After Effects comes with Mocha for CS4, but hey! Surface tracking and more complicated tracking shoud really come pre-bundeled! The point tracking kinda sucks, so give us something better!

(Perspective-scale-plugin)
(Wouldn't it be nice to place objecs in space without scaling them back afterwards? Just make us a small script so that we can place our 100 layers around in space without using three hours to make the picture look the same as when we started... Call it Perscale, Scative or Scaper or something) 


EDIT: I actually found a script that does the "perspective-scale-thing!" It's called Multiplane and can be downloaded for free at aescripts.com!