Adobe announces VR tools for Premiere CC and more

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Creative Cloud, as well as the constituent programs that have become something of a bedrock software suite for video professionals, are expanding to include tools for virtual reality content creation alongside other new features and improvements.

Adobe's Creative Cloud offering has represented excellent value for working video professionals for some time now. While there was some initial hubbub concerning the move from a single purchase to a subscription model, for those that regularly use Adobe products in their day-to-day workflows, the benefits greatly outweigh the cost of the monthly or yearly fee.

Just five years ago, Adobe's Premiere was an also-ran to Final Cut Pro 7 at the small company/indie filmmaker end of the spectrum and wasn't a serious competitor to Avid at the high-end. Now, Adobe is threatening Avid's stake on Hollywood blockbusters, as evidenced by the extensive use of Creative Cloud for the smash hit Deadpool, and it's increasingly a 'must' for smaller productions and post houses. However, the news breaking from Adobe in advance of NAB Show 2016 points to a new direction for Creative Cloud, one that supports a burgeoning reality of the industry.

Adobe and virtual reality

Adobe has been teasing its next release of Creative Cloud, due sometime early this summer. According to the press release, "Premiere Pro CC will add new virtual reality capabilities, including 'field of view' mode for spherical stitched media." There isn't much more information available, but this is a significant development nonetheless.

I was surprised that there wasn't more virtual reality news coming out of NAB Show 2015. It seems this year, the video industry is ready to jump into the VR fray, as Adobe is one brand out of many that will either announce or debut VR-related products and services. Yet, Adobe is a big, important domino, as VR tools in Premiere CC will help further the slow transition of video post, especially editors, towards working with not only 360-degree video, but also the more advanced interactive cinematic experiences that VR will spawn in the near future.

More new CC

Of course, Adobe has a slew of other improvements that the company has included in the upcoming version of Creative Cloud. Here's a list of highlights:

• Edit immediately during ingest allows Premiere Pro CC users to get straight to work, while importing their video and audio files in the background.
• Powerful proxy workflows in Premiere Pro CC and Adobe Media Encoder CC enable users to easily work with heavy 8K, HDR and HFR media, so editors can switch between native and proxy formats freely – even on lightweight machines.
• Enhanced Lumetri™ Colour tools within Premiere Pro CC adds HSL Secondaries to expand the editor's toolkit for making colour correction and adjustment easier for all filmmakers.
• New video and audio preview engine in After Effects CC delivers superior playback of cached frames for a smooth experience.
• Easier and more efficient Character Animator includes a simplified puppet creation process that enables users to easily tag puppet layers easily and record multiple takes of a character's movement. Users can animate puppets to respond to motion and trigger animation accordingly.
• New Essential Sound panel in Audition CC enables anyone to mix audio content with professional results.
• Quickly find Adobe Stock assets with new filtered search in Creative Cloud Libraries. Licensed assets in your library are now badged for easy identification, videos are displayed with duration and format information, and saved videos are linked to video previews on the Adobe Stock site.

RedShark News will be on-hand at NAB Show 2016, so we'll follow up this story and other breaking news with updates from the convention halls.

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