Exactly 15 years ago, in January 1993, my most loved piece of software was born: After Effects 1.0, codenamed “Egg”. For celebrating such anniversary I wanted to talk about its origins, but I’ve not yet collected enough material to do it (please if you have any screenshot of version 1.0, write me!). For now let’s commemorate the Egg with an easter egg in After Effects 8.
Before jumping to launch the easter egg, I recommend to save and close any open project (you will be asked to do it anyway). I also take advantage of this post to remind you that After Effects 8.0.2 is now available but it might be savvy if you wait for updating to QuickTime 7.4. [Edit 2008-02-07] It was just released a patch from Apple that solves the rendering issue with After Effects (and other sw like Final Cut): QuickTime 7.4.1 Fixes Rendering Bug.
Here you are the sequence for the easter egg hidden in the 8th release of After Effects. While pressing the Alt key (Option key on Mac) open the menu “Help” (”After Effects” on Mac) and click on the voice “About After Effects” before releasing your finger from the keyboard. When you release the mouse, a new project will appear: “metal.oaf” (note that the codename for After Effects 8 is just “metaloaf” and not “meatloaf” as it wrongly appears in several sites…).
Two comps will come into sight. The first will contain a text layer with the full credits of the people that worked on Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional, with a simple animated background. The second will add some goodies like a 3D Camera, several lights, shape layers, 3D per character animation, layer styles…
If you render it, you will complete your celebration for the fifteenth anniversary of After Effects, honoring its authors and getting the animation shown here. A hundred more of great years to After Effects!
Watch the video in HD on Vimeo, or in low res on YouTube.
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