Imagining AE v10

You've all probably seen the Microsoft 'Surface' demos floating around for the last little while, but a friend sent me this link that shows the system and it's workings with a bit more depth.

Now granted, this technology is- for the near future- aimed at the kiosk and POP crowd, but imagine (if you will) an environment where we can do 'our thing'... truly gestural "live" compositing, animation and presentation. I was particularly taken with the fellow working with the map at 1:35.

How might this affect our industry in the future? One might argue that in this day and age compositors and motion graphics folks create 'passive' media, owing primarily to the bandwidth and rendering requirements of our visuals. We create and publish, someone sits down and watches it.

It can, of course, be taken further: DVD authoring allows for a certain degree of interactivity, Flash offers a lot, and (ignoring immersive gaming worlds) you can find rudimentary interaction with pixel-based imagery using software such as Cult 3d. But unless you have some fancy widget like a wacom tablet, the 'gestural' interactivity (even in games) is pretty limited.

My work is very 'linear' right now. I create a show opening, it plays, the show starts and there ya go. But why should WE be the arbiters of what, when and how the viewer sees our work? I can envision a future when immersive environments (like that offered up by 'Surface') allow me to move beyond the temporal limitations of what I do and open my work up to direct interaction and exploration. The lines separating 'true' worlds like 3d games and 'my' business of motion graphics will blur, and the art of a "show opening" will certainly evolve. But it can really only be done with a hand (or two, or more) and 'Surface' is a "first" tentative step in that direction.