Siiiiigh. The subscription stuff is really a pita, IMHO. And eep, their cloth sim hasn't advanced that badly? Brrr. Even if they are just going arch vis, curtain sims would still be a must.

I seem to have lucked out and managed to reactivate my CS4 of After Effects. However, I found a nifty NLVE called HitFilm Express that is freeware. It has a pay version with most features for 249 pounds. The free version is upgradeable through plugins that run from $10 to $50 (the top end is a particle system. Some of them should be included, but for $0.00, I can't really complain). It combines the basic functions of Premiere and AE, so you can edit and composite in the same program (and unlike a lot of 'movie editors that only accept actual video files, it imports stills perfectly). Once I get my rendergarden upgraded, I'll be running tests to see how well the composting compares. But there are several non linear video editors out there now that are free. You just have to read all the text to see what the gotcha's are.