Fun quick trick in After Effects 26.3: use the new Curl Noise effect + Colorama to create colorful swirling Environment light sources. Great for a stylized, non-photo-real look.

After Effects 26.3 is live! A lot of long-awaited stuff in this release: 🎥 Depth of Field in Advanced 3D 🌟 Copy & paste Illustrator and SVG content 🤿 Faster, more accurate Mask Tracker 📋 Copy frame to clipboard 🌀 Brand-new Curl Noise effect 🔤 Variable font filtering helpx.adobe.com/after-effect...

“So how did you two meet?” “We were both palace guards stationed outside the gate.” “No we weren’t.”

🆕 Today in After Effects beta: an all-new Frame.io V4 panel! community.adobe.com/announcement...

This is the definition of "gamechanger".

🎉🆕🎉 At long last, it’s here: copy and paste vectors from Illustrator as native shape layers in After Effects beta. Works with any app that supports SVG clipboard data, too! community.adobe.com/announcement...

Two more new things in After Effects beta to speed up your workflows: A wayyy faster Vector Mask Tracker community.adobe.com/announcement... Live Update for Object Matte community.adobe.com/announcement...

www.pugetsystems.com/blog/2026/04... Great overview from our friends at Puget Systems on how much faster Advanced 3D is in 26.2.

Video game I would enjoy: Mario Kart vibes, except you get to race all the weird little vehicles you see at the airport.

But wait, there’s more! Three fun new features in After Effects beta today: Curl Noise effect for endless swirls! community.adobe.com/announcement... Copy frames to clipboard – with color management! community.adobe.com/announcement... Variable font filter! community.adobe.com/announcement...

You can watch the livestream here! www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWm...

After Effects 26.2 is live! Some big updates this morning: ⭐ Object Matte ⭐ Displacement on 3D Meshes ⭐ Quick Apply ⭐ Proportional Scrubbing ⭐ Import SVGs as Footage helpx.adobe.com/after-effect...

What are your favorite daily puzzle games? A few I love: cluesbysam.com www.andrewt.net/puzzles/cell... timeguessr.com raddle.quest www.puzzmo.com gisnep.com

This is a genuine experience I am having today attempting to click a link in an email. I want to scream.

Travel achievement unlocked: diverted flight got diverted. But I made it home!

Had to log into a bunch of stuff tonight and encountered amazing bad UX. Type "WA" for state, get Delaware. Ability to donate negative dollars. A form that would not tell me why it wouldn't submit. An appointment confirmation titled "LOGGED OUT."

Flomotion has a nice overview of the new AE beta features: youtu.be/59eBqmvGEFo

🆕 Depth of Field comes to Advanced 3D in After Effects beta! It's fast, easy to control and even works through transparency. community.adobe.com/announcement...

🆕 Two new features in After Effects beta today! Quick Apply: community.adobe.com/announcement... Displacement of Substance 3D Materials on Parametric Meshes: community.adobe.com/announcement...

What happens if you mix the speed of Premiere's Object Mask with the precision control of AE's Roto Brush? You get Object Matte, new in After Effects beta. community.adobe.com/announcement...

🆕 A very useful new feature just went live in After Effects beta! Proportional Scrubbing lets you select a bunch of values and offset them relative to each other. Kinda like Quick Offset but for property values instead of over time. community.adobe.com/announcement...

Sonduck making some really pretty stuff with After Effects 26.0: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHeM...

🎉 After Effects 26.0 is here! 🎉 www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCJ7... Too many new features to fit in one post: helpx.adobe.com/in/after-eff...

Hard to believe this is After Effects, but it is! Nikie is so good at this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IcA...

🆕 in After Effects beta today: some nice text extrusion improvements. If you've tried mixing variable font animation and 3D extrusion, you're going to get much better results now. Should fix many long-standing extrusion issues with non-variable fonts as well. community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff...

But wait, there's more! Very useful additions to expressions and scripting: community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff... Overhauled Preferences: community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff... And a long-requested Crop Comp to Layer Bounds command.

🆕 Something big is coming to After Effects beta today: Variable Font Animation! community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff...

🆕 After Effects 25.6 is live! It's primarily a quality release (60 fixes!) but also includes one of my favorite new features: the return of Tip of the Day, with helpful suggestions from AE experts around the world. Collecting these has been an absolute joy. helpx.adobe.com/after-effect...

Today in "extremely silly things you can make in After Effects" thanks to the new beta: bagel fountain

Fun trick with After Effects beta: as you can now transform textures on 3D models, you can do cool stuff like UV offset animation for facial expressions and lip sync. If you want to give it a try, this character is free from Mixamo and has eyes, brows and mouth separately controllable.

Goofing around with mixing parametric meshes and expressions in After Effects beta. This is fun.

🆕 Major updates to After Effects beta! 🎉 community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff... Parametric Meshes Substance 3D Materials Import SVGs as native shapes Maintain gradients converting Illustrator layers to shapes Scale and rotate gradients Unmult effect New audio effects Lossless compressed playback

Very cool new tutorial from @sternfx.bsky.social ! www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuwR...

Who are your favorite After Effects tutorial makers?

Off to London to meet up with fellow AE nerds and see some standup, then on to IBC. The journey begins! 🛫

After Effects 25.4 is live! 🎉 Easily offset layers just by dragging, paste text formatting, work with CICP metadata for HDR images, and get quick access to info about effects. More details: helpx.adobe.com/after-effect... Fixed Issues: helpx.adobe.com/after-effect...

Just saw an ad for a product made from “plant based wood” and now I want to know what the alternative is.

This article was a supreme delight: grab a cup of tea, set aside 10 or 15 minutes, and enjoy this story about The Hardest Working Font in Manhattan. aresluna.org/the-hardest-... (via @ferociousj.bsky.social)

🆕 Pleased to share that 💡Tip of the Day💡 is back and better than ever in After Effects beta! Open an empty comp window to see a helpful tip submitted by an AE community member (maybe even yourself?). Here are a few examples; there are more than 100 in all. community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff...

🆕 in beta: After Effects running natively on Windows ARM: community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff...

Some fun morning noodling around in After Effects with Card Dance and Radio Waves.

A recent addition to After Effects beta: clean up your 3D giz-mess by adjusting all your 3D layers with a single gizmo. Makes 3D interaction a lot faster, too! More info: community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff...

Also 🆕 in After Effects beta this week: spot and parallel light shadows in Advanced 3D are now faster and higher quality.

🆕 Super excited about a feature that just went live in After Effects beta: Quick Offset. Stagger and retime layers and keyframes just by dragging! community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff...

Two new additions to After Effects beta: Alt/opt-drag to duplicate layers: community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff... Info buttons in the Effects & Presets panel: community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff...

🆕 in After Effects beta today: support for Windows on ARM emulation. community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff...

Who's had a chance to play with the new 3D shadows in After Effects beta? What do you think so far?

It’s post-Eurovision recovery day. Why do I feel like I just did a bunch of sports or something? And how do I find a hobby for the next ten months?

Come on, Peacock. The best you can do for captions on your Eurovision stream is "SINGING IN A GLOBAL LANGUAGE"?

If you're looking to make your own version of the Eurovision heart-shaped halftone effect in After Effects, Card Dance or Particle Playground are the way to go. The former renders faster, the latter is quicker to set up. Both can give you some really fun results! (This clip is Card Dance.)