Victoria

Knives Out underwhelmed me at first because I'd just read a bunch of really weird surreal mysteries and people kept saying KO was "a totally new twist on the genre!" etc. Benoit Blanc was so exaggerated that I thought the big twist would be that he was one of the victim's fictional characters.

And here's the info on Crop Comp to Selected Layer Bounds: 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.

With the big beta feature release a couple weeks ago there were a bunch of "But what about variable fonts?" comments that I was dying to respond to. Here they are! And they're endless fun to play with. This is just one single text layer:

🆕 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...

Using AI-manipulated images (and the "virtual staging" etc. that came before it) in real estate listings should be regulated: you should also have to post the original of any photo you modify.

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.

Both!

Now in Beta: Enhanced 3D and Vector Workflows, New Effects and Improved Caching Hello After Effects users!   We have a cornucopia of new features entering public beta today in version 26.0x8, and we’re excited to share what’s on the way:   3D workflow enhancements   Parametric M...

🆕 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

Are you running into specific issues or looking for a better workflow?

This technique would also work really well with an animated 3D model + the 3D Channel Extract effect to get the depth map.

YouTube video by SternFX How to Build a Face from Digits in After Effects

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

Is there a way to move our save file over from a Windows game?

Ah, got it! I'll add your vote to the (many!) folks asking for comps as materials -- this is exactly the kind of 2D+3D workflow we want to support in the future.

Not yet. How would you like to use it?

Who are your favorite After Effects tutorial makers?

25.4+ only. Older versions may crash on launch.

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

Good catch, I can repro this too. How weird! We’ll look into it.

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.

The hardest working font in Manhattan A story of a 150-year-old font you have never heard of – and one you probably saw earlier today.

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)

Sometimes it'll be your own name! 😁

A Tip of the Day in After Effects: "Command-Option-Shift-T" creates a new Text layer automatically in the center of your Comp panel. - Laura Porat

A Tip of the Day in After Effects: If you need a layer to spinf orever, add the expression "time*100" to its Rotate property. Increase or decrease the multiplier to change the speed. Works for any property! - Michelle Higa Fox

A Tip of the Day in After Effects: Polystars with odd points, like triangles, don't rotate evenly beecause the layer and geometric centres differ. Instead, create an even-pointed shape, then change the number of points to odd so the Anchor Point behaves as expected. - Rob Barrett

A Tip of the Day in After Effects: Did you know you can sample colors outside of After Effects? Press Return when the eyedropper is active and over the color you want to grab. - Michael Szalapski

🆕 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...

And you have to keep them charged, and trust they’re going to pair reliably.

My hunch: the rise in this behavior correlates with the disappearance of headphone jacks from mobile devices. It added friction to doing the polite thing.

🆕 in beta: After Effects running natively on Windows ARM:

community.adobe.com/t5/after-eff...