Software » Video Editors » Adobe After Effects 24.3

March 2024 release (version 24.3)
The March 2024 (24.3) release presents a workflow improvement and important fixes in After Effects.

Per-character styling

Get much finer control over the appearance and animation of characters within a Text layer using scripting.

Fixed issues in the March 2024 release (version 24.3)

After Effects no longer crashes when you try to export tracking data to the 3D model layer.
The maximum values for specific layer style sizes (Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow, Satin, Stroke) have been reduced from 30,000 to 250.
The “Invalid clipboard format” alerts no longer show up when bringing After Effects in focus.
Textures now render for model exported in .obj format.
White Noise option is added to the Audio Tone effect.
After Effects no longer quits when undo is pressed during playback after a camera is created and the number of views is changed.
After Effects no longer crashes rendering track mattes using the Advanced 3D renderer.
Users who sign in to Creative Cloud within After Effects should no longer be signed out after 30 minutes.
Navigating After Effects menus on macOS Sonoma 14 should now work as expected.


February 2024 release (version 24.2)

The February 2024 (24.2) release presents new features, user-requested workflow improvements, and important fixes in After Effects.


Import OBJ 3D models

Natively import OBJ 3D models into your project and drop them into your composite alongside other 2D and 3D layers.

Motion Graphics template preview thumbnails

Export Motion Graphics template with a video preview of the primary composition as a thumbnail for quick visualization within Premiere Pro.


.exr file for environmental lighting

Use OpenEXR image (.exr) files in your composition to create realistic and high-quality lighting in your 3D scenes.

Enhancements in Cycore plug-in effects

Plug-in effects-specific enhancements with new controls and fixes to support your diverse animation needs and workflows.


Cast and accept shadows for 3D objects
Control how 3D objects interact with light and shadows in your composition by configuring their cast and receive shadows properties.

Fixed issues in the February 2024 release (version 24.2)

After Effects no longer crashes when you use Mask Feather Tool to adjust a feather beyond the bounds of a mask.
Ampersands "&" in the effect names are now correctly displayed in the Effects submenus.
Expression errors no longer cause "{PrepAndWrite() called on non-diskcacheable stuff}" error.
Preview no longer fails when collapsing transformations on a nested composition that has a layer with Puppet pins.
The Rotation value no longer resets to 0 after one rotation while holding the Shift key.
For image-based lighting, replacing footage now correctly updates Environment Light rendering.
For image-based lighting, Environment Light no longer renders too bright through intensity range.
When applying a preset, the Position of a layer will now be combined or separated automatically according to what the preset was saved with.
Error message when failing to read Project XMP data is correctly formatted.
Fixed a crash that could occur when using sampleImage()in a layer expression.
High-quality shadow settings no longer cause TDRs on systems with AMD Radeon PRO cards.
The tiling size is calculated correctly even when the shadow Smoothness value under Advanced 3D Renderer Options is set to greater than 1.
Adaptive Resolution will activate when needed and as expected when you change settings values in the Advanced 3D Renderer Options dialog.
3D placeholder models no longer cast shadows.
Replacing the source of a 3D model updates the name and bounding box as expected.
After Effects no longer crashes when you modify Color settings in the Interpret Footage dialog box.
In Cineware, when you revert to Cinema 4D, the composition viewer updates to use the C4D camera as expected.
After Effects no longer freezes when you remove a Cinema 4D layer.
Updating Cineware to 5.1.10 allows projects with Cinema 4D files to open as expected when saving them to After Effects 23.x and 22.x.


December 2023 release (version 24.1)

The December 2023 (24.1) release presents a new feature, user-requested workflow improvements, and important fixes in After Effects that enable you to work more efficiently and design even the finest details without compromising your creative vision.

3D Model Import

Natively import 3D models (GLB, GLTF) with materials directly into After Effects and design your compositions in a unified space with 3D shapes and text.

Image-Based Lighting

Use 360-degree High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI) files as a light source to realistically place models into a scene with complementary lighting and shadows, making objects appear as though they naturally belong.

Advanced 3D renderer

Render 3D motion graphics with this high-performance, GPU-powered engine that offers high-quality antialiasing and transparency.

2D/3D interoperability

Seamlessly use 2D and 3D elements in the same composition to create more visually exciting and complex animations.

Animated lights and cameras

Get creative flexibility by extracting lights and cameras from a 3D model to improve the lighting in your scene and create dynamic camera effects.

3D Snapping

Align and position 3D layers and objects with pixel-perfect accuracy.

3D model-driven effects

Combine 2D and 3D workflows in one composition. Effects that reference another layer, such as Displacement Map, Vector Blur, or Calculations, can use a 3D model layer as a source to create highly stylized renders.

Refreshed animation presets

Updated and improved existing animation presets that have a modernized look and are easier to configure.

Fixed issues in the December 2023 release (version 24.1)

Clearing the preferences from Startup and Repair no longer crashes After Effects.
In the Properties panel, the Fill and Stroke colors no longer reset when switching from solid color to gradient and back.
In the Properties panel, Stroke controls now correctly toggle when the Stroke checkbox is changed.
Changing the frame rate of a composition no longer causes the UI to freeze or lag.
Keyframes on time stretched response design now correctly follow the cursor when dragged.
Blocked older version of Animation Composer that caused After Effects to crash.


Fixed issues in the October 2023 release (version 24.0.2)

Keyframes applied from presets should no longer appear offset from the Current Time Indicator location in the timeline.
Projects created in After Effects Beta builds containing 3D models will no longer open in 24.0.2 to avoid possible loss of layers from a composition.


Fixed issues in the October 2023 release (version 24.0.1)

Fixed an issue where adding keyframes to multiple layers using keyboard shortcuts required multiple undos to reverse the single action of adding the keyframes.
Improved experience when After Effects fails to start on macOS Sonoma 14.
Applying or pasting keyframes containing multiple properties such as Scale, Position, and Rotation works as expected.


October 2023 release (version 24.0)

The October 2023 (24.0) release presents a new feature, user-requested workflow improvements, and important fixes in After Effects that enable you to work more efficiently and design even the finest details without compromising your creative vision.

Next-Gen Roto Brush

A new AI model extracts objects from footage faster and more accurately than ever and requires fewer corrections. Refine your results for a beautiful composite, even when tracking objects that overlap or working with hard-to-mask footage, such as hair and transparencies.

OpenColorIO workflow enhancements

Additional OpenColorIO effects under the Effects & Presets panel add flexibility to this industry-standard color interchange workflow.


Text Scripting support

New scripting hooks for text and font manipulation save you time and effort while working with complex text animation workflows.

Fixed issues in the October 2023 release (version 24.0)

Hide After Effects on macOS 13 and later now works consistently.
Resolved a performance slowdown that occurs when revealing many property streams from the Properties panel.
When using the Cinema 4D renderer, After Effects no longer shows the ‘zero denominator comparing ratios’ error when trying to preview.
CPU and GPU render for the Fill effect no longer mismatch when All Masks is checked, but the layer has no masks.
The video layer no longer freezes when the Shadow/Highlight effect is applied, and Effect Opacity is set to 0.
Improved performance of the CC Particle World effect when using animated textured particles.
Added Shutter Phase control in the CC Force Motion Blur effect and fixed potential invalid RGB values up zero alpha pixels in 32 and 16 bpc.
Fixed UI issues on macOS for the CC Split 2 effect.
Fixed potential invalid RGB values up zero alpha pixels in 32 and 16 bpc for the CC Power Pin effect.
Fixed potential invalid RGB values up zero alpha pixels in 32 and 16 bpc for the CC Light Burst 2.5 effect.
Fixed incorrect area sampling radius when using the CC Ball Action effect.


August 2023 release (version 23.6)

The August 2023 (23.6) release presents a new feature, user-requested workflow improvements, and important fixes that enable you to work more efficiently in After Effects and design even the finest details without compromising your creative vision.

Essential Properties in the Properties panel

Quickly access Essential Properties in the Properties panel without opening the nested composition or the Essential Graphics panel.

Fixed issues in the August 2023 release (version 23.6)

Modifying the keyboard shortcuts for the Zoom In or Zoom Out commands for the Composition panel no longer causes the shortcuts to stop working.
In the Properties panel, choosing Reveal in Timeline for the Position property when multiple layers are selected now reveals the property for all selected layers.
In the Properties panel, clicking on the value of a property with an expression applied now correctly shows the pre-expression value.
Using Shift+J or K to navigate the Timeline panel works as expected when After Effects is installed in non-English languages.
After Effects no longer crashes when previewing for a long time with Draft 3D enabled.
After Effects no longer crashes when a script uses callbacks.callbackData.
Holding the Shift key while dragging the rotate handles of the 3D gizmo now constrains rotation to 5 degree increments instead of 45 degrees.
Duplicating both a layer and the track matte layer assigned to it now updates the track matte reference to the duplicated layer.
In the Properties panel, the Layer Contents window now auto-scrolls if necessary when you select a shape in the Timeline panel.
Reassigning certain keyboard shortcuts that have a default command assignment in the After Effects Menu bar (For example, Ctrl+Z for undo) now executes the new command instead of the default command.
The Roto Brush effect no longer causes After Effects to crash in certain cases where multi-threaded rendering fails.
In the Properties panel, changing stroke properties after changing stroke color type no longer shows an error.


Fixed issues in the June 2023 release (version 23.5)

If multiple Fills or Strokes are applied to a Shape group, the Properties panel now shows the first Fill or Stroke with an info icon indicating more Fills or Strokes exist.
The Properties panel now snaps to its default width when part of a stacked panel group.
Changes made to Shape layer Fills and Strokes using the Properties panel are now applied to new Shape layers.
Rotation controls values in the Properties are drawn correctly after making edits to layer properties.
When making changes to multiple Text layers using the Text section menu, a single undo will now revert the changes for all selected layers.
Stroke Width is no longer reset to previous values when changing the Stroke type from None to Solid using the Properties panel.
Using the Cmd or Ctrl modifier keys to scrub by increments of .1 is now supported by Rotation properties in the Properties panel.
Absolute math operations are now supported for Rotation properties in the Properties panel.
When setting multiple Text layers to the same typeface using the Properties panel, the selected typeface is now correctly displayed.
The correct color values are now shown opening the Gradient dialog from the Properties panel after reordering multiple Gradient Fills or Strokes on a Shape layer.
After Effects no longers crashes while rendering the Bevel and Emboss Layer Style with Multi-Frame rendering enabled.
The Composition Profiler no longer causes After Effects to hang in some cases.
Audio preview now works when the Composition panel view is set to show two or four views.
Audio waveforms are correctly displayed for dynamically-linked Premiere Pro sequences, whereas previous versions might fail to show waveforms or give an "Audio conforming failed" error.
Variable fonts installed from Adobe Fonts now activate and sync properly in After Effects.
Variable fonts with custom PostScript names now work with Expressions and Scripting.
After Effects no longer crashes when using Apple's SF Pro and New York Fonts.
After Effects no longer crashes in multiple situations involving the Character panel, specific variable fonts, duplicate fonts, and missing fonts, amongst others.
Improved performance in the Character panel: custom variable fonts now display properly, duplicate font families are now supported, and Show English Font Names changes are respected in Favorites.


May 2023 release (version 23.4)

The May 2023 (23.4) release presents new features, user-requested workflow improvements, and important fixes that enable you to work more efficiently in After Effects and design even the finest details without compromising your creative vision.

Properties panel for Text and Shape layers

Stay in your creative flow by selecting animation options for Text and Shape layers in one easy-to-access panel without losing time to complex layer navigation and property twirling.


Effect Manager

Manage your effects more efficiently by enabling or disabling them from a simple interface. Troubleshoot potential workflow issues and deliver your projects on time.


Startup and Repair in Preferences

Quickly diagnose and troubleshoot problems by resetting preferences, media cache, plug-in cache, or bypassing third-party plug-ins.


Improved file sorting in the Project panel

Sort your files in the Project panel using a more natural and logical method, even files with names that have numeric characters.


3D Gizmo position snapping

Snap layers in 3D space while dragging the constrained X, Y, and Z position handles of the 3D Gizmo.

Revamped Track Matte pick whip icon

A different pick whip Icon for Selectable Track Matte to reduce confusion with Parent & Link pick whip icon.

Support for new formats

After Effects now offers support for the footage shot on Sony VENICE 2 V2.00 and on iPhones in Cinematic mode.

Fixed issues in the May 2023 release (version 23.4)

Fixed an issue that caused some options from the camera submenu to be greyed out.
Fixed an issue where 12-bit color DNxHR HQX video in MXF files was being decoded as 8-bit.
Fixed an issue where Media Browser favorites were not being saved.
Fixed an issue with migrating preferences that caused After Effects to become unresponsive.
Fixed an issue with the render engine that caused After Effects to crash when choosing a folder from Watch Folder in the file menu.
Fixed an issue with Puppet Tool that caused After Effects to crash when changing the engine from Advanced to Legacy.
Fixed an issue that caused a ‘zero denominator in ratio addition.’ error when dragging the anchor point of a shape layer in 3D space.
Fixed an issue that caused MXF assets with Alpha Channel to not be transparent.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to hang when collecting files that contain a Cinema 4D file in composition.
Fixed rendering notifications for non-English OS languages.
Fixed an issue where footage containing audio using 16kHz, 64kHz, 88.2kHz, or 176.4kHz Sample Rates would not play or export correctly.
Fixed an issue where After Effects could crash when using a Wacom Tablet with Paint and Brush tools.


Fixed issues in the March 2023 release (version 23.3)

Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when using certain MXF format files.
Fixed an issue where migrating preferences from the n-2 version did not migrate workspaces and keyboard shortcuts.
Fixed an issue that caused Adobe Illustrator files imported from Creative Cloud Libraries to be renamed.
Fixed an issue with long library file paths causing the import to a project to fail.
Fixed an issue where OCIO color management didn't update the display color space when the project color bit depth was changed.
Fixed an issue where ICC profiles were embedded in still exports (JPEG, PNG) when OCIO color management was in use.
Fixed an issue that caused the RGBA channel to be available for unsupported formats in Output Module Settings.
Fixed an issue with the Expression editor that caused text selection to be offset from the cursor.
Fixed an issue that caused the Expression editor to display incorrect font.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when applying Look LUT from Creative Cloud Libraries.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when resizing panels with EGP hidden behind another panel.
Fixed an issue where dropdown controls had stopped working in third-party panels.
Fixed an issue where PSD-based layers showed "Zero denominator comparing ratios" errors.
The gradient dialog is now color managed and will display accurate colors when project color management is enabled.
Embedded images in Adobe Illustrator documents animate more smoothly.
Additional improvements to the performance of scrubbing the Current Time Indicator on Windows devices.
Fixed Cinema 4D issues:
Crash when extracting data from Cinema 4D scene.
Switching back to After Effects from Cinema 4D.
Connecting to the Cineware Renderer failed.
Redshift materials are not displaying in the Draft mode.
Non-ASCII characters in lists.


Bugs fixed in the February 2023 release (version 23.2.1)

Fixed an issue that could cause layers and keyframes to update slowly while being moved around the timeline.
Fixed an issue where MXF files with non-English filenames failed to import, instead showing an error - "Failed to import. Unsupported format or damaged file."
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when using Roto Brush version 2.0 and Quality set to Best on macOS Ventura (version 13) on Apple silicon hardware.


February 2023 release (version 23.2)

The February 2023 (23.2) release presents a new feature and user-requested workflow improvements that enable you to work more efficiently in After Effects and design even the finest details without compromising your creative vision.

The release includes support for OpenColorlO (OCIO) to simplify the ACES workflow and several stability and performance fixes.

OpenColorlO and ACES color management

Deliver into a larger post-production pipeline using color-accurate content with native OCIO support, including Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) workflows.

Bugs fixed in the February 2023 release (version 23.2)

Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash on Windows when using Chinese characters in text layers.
Fixed an issue that allowed users to create new C4D layers when Cinema 4D wasn’t installed.
Fixed an issue that caused an error when saving the project with a media replacement control and a track matte.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to hang after presenting modal dialogs.
Fixed an issue that caused a delay in closing After Effects projects.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when enabling any of the Simulate Output profiles with HW acceleration enabled.
Fixed an issue that prevented users from canceling an ongoing import of media files into the project.
Fixed an issue that slowed or interrupted CAF processing when Cache Frames When Idle was active.
Fixed an issue with Selectable Track Mattes when clicking and dragging on Alpha/Luma/Invert icons didn’t change settings on multiple layers.
Fixed an issue that prevented AErender from showing progress with interlaced render settings.


December 2022 release (version 23.1)

The December 2022 (23.1) release presents new features and user-requested workflow improvements that enable you to work more efficiently in After Effects and design even the finest details without compromising your creative vision.

The release includes integration with Cinema 4D 2023 and several stability and performance fixes.
Cinema 4D 2023 Integration
Cinema 4D 2023 Integration

Get the latest features with support for Maxon Cinema 4D 2023. Tighter integration with Cinema 4D 2023 ensures that you seamlessly work with native Cinema 4D files, manipulate 3D elements, and render directly from within After Effects.

Bugs fixed in the December 2022 release (version 23.1)

Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to show low memory warnings during preview.
Fixed an issue that caused the "Save as" dialog to close on machines with macOS 13 Ventura if arrow keys were pressed.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when opening Cinema 4D projects.
Fixed an issue that caused the "Unable to obtain dynamiclink server" error when applying Warp Stabilizer VFX effect.
Fixed an issue that caused a long delay when closing large projects.
Fixed an issue that caused a long delay when trying to quit After Effects while the cache was full.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when converting the PSD text layer to editable text through the layer timeline context menu.
Fixed an issue with H.264 encoding that caused low audio bitrate when one render item used multiple output modules.
Fixed an issue that caused the animation preset "Fade In+Out – Frames" to fade in incorrectly when fade in frames number was set to 0.
Fixed an issue that caused the "Map output for" field in the "Audio Output Mapping" preference to be empty.
Fixed an issue with Keyboard Shortcuts that caused commands to be not added back when commands with the same name existed in other sections.
Fixed an issue that caused Keyboard Shortcuts for zooming Effects Control panel to not work.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that caused the central handle to not work properly.
Fixed an issue with Classic 3D that caused the Environment Layer menu item to be active despite the comp renderer not supporting it.
Fixed an issue with Draft 3D that caused transformed track matte layers to stretch to comp bounds for 2D layers.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that caused 3D Reference Axes to move when using the hand tool in composition with Pixel Aspect ratio correction enabled.
Fixed an issue where saving a project for After Effects v22 or prior created a project that showed an extra track matte connection than what was present in the original project.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when clicking on "Reset" in the Lumetri Color Effect Control window.


October 2022 release (version 23.0)

The October 2022 (23.0) release presents new features and user-requested workflow improvements that enable you to work more efficiently in After Effects and design even the finest details without compromising your creative vision.

The release includes Selectable Track Matte Layers, encoding H.264 in the Render Queue, refreshed presets for composition settings, new animation presets, and enhanced keyframe navigation. Also, installing Cinema 4D by Maxon is now optional.

Selectable Track Matte Layers
Select Track Matte Layers

Choose any layer as a track matte using a new drop-down menu in the Modes column. Position the matte layer anywhere in the timeline stack and reuse it for multiple other layers making compositions simpler and more flexible to create.
Native H.264 Encoding
Native H.264 Encoding

Export your projects quickly with hardware accelerated output and direct rendering of H.264 files from within the Render Queue, giving you the flexibility of choice to natively import out of After Effects or with Adobe Media Encoder.
Composition Presets List
Composition Presets

Find the most commonly used presets quickly in the Composition Settings with the revamped Composition Presets list. Plus, the composition presets now include sizes for a variety of social platforms.


Animation Presets
New Animation Presets

Get over 50 new animation presets created by our After Effects community. Designed for modern motion design workflows, these presets save you time on the techniques you use most, so you can create quick animations and don't have to start from scratch.

Faster keyframe navigation
Faster timeline navigation

Add Shift to the J and K hotkeys to quickly jump between keyframes and markers of selected layers and properties.
C4D optional installer
Cinema 4D optional installer
Choose when to download Cinema 4D with the new Add-ons option during After Effects installation. Install it using the Creative Cloud application when required, or skip it altogether.

Bugs fixed in the October 2022 release (version 23.0)

Fixed an issue where only five frames would render on machines with shared system/GPU memory, such as Apple silicon M1 machines.
Fixed a crash when using the Cinema 4D renderer.
Fixed an issue where .fla files would not import.
Fixed an issue where Scripts would not run if a modal dialog were displayed.
Fixed a crash when executing complex layer/property expressions.
Fixed a crash when copying Camera options between Camera layers in the timeline.
Fixed an issue where the Application Menus on macOS may not work or act erratically if scripting or licensing dialog appeared during application startup.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when opening the project from the Home screen.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when opening preferences.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when the migrate preferences dialog was up.
Fixed an issue with loading workspaces that sometimes caused After Effects to crash on launch.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to become unresponsive and eventually crash when invalid characters are entered in the Timeline panel's 'Time duration' text field.
Fixed an issue that caused a memory leak followed by a crash when trying to quit After Effects.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when applying Roto-Brush with Refine Edge activated to a pre-composition.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when importing certain PSD files.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when applying some third-party effects to the adjustment layer with no rendering layers below it.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when using certain third-party plugins from Trapcode Suite.
Fixed an issue that caused some operations to not work on sub-selected text from the text layer.
Fixed an issue that prevented selecting some characters on the text layer.
Fixed an issue that caused the cursor to draw in the wrong location when working with mixed paragraph directions.
Fixed an issue that caused more than one instance of After Effects to open when repeatedly clicking the Open button in CCD to launch it.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo where dragging bounding box Z handle on 3D layer scaled inversely from drag direction.

Bugs fixed in the October 2022 release (version 23.0)

Fixed an issue where only five frames would render on machines with shared system/GPU memory, such as Apple silicon M1 machines.
Fixed a crash when using the Cinema 4D renderer.
Fixed an issue where .fla files would not import.
Fixed an issue where Scripts would not run if a modal dialog were displayed.
Fixed a crash when executing complex layer/property expressions.
Fixed a crash when copying Camera options between Camera layers in the timeline.
Fixed an issue where the Application Menus on macOS may not work or act erratically if scripting or licensing dialog appeared during application startup.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when opening the project from the Home screen.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when opening preferences.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when the migrate preferences dialog was up.
Fixed an issue with loading workspaces that sometimes caused After Effects to crash on launch.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to become unresponsive and eventually crash when invalid characters are entered in the Timeline panel's 'Time duration' text field.
Fixed an issue that caused a memory leak followed by a crash when trying to quit After Effects.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when applying Roto-Brush with Refine Edge activated to a pre-composition.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when importing certain PSD files.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when applying some third-party effects to the adjustment layer with no rendering layers below it.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when using certain third-party plugins from Trapcode Suite.
Fixed an issue that caused some operations to not work on sub-selected text from the text layer.
Fixed an issue that prevented selecting some characters on the text layer.
Fixed an issue that caused the cursor to draw in the wrong location when working with mixed paragraph directions.
Fixed an issue that caused more than one instance of After Effects to open when repeatedly clicking the Open button in CCD to launch it.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo where dragging bounding box Z handle on 3D layer scaled inversely from drag direction.


August 2022 release (version 22.6)

The August 2022 (22.6) release includes the Keyframe Color Labels and Essential Properties in the Properties Panel (Beta). It also offers several stability and performance fixes in After Effects. For a complete list of fixed issues, see Fixed issues.

Keyframe Color Labels

Now you can now assign colors to keyframes in your composition. This helps in smooth organization and makes it easy to find important parts of your animation by creating a visual separation of keyframes in the Timeline.

Bugs fixed in the August 2022 release (version 22.6)

Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when opening certain CMYK Illustrator files.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash on quit when the app was trying to save the workspace changes.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to hang when initializing Adobe Type System.
Fixed an issue that caused an ‘Illegal Argument Flag: -reuse” error when running aerender with -reuse flag.
Fixed an issue with preview that sometimes caused After Effects to become unresponsive if caching frames when idle.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash on double-clicking in the project panel after selecting a learn tutorial from the Home screen.
Fixed an issue where zero denominator errors would occur on project open.
Fixed an issue with CC Libraries that caused preview and thumbnail for some footages to break when dragged into the project panel.
Fixed an issue with Stroke that caused the ‘Below Previous in Same Group’ option to not show up in the Stroke settings.
Fixed an issue that caused drop-down menus to be cut off on dual monitor workspaces with different resolutions.
Fixed an issue that caused comp interactive re-draw to slow down if multiple font styles of Apple SF symbols fonts were being rendered in test layers.
Fixed an issue with Solid layer that caused the Lock Aspect Ratio to not stick.
Fixed an issue where the Application Menus on macOS may not work or act erratically if a dialog was displayed during application startup.
Fixed an issue on macOS where Save/Open/Import dialogs would not show up when After Effects was offline from the network.
Fixed an issue on macOS where files copied during a Collect Files operation may copy as 0-bytes in size.
Fixed an issue where 3D Camera Tracker and Warp Stabilizer would stop after analyzing the first frame of footage.
Fixed an issue where After Effects would crash on shutdown if a third-party ScriptUI-based panel had been displayed.


The June 2022 release (version 22.5) offers the following updates:

TEXT ANIMATION UPDATES:
After Effects now animates text for right-to-left languages properly. The text does not animate backward anymore, so no need for workarounds to fix it. This saves time, and is quick and simple. Existing animation presets also work correctly when applied to right-to-left text.
Combining numbers or English letters with the right-to-left languages is seamless. After Effects identifies these characters and automatically animates them in the correct character order. So, you don't need to animate them separately.
The Character Offset Effect now identifies the correct unicode range for both the Korean and Hebrew languages, ensuring that the effect only displays characters specific to those languages. For more information, see Expanded text support - Unified Text Engine.
FIXED ISSUES:
Fixes to a host of performance and stability issues. For the complete list, see Fixed issues in After Effects.

Bugs fixed in the June 2022 release (version 22.5)

Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to not startup when running on MacOS 10.15.0 through MacOS 10.15.3.
Fixed an issue that caused intermittent crash when quitting After Effects on Mac Arm machine.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when running natively on Apple silicon hardware with Mercury Transmit enabled and Blackmagic Desktop video version 12.1 or earlier installed.
Fixed an issue with Optical Flow GPU rendering that caused After Effects to become unresponsive.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash while transferring frames over Dynamic Link.
Fixed an issue that caused responsive time to break in Dynamic Link Mogrts.
Fixed an issue that caused the Migrate Preferences dialog to show an error when moved during application startup.
Fixed an issue with comp previewing that caused “Two frame preview error” due to memory constraints.
Fixed an issue that caused memory usage to go beyond the assigned threshold.
Fixed an issue that prevented certain .jpeg files from Illustrator to be imported correctly.
Fixed an issue with multilingual text that caused typing issues.
Fixed an issue that caused aerender to crash on Windows when using the ‘-reuse’ flag.
Fixed an issue that caused Hardware Accelerate preference to be automatically disabled when using Remote Desktop.
Fixed an issue with Motion Graphics Templates that caused AeGraphics that are alt-replaced to be improperly upgraded to source graphics in the Project Panel.
Fixed an issue that caused Collect Files to hang on MacOS.


May 2022 release (version 22.4)

The May 2022 release (version 22.4) includes the Separated Dimensions preference, and fixes some issues in After Effects. For a complete list of fixed issues, see Fixed issues.
Separated Dimensions preference
Separated Dimensions preference

You can now use the Preferences checkbox to separate the Position property dimensions in the Timeline by default. This saves time while animating and you can clearly control the X and Y dimensions separately.

Bugs fixed in the May 2022 release (version 22.4)

Fixed an issue where setFontName() would appear in an error message for setFont()
Fixed an issue where Motion Graphic Templates that use the Mocha Shape Importer on Apple silicon hardware would show an unsupported error in Premiere Pro.
Fixed an issue that caused projects with Lumetri parameters not to be backward- or forward-compatible in After Effects 22.3
Fixed an issue that prevented certain .png files from importing properly
Fixed an issue that caused prevented workspaces from reverting to saved layouts via Reset Workspace to Saved Layout option
Fixed an issue that caused slow playback of video footage when Multi-Frame Rendering is enabled
Fixed an issue that resulted in errors when refreshing the contents of the Effects and Presets panel
Fixed an issue that caused text animators and highlight/text selection to not work correctly for right-to-left-aligned languages
Fixed an issue that resulted in After Effects becoming unresponsive while using the Mocha plugin


May 2022 release (version 22.4)

The May 2022 release (version 22.4) includes the Separated Dimensions preference, and fixes some issues in After Effects. For a complete list of fixed issues, see Fixed issues.
Separated Dimensions preference
Separated Dimensions preference

You can now use the Preferences checkbox to separate the Position property dimensions in the Timeline by default. This saves time while animating and you can clearly control the X and Y dimensions separately.


April 2022 release (version 22.3)

New review workspace with Frame.io integration
Frame.io integration

Now built into After Effects and Premiere Pro, Frame.io for Creative Cloud gives you real-time review and approval, and cloud media sharing.
Native Apple silicon support

Experience shorter launch times, improved UI responsiveness, and faster rendering on Apple M1 devices.
Extended Viewer

Now expand your composition view beyond the frame edge in order to navigate the Draft 3D space more easily and view what's outside the composition area.
Scene Edit Detection

Powered by Adobe Sensei, automatically detect scene changes in an edited clip and place scenes as individual layers or create markers at edit points for a faster project setup.
Binning indicators for 3D layers

The new 3D binning indicators provide a visual map of how After Effects composites 2D and 3D layers together in a composition.
Coach marks

After Effects displays coach marks when you first launch the app after updating or installation. These are short descriptions about the different functionality.
Constrained shapes

Now create perfectly centered squares and circles by holding Shift and double-clicking the Rectangle or Ellipse tool.

Bugs fixed in the April 2022 release (version 22.3)

Fixed an issue that caused Cache Frames When Idle to use system resources inefficiently.
Fixed an issue where After Effects would crash while using Apple SF Pro font version 17.1d1e1.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation where Camera tool options would cycle backwards when using the Shift key.
Fixed an issue that prevented Exposure Control from automatically enabling when Exposure value was changed.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that caused layers to not stay under the mouse cursor during drag interactions in Z.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that prevented moving layers in increments of 10 pixels when holding shift key and slowly dragging.
Fixed an issue where temporary files created during an image sequence export were not deleted if both Skip Existing Files and Multi-Frame Rendering were enabled.
Fixed an issue with Draft 3D that caused comp to flash when changing magnification in auto resolution mode.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects generated QuickTime DNx sources with alpha to be decoded incorrectly in Avid Media Composer.


Bugs fixed in the March 2022 release (version 22.2.1)

Fixed output module templates being corrupted on exit of After Effects.
Fixed an issue where calling CompItem.markerProperty.setValueAtTime() caused an error.


Bugs fixed in the February 2022 release (version 22.2)

Fixed an issue that caused the composition profiler to crash certain compositions.
Fixed an issue that caused After Effects to crash when adding/removing dropdown menu items in the Essential Graphics Panel.
Fixed an issue that caused Cineware to crash.
Fixed an issue causing render queue items to be incorrectly marked as Ready for rendering.
Fixed an issue for Windows that caused the memory usage to exceed the assigned threshold when rendering projects with 32-bit EXR files.
Fixed the Vegas effect generating flickering output when the Random Phase checkbox is enabled while rendering with Multi-Frame Rendering.
Fixed an issue with Draft 3D that caused composition tool cursors to appear in non-composition panels.
Fixed an issue with Draft 3D that caused RGBA values to not show up in the info panel.
Fixed an issue that caused the color picker to not work in Draft 3D.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that resulted in in an error when using anchor point tool with layer at zero scale.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that caused n-up view label size to change when interacting with the gizmo.
Fixed an issue that caused 3D Ground Plane to be able to be turned on/off during a preview if Draft 3D was on.
Fixed an issue that caused the cursor to flicker when trying to resize the panels inside After Effects.


Bugs fixed in the November 2021 release (version 22.0.1)

Fixed an issue where Premiere Pro or Adobe Media Encoder may stop working while rendering an After Effects composition.
Fixed an issue where an invisible After Effects process (aerendercore on MacOS or AfterFX on Win) may stop working when a dynamically-linked application, such as Premiere Pro or Media Encoder was closed or Edit Original was invoked.


October 2021 release (version 22.0)

Faster Previews and Renders with Multi-Frame Rendering

Accelerate your creative process by taking advantage of the full power of your system’s CPU cores when previewing and rendering. After Effects automatically adjusts resource usage to render your compositions as fast as possible on your machine.


Reimagined Render Queue with Remote Notifications

The Render Queue, also taking advantage of Multi- Frame Rendering, highlights the most important information such as your rendering progress. Get notifications even on your smart watch, when renders are complete via the Creative Cloud desktop or mobile app.

Composition Profiler

Learn which layers and effects in your composition are taking the most time to render in relation to other layers and effects. The layer profiler highlights which areas of the composition impact your processing time and enable you to optimize your project for faster rendering as you iterate.


Speculative previews

Work faster even when you’re not working. After Effects renders your composition when it has been idle for a set amount of time, so your composition is ready to preview when you are.


Export Faster with Adobe Media Encoder

With Multi-Frame Rendering, export your compositions up to 4x faster using the full power of your system and without upgrading your hardware. Render while you work on your compositions while Adobe Media Encoder renders faster in the background.


Improved playback for 10-bit HEVC

New hardware-accelerated decoding for 10-bit HEVC 422 provides improved playback and editing on Intel Windows systems.

Enable LUT Interpolation method selection

Enables you to select the LUT Interpolation method from dropdown under Project Settings. Currently After Effects only supports Trilinear or Tetrahedral interpolation.


Unified version numbers

With this major release, all the Adobe video and audio applications will align on version number 22.0, making it easier to ensure compatibility across the applications.

Bugs fixed in the October 2021 release (version 22.0)
Fixed an issue resulting in an incorrect error message when user stops a render in progress.
Fixed an issue that resulted in an error message when render is resumed after being previously stopped.
Resolved an issue that caused misestimation of render output file size.
Fixed an issue that caused renders to be sent to incorrect destination folder on Windows.
Fixed an issue that caused existing renders to be overwritten without warning on Windows.
Fixed an issue that resulted in template-generated render output paths not being sent to Adobe Media Encoder.
Fixed an issue where comp pixel aspect ratio was not respected in Draft 3D.
Fixed an issue that caused jagged drawing of 3D Transform Gizmo when switching gizmo modes.
Fixed an issue where opacity slider bar control did not move to mouse position in 3D Scene Navigation.
Fixed an issue that caused new comps to inherit 3D view from most recently viewed comp.
Fixed an issue that caused preview screen to flicker when creating a long text frame.
Fixed an issue where pixels weren’t displayed at certain composition resolutions.
Fixed an issue that caused layer markers to remain past the split point when splitting layers.
Fixed an issue with Cinema4D that caused After Effects to crash when resetting Camera/Take.


Bugs fixed in the August 2021 release (version 18.4.1)

Fixed an issue that prevented pasting into text layers from other applications.


Bugs fixed in the July 2021 release (version 18.4)

Fixed an issue that caused certain EXR footage to import incorrectly cropped.
Fixed an issue with 3D Fast Draft that caused the buffer to not clear in certain cases when the next frame was drawn.
Fixed an issue that caused the overlays for Shapes/Masks to be offset by a pixel or two when zoomed in above 800%.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that prevented using it with Track Matte layer.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that caused Gizmo and POI to be incorrectly positioned after setting negative scale for a camera or light parent.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that prevented assigning a keyboard shortcut for View > Look at all Layers.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that prevented comp tool bar from honoring Cmd/Ctrl to share view options.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that prevented n-up view layout setting for 3D comp to be retained when opening a saved project.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that prevented comp tool bar Ground Plane switch to not honor Shared View Options settings.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that prevented right click in non active n-up view to switch activation for bringing up the corresponding context sensitive menu.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that prevented non-uniformly scaled layer to uniformly scale.
Fixed an issue causing some JPEG images to fail to load from older projects.


Bugs fixed in the June 2021 release (version 18.2.1)

Updates to project loading to better handle corrupted files.


The May 2021 release (version 18.2) of After Effects offers the following:

Support for DirectX12 technology on Windows: DirectX12 now replaces OpenGL as the default display rendering technology for After Effects and Premiere Pro on Windows, providing a more modern codebase with improved stability and performance.
Fix to a host of crashing bugs and general stability improvements. For the complete list of fixed issues, see Fixed issues in After Effects.

Bugs fixed in the May 2021 release (version 18.2)

Fixed an issue that caused After Effects 2021 to create and utilize “After Effects 2020” folder for User Presets, User Libraries, and User Videos.
Fixed an issue with Real-Time 3D Draft Preview that caused the state to not be preserved when opening a saved project.
Fixed an issue with Real-Time 3D Draft Preview that caused compositions to render incorrectly when multiple compositions were opened in individual viewers with Draft 3D enabled.
Fixed an issue that caused panning using space bar shortcut to not work in the render queue.
Fixed an issue that caused using the custom keyboard shortcuts from After Effects 18.0 in After Effects 18.1 to break the “V” hotkey for Selection tool.


Bugs fixed in the April 2021 release (version 18.1)

Fixed an issue that could cause After Effects to crash when copying layers using Linear Color key.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that caused spring loaded “C” AND “V” keys to not work correctly.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that caused “Shift+C” and “Shift+V” to not cycle through the camera tool options and gizmo modes respectively.
Fixed an issue with 3D Scene Navigation that caused camera tools to not activate when all 3D layer’s visibility switches were toggled on/off.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that caused light gizmo and wireframes rotation to not respond to expression.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that caused it to draw with incorrect proportion when changing composition pixel aspect ratio.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that caused layer to incorrectly rotate in World and View Axis mode when rotating in X, Y or Z by gizmo in rotation mode.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that caused gizmo and camera or light axis to jump when adding a parent with rotation or negative scale.
Fixed an issue with Draft 3D preview that caused the viewport to not refresh on Windows if the project is set to Mercury Software and the composition has a transparent background.
Fixed an issue where the right-most column of pixels in a composition preview could display incorrectly.
Fixed an issue where links in the After Effects Help menu did not point to the correct location
Fixed an issue that could cause a matted layer to be hidden when a GPU-enabled effect was used on a lower layer.
Fixed an issue that caused a color shift when converting some illustrator files to shapes.
Fixed an issue that where pressing Escape would not revert the original expression after replacing an expression using the pick whip in the Graph Editor.
Fixed an issue that caused a pick-whipped expression reference to be inserted at the start of the expression when using the pick whip to replace an expression that is visible in the Graph Editor expression field.
Fixed an issue when importing TIFF files that contain pixels with zero alpha.
Fixed an issue that caused Render Queue log files to be created while exporting a single item when logging level was set to Errors Only.


Bugs fixed in the March 2021 release (version 18.0.1)

Fixed a crash when closing a Timeline panel when After Effects is running on an external monitor with multiple timeline windows open.


March 2021 release (version 18.0)

Media Replacement in Motion Graphics templates and Essential Properties

Create Motion Graphics templates with swappable media to enable editors in Premiere Pro to replace images or video. You can generate multiple variations of a template using Essential Properties and with different types of media for outputs such as social media graphics, animated slideshows, brand templates containing a logo.

Real-Time 3D Draft Preview

Make creative decisions faster when working with 3D scenes. The new real-time 3D rendering engine gives you instant feedback on your 3D designs in the Comp panel so you can easily make creative decisions much faster and spend more time iterating on your design.

3D Ground Plane

A ground plane is a horizontal plane of projection that gives you a sense of perspective and space within your 3D scene. It has a dedicated toggle button which appears in the Composition panel toolbar.

Improved Composition Toolbar

Get access to the most-used composition options tools when you need them most. An updated, in-context Comp panel toolbar displays options within the context of your design and is more logically organized.

Team Projects performance improvements

After Effects artists can now share and receive changes to Team Projects faster. Searches are now at least twice as fast, thanks to more efficient indexing.

Bugs fixed in the March 2021 release (version 18.0)

Fixed an issue with the Levels and Shift Channels Effect that caused rendering differences between Mercury Software and Mercury GPU modes.
Fixed an issue where ScriptUI embedded panels would cause AE to crash when selecting ‘Use Legacy UI’ option.
Fixed an issue where mask and shape paths may result in low resolution Bezier splines.
Fixed an issue with Roto Brush where the propagation of the mask may occur multiple times.
Fixed an issue with the Expression Editor that caused mismatched parentheses when pick-whipping or pasting between closed parentheses.
Fixed an issue where the Dropdown Effect Control could only be applied once per layer.
Fixed various issues with Roto Brush when propagating mask changes in multiple clips in a single composition at the same time.
Fixed an issue that caused AE to crash when using Auto-trace with Camera or Light layers.
Fixed an issue that caused the color picker or eye dropper to fail to pick color on Windows when using secondary monitor.
Fixed an issue that caused CEP panels to not draw properly on Windows if changing display scale while the app was running.
Fixed an issue that caused ‘New Composition’ and ‘ New Composition From Footage’ text in an empty composition and layer window to scale correctly.
Fixed an issue that caused alternate toolbar options to display incorrectly on Windows when using secondary monitor.
Fixed an issue with the Graph Editor that caused all text in the Expression Editor to be highlighted when reverting changes using Escape key.
Fixed an issue with Graph Editor that caused ‘(No selected properties have expressions)’ message to show up in the expression editor when committing a change the expression.
Fixed an issue where Create Shapes from Vector Layer could cause color shifts when project working space was different from source working space.
Fixed an issue that caused Radiance.8BI footage to fail to import on Windows.
Fixed an issue that caused AE to become unresponsive when importing footage while concurrently previewing a composition on Windows.
Fixed an issue that caused UI drawn into the Effect Parameter Title area to not be displayed.
Fixed an issue where an error would be shown unexpectedly when using output path templates (“The directory originally specified in the selected output module no longer exists”).
Overall improvements to After Effects when using a Hi-DPI monitor.


Bugs fixed in the February 2021 release (version 17.7)

3D Reference Axis colors now match the 3D gizmo.
3D Reference Axes are now on by default. To disable them, click on the Grid and Guide Options button at the bottom of the Composition panel.
Fixed an issue with 3D Transform Gizmo that caused gizmo components to render overlapped when using negative scale.
Fixed an issue that prevented dragging to reorder more than one effect at a time in the Effect Controls panel.
Fixed an issue that caused tools at the bottom of Lumetri Scopes panel to be clipped on a HiDPI Windows system.
Fixed an issue with Content Aware Fill that caused a color shift in generated fill layers when switching Project Working Space from ProPhoto RGB to Rec.709 Gamma 2.4.
Fixed an issue in the Content Aware Fill options where the lighting correction checkbox would show as checked when a Fill Method that didn’t support lighting correction was selected.
Fixed an issue with Content Aware Fill when using 16bpc projects.
Fixed an issue where CMYK files may shift colors unexpectedly when the Project Working Space is linearized, or using a non-display-style color profile.
Fixed an issue where an Alpha channel dialog may display incorrectly when importing a CMYK Photoshop file.
Fixed an issue where expression edits made in the Graph Editor were not applied consistently


January 2021 release (version 17.6)

Shade
More accurate Content-Aware Fill

Handle lighting shifts in footage better with improved Content-Aware Fill. It helps you cleanly remove objects from footage where harsh lighting changes occur throughout the footage.

Ae
Color Space and Gamma Changes

The default working space and Gamma curve is modified for all RED files.

Bugs fixed in the January 2021 release (version 17.6)

3D Scene Navigation
Fixed an issue that caused the mouse cursor to change to the camera tool instead of zoom out when holding the option key with zoom tool is selected.
Fixed an issue that caused incorrect camera manipulation point for overlapping layers in Z-axis.
Fixed an issue that caused an error when panning in the same position as POI.
3D Transform Gizmo
Fixed an issue that prevented using gizmo with scale zero.
Fixed an issue that caused the scale readout UI to overlap when scaling down.
Fixed an issue that caused a layer to tilt in the wrong plane if pressing shift while dragging rotation handle on reoriented layer.
Fixed an issue that caused light and camera gizmo components to render overlapped.
Other bug fixes
Fixed an issue with Color Management that caused ‘Use Display Color Management’ to not be enabled by default when setting project working space.
Fixed an issue that could cause a crash when using Key Cleaner with HDR footage.
Fixed an issue that could cause an expression to be replaced instead of appending when using expression or property pick-whip.
Fixed an issue with Roto Brush that caused incorrect propagation cached markings to show up when switching layers in the Layer panel.
Fixed an issue that caused longer load times for projects with compositions that have more than a hundred layers.
Fixed an issue that caused the Roto Brush modified span bar duration to reset when adding a stroke.
Fixed an issue that caused drag operations such as moving panels within a workspace or repositioning guide lines to not work properly on Mac, after changing the display resolution in System Preferences.
Fixed an issue with Essential properties that caused an error when duplicating a master property group in the timeline.
Fixed an issue with Essential properties that caused a master property name to increment when duplicating it.
Fixed an issue that caused the app window to open larger than the monitors screen size if the ‘ModifiedWorkspaces’ folder was deleted.
Fixed an issue that caused a panel to not show at the correct height when undocking it from a stacked panel group.
Fixed an issue that caused a panels snap points to be incorrect when display scale was greater than 100%.
Fixed an issue that caused the bounding box handles for selected shape groups, paragraph text, and motion tracker points to not draw at the correct size when the monitor resolution is scaled.
Fixed an issue that caused snapping to be not accurate when using the graph editor.
Fixed an issue that caused adjacent Bezier keyframes with zero velocity and same values to not cache properly.
Fixed an issue that caused the app to crash when using Boris Reactor plugin with a no audio footage.
Fixed an issue that caused scripting of Render Queue crop attributes to swap right and bottom values.
Fixed an issue that caused dragging the current-time indicator (CTI) to leave black trails at certain display scales.


The November 2020 release of After Effects provides fix to crashing bugs, and improvement to general quality.

Bugs fixed in the November 2020 release (version 17.5.1)
3D Transform Gizmo
Fixed an issue that caused the camera and light wireframes and position paths to draw incorrectly for some view angles.
Fixed an issue that caused the 3D Transform Gizmo to disappear when using the rotate tool.
Fixed an issue that caused an error when using large layer scale value with Rotation Gizmo.
Fixed an issue that caused a crash when setting X-scale to zero.
Fixed an issue that caused the UI element of Rotate Gizmo to draw when layer is out of view.
Fixed an issue that caused drawing problems in comp panel when using a Custom View.
Fixed an issue that caused the Gizmo size to be relatively large or small depending on the size of the comp.
Fixed an issue where the wrong rotation values could be shown when using View Axis modes.
Fixed an issue that caused the Z-scale to not work when using the transform gizmo in some cases.
Fixed an issue that caused the UI showing how far you have moved an element to overlap with other UI elements unexpectedly.
3D Scene Navigation
Fixed an issue that caused all the camera keyframes to be removed when resetting camera.
Fixed an issue that caused an error when dollying camera in same position as POI.
Fixed an issue that prevented using Option/Alt key as tool modifier key on 2D layer in a 3D comp.
Fixed an issue that prevented keyboard shortcut Alt/Option to not engage wireframes interactions in 2D comps.
Other bug fixes
Fixed an issue that caused AE to crash when creating a new layer viewer while paint tool is selected.
Fixed an issue that caused AE to freeze when moving the cursor over a footage panel with pen tool selected.
Fixed an issue that caused the Linear color key controls to disappear when using the effects own color picker in the comp panel.
Fixed an issue that caused a black dialog window to pop up in case of a mismatch between Operating Systems locale and CCD installer app language.
Fixed an issue that caused QuickTime DNxHR files generated via Avid Media Composer's Universal Media Engine to import as audio-only.
Fixed an issue that caused all-black frames when exporting a comp to QuickTime with the Avid DNxHR 444 codec with an alpha channel.
Fixed an issue that caused import to fail for Quick Time ProRes files.
Fixed an issue that caused garbage pixels when exporting a comp to QuickTime DNxHR 444 with uncompressed alpha.
Fixed an issue that caused Content Aware Fill PNG export files to be large.
Fixed an issue with Essential Graphics Panel that caused a crash when closing the Edit Properties dialog.
Fixed an issue that caused the render to fail when running aerender from CMD.
Fixed an issue that caused AERenderCore to not terminate when quitting the app in some cases.
Fixed an issue that caused memory error when rendering AI files in “More Accurate” mode.
Fixed an issue that caused AMD integrated GPUs to not be used for effect rendering in higher resolution comps.


October 2020 release (version 17.5)

Roto Brush 2

Use Roto Brush 2 to separate a foreground object from its background faster and more accurately. Powered by Sensei, it uses machine learning to propagate selections over time, saving hours of laboriously rotoscoping frame by frame.
3dspace
3D Design Space

Use the new mode to design and navigate content in 3D space better and faster in After Effects. This release introduces the following tools:

3D Transform Gizmos
Camera tools for improved navigation in 3D
3dtransform
3D Transform Gizmos

Use the new 3D Transform Gizmo to rotate, scale and position a camera. Use the Dimensional guides to view how far a camera has moved or how many degrees it has been rotated. Quickly switch between gizmo modes to focus on a single task.
cameratool
Improved camera tools for navigating 3D

Quickly move around 3D space right after turning a 2D layer into a 3D layer. Add multiple cameras to a scene based on various viewpoints. Intuitively orbit, pan, and dolly around a scene using customizable keyboard shortcuts.

Bugs fixed in the October 2020 release (version 17.5)

Fixed an issue that caused a crash when changing a drop-down list value in the Essential Graphics panel.
Fixed in issue where After Effects could hang when reading from the disk cache while in low memory situations.
Fixed an issue that caused a crash when trying to use hotkeys and shortcuts before creating a composition.
Fixed an issue that caused a crash when switching between layer and comp viewer while ‘Content Aware Fill’ was generating Fill Layer.
Fixed an issue with motion graphic texts that caused incorrect rendering for South Asian Languages.
Fixed an issue that caused Adobe Media Encoder to hang when trying to render comps from After Effects.
Fixed several caching related issues that caused cache markings to not update or even purge in some situations.
The tool tip no longer flickers when you hold the cursor over the time ruler in the Timeline panel.
Using an expression control as a master property again displays the control’s customized name correctly.


Bugs fixed in the September 2020 release (version 17.1.4)

The Create Shapes from Vector Layer command is now disabled for Illustrator layers if the source file is missing.
Bug fixes for the Median effect when rendering transparent pixels: alpha channel edges render correctly in 32-bpc color, and layers that are completely transparent no longer return an error message, “Photoshop Library operation failed”.
Fixed an issue where using shape stroke taper was generating a spike at start and end points.
Fixed an issue with Master Properties that was causing the push and pull buttons to be grayed out after keyframe interpolation changes.
Fixed an issue where adding dropdown menu items to existing Motion Graphics templates and replacing in Premiere was resetting previous selections.
Fixed an issue in Echo effect, where it could produce garbage pixels in output.


Bugs fixed in the August 2020 release (version 17.1.3)

Improved EXR performance: Multi-part and multi-channel EXR files preview up to 3x faster.
Fixed a crash that could occur when creating a composition using a CSV file containing Chinese characters.
Fixed an issue where the status info along the bottom of the Render Queue Panel was not appearing at non-100% display scale.


Bugs fixed in the July 2020 release (version 17.1.2)

Fixed a bug where previews could not be stopped during playback.
Fixed an issue where Markers could not be referenced by name in the JavaScript Expressions Engine.
Fixed an issue with Roto Brush where Refine Edge strokes failed to morph and adapt to changes in footage over time.
Fixed a crash that could occur if a script attempts to display a dialog box when you switch workspaces.
Fixed an issue so that clicking on a property’s “Include in graph editor” button no longer causes a “Could not convert to Unicode” error when After Effects is run in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.
Fixed crashes related to using South East Asian languages in a composition.
Fixed an import issue where Illustrator REC709 files were incorrectly interpreted as sRGB.


Bugs fixed in the June 2020 release (version 17.1.1)

Fixed an issue that was causing custom preview thumbnails created in the Essential Graphics Panel to appear black when duplicating the composition.
Fixed an issue where tapered strokes were generating the wrong start and end edge for ellipse shapes when using modified trim path values.
Fixed an issue with tapered strokes where the inner corners were torn or pinched incorrectly.
Fixed an issue on Apple hardware where the composition panel could fail to display correctly when the GPU driver failed to initialize.
Fixed an issue that was preventing After Effects compositions being used with Dynamic Link, such as Adobe Media Encoder, Premiere Pro, when certain plugins were used in the composition.
Fixed an issue where the wrong version of an After Effects composition would be rendered by Adobe Media Encoder when the composition was edited after being added to Adobe Media Encoder.


May 2020 release (version 17.1)

Tapered shape strokes

Create round, wavy, and pointy shape strokes with the new parameters - Taper and Wave, and animate the strokes to create unique graphics.

Concentric shape repeaters

New parameters in the Offset Paths shape effect allow you to make copies of a path that radiate outward or inward enabling you to create unique background that have a retro vibe.

ProRes RAW import support

You can now import and edit ProRes RAW files in After Effects.

Automatically update audio devices (macOS only)

Set the Audio Hardware preferences on macOS to System Default to automatically switch to changes in the OS audio device settings, such as when connecting to USB.

Copy media to shared location

In Team Projects, you can now copy the project media to a shared location for multi-user access.

Enable collaboration on cloud documents

Collaborate on shared projects while working remotely.

Bugs fixed in the May 2020 release (version 17.1)

Fixed an issue to allow negative values for the CompItem.displayStartTime and CompItem.displayStartFrame scripting attributes so we match the valid range allowed when setting the Start Timecode in the Composition Settings Dialog (-3:00:00:00 to 23:59:00:00).
Fixed an issue with the Time Navigator Bar to work as expected when working with time-reversed layers.
Fixed ability to sync settings in menus and through Home Screen.
Fixed an issue to make sure that the composition preview remains in position while resizing comp panel during playback.
Fixed an issue for the mask tracker text misalignment.
Fixed an issue with VR Rendering on Metal.
Fixed an issue with Expression editor to auto-complete ‘timeToFrames’ function.
Fixed an issue with Tint Effect to show correct values in 8-bit or 16-bit when swapping colors.
Fixed an issue where when you rename a layered file used by your project, such as PSD file imported as a comp, re-linking one layer now automatically relinks all layers of the file.
Fixed a crash on Mac hardware that does not support Metal. OpenGL is no longer used to display on these systems.
Fixed an issue to ensure that all Premiere Pro keyframes are imported into After Effects correctly, including those on clips that were shifted forward in time.
Fixed a crash on Mac that could occur when a text field is in edit mode and the cursor hovers over other UI elements.


Bugs fixed in the April 2020 release (version 17.0.6)

Fixed an issue where After Effects does not startup when a folder that After Effects needs to read is readable only by the root user on Mac. This bug was impacting the use of software such as Faronics Deep Freeze.
Fixed an issue that causes an importer error when importing H.264 Mac OS Mojave screen recording clip.
Fixed an issue for Windows that causes CIDFont, CMap and Font subfolders to appear in the same folder as the After Effects Project when double-clicking an .aep project file to launch the app and open a project.
Fixed an issue with modified data files (JSON, CSV, TSV) not being used when compositions are exported via Adobe Media Encoder.
Fixed an issue specific to XDCAM HD 422 file that causes artifacts when exporting as MPEG2 CBR50.
Fixed an issue specific to H.264 120 fps files that show red frame at the end of the file.
Improved performance for importing H.264 files created by Open Broadcaster Software (OBS – Screen Recording).
Fixed an issue where a time stretched composition could cause After Effects to show an error, overflow converting ratio denominators (17::19) when queueing the comp to Adobe Media Encoder.
Resolve out of bounds read security issue. See security update bulletin ID ASPB20-21.
Add support for accurate half-NTSC frame rate (14.985 fps).


Bugs fixed in the March 2020 release (version 17.0.5)

Fixed an issue where pressing the Escape key while editing text in the Dropdown Menu dialog crashes After Effects.
Fixed an issue where ProRes HDR footage that is graded and/or mastered in P3 was not using the correct color management workspace.
Fixed an issue where the Link Focus to Layer command produced an expression that did not work with the JavaScript expression engine.
Shift Channels effect can now utilize the GPU for processing.

Bugs fixed in the February 2020 release (version 17.0.4)

Projects saved in After Effects 17.0.4 containing rotoscope data open in After Effects 17.0.1 without causing a missing data error.
Fixed a crash that could occur when using scripting or, drag and drop of a file into a project.
Fixed an error, “After Effects Error: zero denominator in ratio multiply. ( 17 :: 17 )” that may show after opening the Render Queue window.
Fixed an issue where a comp may display twice in the preview window when no dedicated GPU is available or detected.
Removed the Pro Import After Effects plug-in on MacOS. For more information, see Pro Import plug-in is missing on macOS.
Fixed the Dropdown Menu Control Effect where new items are not added when in active text edit mode.
Enabled 32-bpc support for Minimax effect.
Additional fixes for corrupted rendering on 16” MacBook Pro.
Installing or Uninstalling After Effects no longer removes or overwrites newer Cinema 4D versions installed independently of After Effects.


The January 2020 update for After Effects provides the following updates:

Fix for a host of issues, including general stability, and crash issues. For more information, see Fixed issues in After Effects.

Bugs fixed in the January 2020 release (version 17.0.2)
A project saved in After Effects 17.0.1 containing Rotoscope data would not open and would show an error related to Missing Data.
On macOS, an issue can occur when the comp window is on a different physical display than the timeline window and the first click on the comp window would not allow selection of items in the comp.
After Effects crashes when using puppet and clicking on an intersecting outline in certain situations.
Added support for 11.988 fps as a standard import/export rate. Previously, clips imported or exported at this FPS rate may have a duplicated first frame.
Updated OpenEXR suite of plug-ins to fix a number of issues identified after 17.0 release:
IDentifier: Improper keyframed effect properties are allowed.
EXtractoR: Error and crash previewing with keyframed effect properties, Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library Assertion failed, Expression: FALSE
Cryptomatte: Error and crash previewing with keyframed effect properties, Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library Assertion failed, Expression: FALSE
Cryptomatte: incorrect rendering and target selection when layer bounds are outside comp.
Fixed the error message - "No valid color space in VideoFrameHeader" when Character Animator dynamic-link scene is rendered in AE with conversion to Rec. 709 set to True.
Improved use of the GPU during preview display.
Various improvements to preview panning and zooming while playing back a comp.
Fixed an issue where wrong line numbers would be displayed related to errors in JavaScript expressions.
Content Aware fill now supports Unicode characters in Fill folder path.


The December 2019 update (version 17.0.1) for After Effects provides the following updates:

New scripting support with the Dropdown Menu Control effect. For more information, see Scripting support for the Dropdown Menu Control.
Fix for a host of issues, including general stability, and crash issues. For more information, see Fixed issues in After Effects.
List of known issues in this release.

Bugs fixed in the December 2019 release (version 17.0.1)

General stability, usability, and performance
Fixed an issue where using the arrow keys to scroll through fonts in the character panel do not show a live preview on the selected text layer.
Updates for OpenEXR and Cryptomatte to fix a number of bugs.
Can't open Cryptomatte effect modal settings dialog when launching with fresh preferences.
Cryptomatte effect Layer settings popup is blank by default.
Changing Cryptomatte effect Layer setting after making selection does not display warning.
Save Frame As ProEXR does not update the default name in the save dialog.
Fixed an issue where opening the layer preview window may show up blank. This may occur if a project has been saved on Windows, then opened on macOS.
Fixed an issue where the I and O keys may not work as keyboard shortcuts.
Fixed an issue where After Effects may show a leaked memory warning on quit.
Fixed Cartoon effect that may show corrupted or unexpected artifacts on some frames or after a purge of memory cache.
Fixed a problem setting PWS through scripting where a requested profile may not be set.
Fixed master properties not animating unless the original property is animated.
Fixed an issue where shift-rescaling will incorrectly flip the layer if the layer has previously been flipped.
Fixed an issue where the UI becomes unresponsive because the auto-save folder could not be created or is read-only.
Fixed an issue where random characters may appear in Undo/Redo History when moving Footage to the Composition by drag and drop.
Fixed an issue with GPU Drop Shadow effect that may cause hardware preview playback to stop.
Fixed Dropdown Menu expression control effect duplicates not appearing in the correct order.
Fixed an issue where audio may be muted when an audio-only preview is started.
Restored default behavior of 16.x when dealing with YCC footage to be the full range Rec. 709 profile (Compensate is on).
Fixed marquee selection in Warp Stabilizer tracking points not working correctly when not at 100% zoom.
Fixed an issue where Colorama color picker may not pick the correct color.
Fixed an issue where the timeline panel may become unresponsive during preview.
Fixed an application hang that could occur if the timeline CTI was set to a negative time by an expression or script.
Fixed an issue where the color workspace may not be honored between Adobe Media Encoder and After Effects.
Fixed an issue where Pseudoeffect properties being used as Master Properties are zeroed out and keyframes removed on project open. If you have a project with this issue, you need to:
Start After Effects
Open the project
Clear any errors
Close the project, but not After Effects
Open the project again
Save the project
Close After Effects
Open After Effects and the project and the error should be gone.
Render and export
Fixed a rendering issue where Mac hardware built before mid-2012 would show either a static preview or duplicate previews (one static, one animating).
Fixed a rendering issue with Roughen Edges that may show additional content outside the bounds of a shape layer.
Fixed a rendering issue with the new 16” Macbook Pro that would show a corrupted preview.
Fixed crash on macOS launch if the hardware does not support Metal rendering.
Fixed hardware rendering issue on partially occluded small frames with large zoom.
Fixed a crash that could occur when rendering a comp to Adobe Media Encoder when the encoder preset was trying to match the source quality for its settings.
Fixed a rendering issue with time remapped comps.
Fixed a crash when rendering certain motion graphic templates in Premiere Pro on Windows using CUDA rendering.
Improved the rendering of frames when changing zoom level while a preview is playing back. If the comp quality is set to Auto, the preview can still show an incorrectly sized comp for a frame or two. Setting the comp quality to full or half, etc. will resolve this issue.
Crash
Cryptomatte crashes with no layer selection in the effect settings dialog.
Fixed a crash where Colorama color picker would crash on macOS 10.15.
Fixed a potential crash when using macOS 10.15.1 and purging cache memory.
Fixed crash that may occur when applying a motion graphic template to a Premiere Pro timeline when the fonts needed weren’t synchronized.
Fixed crash on macOS launch if the hardware does not support Metal rendering.
Fixed crash that may occur while an error dialog was trying to be shown.
Fixed unstable puppet engine crash when in a semi-untessellated state.
Fixed random noise and crashes when using Shadow Diffusion in a Classic 3D comp.
Fixed an error or crash when using the Mask Tracker in Perspective Mode.
Fixed a crash that could occur when using special characters in a drop-down control in the Essential Graphics Panel.
Fixed a crash that could occur when preview playback is below real time and the comp contains audio.
Fixed a crash that could occur when rendering a comp to Adobe Media Encoder when the encoder preset was trying to match the source quality for its settings.
Fixed a crash that might occur when a scrollbar is clicked in a panel that doesn’t have overflowing content.
Fixed a crash that may occur when shape overlays are enabled in the comp window.
Fixed a crash that could occur on macOS when clicking and scrubbing in the timecode edit control in the timeline window.
Fixed a crash that could occur when opening a project in a situation where After Effects has multiple importers to handle the file type.


November 2019 release (version 17.0)

Preview and playback performance improvements

Preview playback is rock-solid with threading improvements and a new GPU-accelerated display system core. Get an accurate view of your designs without breaking your creative flow.

Enhanced EXR workflows

Get up to 12x faster performance when working with multi-channel EXR files. Import layered EXR files as compositions and get started compositing faster.

Faster shapes

Create and edit shapes quickly with improved performance. Stay organized with more accessible grouping controls.

Graphics and text enhancements

Take advantage of new dropdown menu expression controls and text style expressions to adjust many settings at once and design templates that are easier for your clients to update in Premiere Pro.

Expression improvements

For expressions that don’t change over time, After Effects will apply them to all frames at once with up to 40% faster processing. Expressions applied to master properties are significantly faster as well.

Expanded format and better playback support

Format support includes Canon XF-HEVC plus import for two legacy formats: Animation with delta frames and MJPEG. Get improved performance for 10-bit H.265 HD/UHD, HEVC HD/UHD, and ProRes files.

Other enhancements

Also includes better notifications for system compatibility.

Cinema 4D Lite R21
Cinema 4D Lite R21

Get the latest release of C4D Lite with new features including caps and bevel tools for creating extruded text and splines. A new high-performance denoising filter improves visual quality and reduces rendering times.

Content-Aware Fill for video improvements

Remove unwanted objects faster with enhanced Content-Aware Fill, now twice as fast and uses half as much memory.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/whats-new/2020.html


After Effects 16.1.3 fixes a critical issue with import of variable frame rate video clips created on the Nintendo Switch using the built-in video capture functionality. You may also face import issues with some versions of Elgato capture software such as, Game Capture HD. This issue only occurs in version 16.1.2 of After Effects. For more information, see Issue with import of variable frame rate video clips created on the Nintendo Switch.


After Effects 16.1
APR 02 2019

Content-Aware Fill for video
Easily and cleanly remove unwanted objects, including boom mics, signs, and even people, from your clip. Powered by Adobe Sensei, Content-Aware Fill automatically fills the space throughout your clip, saving you hours of painstaking erasing or replacing objects frame by frame.
Expressions Editor
A new Expressions Editor makes writing expressions easier with line numbers, matching brace highlighting, and code folding. Customize your coding environment with syntax highlighting themes. Identify and fix problems quickly with in-line error messages.
Performance improvements
More GPU-accelerated effects include Roughen Edges and Change Color. Both now support 16- and 32-bpc color. Work faster than ever in Team Projects when using multiple assets
between team members.
Save guides to share with Premiere Pro editors
Load and save guide setups to reuse in new projects and share with Premiere Pro editors to set parameters for their sequence.
Automatic font syncing
As you move from machine to machine or project to project, any missing fonts will automatically sync from Adobe Fonts, if available.
Expanded format support
RED debayering is now functional for Mercury GPU Acceleration (Metal) on macOS. Now you can import Sony VENICE X-OCN footage.
And more
Automatically enable frame blending and motion blur, and easily update legacy expressions to the new JavaScript expressions engine with a new script.


After Effects CC 2019 16.0.1
DEC 10 2018

Apple ProRes export on Windows
Streamline video production and simplify output with new export presets for Apple ProRes, including ProRes 4444 and ProRes 422 formats, available on macOS and Windows 10.


After Effects CC 16.0
Oct 15 2018
Advanced puppet tools for mesh sculpting
New Advanced and Bend pins let you precisely twist, bend, curve, and scale animations.

Native 3D Depth passes
Generate a depth pass with the After Effects Classic 3D or INEMA 4D renderer. Composite objects quickly and easily in 3D space. Apply depth effects such as Depth of Field, Fog 3D, and Depth Matte so elements look natural or use depth data to simulate 3D looks.

Easier and faster expressions
A new JavaScript expression engine supercharges your animation workflow and processes expressions up to 6 times faster. Write expressions with a new editor that makes creating expressions more accessible.

Responsive Design — Time
Create motion graphics that can adapt to changes in length while preserving the integrity of protected keyframes. Export your designs as Motion Graphics templates for increased editorial flexibility.

Selective color grading with Lumetri Color
Take the guesswork out of curve adjustments with innovative new Lumetri Color tools for selective color correction. Each curve has two axes with paired values, making it easy to fine-tune colors accurately.

Display color management
Get accurate color representations and maintain color fidelity across your workflow, from After Effects to Premiere Pro and on rec709, rec202, and P3 displays.

Improved Motion Graphics templates file exchange with Premiere Pro
Access, modify, or replace CSV and TSV spreadsheet data in Premiere Pro to create dynamic, data-driven templates. Group controls so it’s easy to find editable properties in your Motion Graphics templates. Unlock font settings to let editors change fonts.

Native Mocha AE plug-in for After Effects
Get fast, accurate, precision planar tracking with the GPU-accelerated Mocha AE plug-in. It’s updated with a simplified interface, includes retina/high DPI support, and works natively inside After Effects.

Create in VR 180, preview in headset
Jump into immersive video with support for 180 VR. Add VR effects and work with 180 and 360 material interchangeably. Publish finished videos in the Google VR 180 format on YouTube or other platforms. A new Theater Mode option allows you to preview rectilinear content in a head-mounted display (HMD).

Performance and GPU optimizations
New GPU- and performance-optimizing effects include Fill, Curves, Exposure, Noise, Tritone, Set Matte and Color Balance. The Wave Warp effect is now multithreaded and renders 2-3x faster by using multiple CPU cores. Experience faster H.264 and HEVC decoding on the latest macOS.

Master Properties refinements
Master Properties now enable more advanced workflows with support for Collapse Transformations, Time Remap, audio effects, motion blur, mask and shape path expressions, 3D cameras and lights.

Learn Panel
After Effects beginner? The new Learn panel introduces you to the Timeline and controls via interactive tutorials to start you creating your composition quickly.

Tighter integration with Animate and XD
Import Animate .fla files as layered compositions directly into After Effects. Send your XD designs to After Effects with high fidelity to add advanced animation or build them into your motion graphics projects.

Group invites for Team Projects
Invite groups and team members from your enterprise address book — without typing in addresses — for more efficient communications.

Format support improvements
Get better performance from Panasonic, RED, and Sony camera formats with the latest support.

Creative Cloud Library improvements
Drag and drop assets such as Illustrator or Photoshop files into your CC Libraries panel to quickly access your After Effects compositions. Share your Libraries and assets with team members or export and store them with your project.

And so much more
Also includes easier ways to find GPU-accelerated effects, install scripts, and quickly enable or disable expressions.


APR 03 2018

Streamline graphics creation with Master Properties
Create multiple variations of a single composition with Master Properties. Choose properties like text, position and color to adjust in context, without having to open a precomp to make changes.

Advanced Puppet Engine
Twist and bend layers with greater control and smoother deformations. Add pins to any shape and the Advanced Puppet Engine adds mesh detail where you need it most.

Essential Graphics Panel improvements
Add most timeline properties to the Essential Graphics panel, including 2D position, rotation and scale. Export them as Motion Graphics template controls to customize your design in Premiere Pro.

Data-driven animation improvements
More easily import and use native data files (including JSON, CSV, and TSV) right in the timeline. A public API lets third parties implement other data file format support. Link properties to data more easily with the pick whip without enabling expressions first.

Performance and GPU optimizations
The Add Grain, Remove Grain and Match Grain effects are now multi-threaded for up to 5x faster performance. GPU usage is more efficient: work with larger frame sizes without memory errors.

Open Motion Graphics templates in After Effects
Motion Graphics templates can be opened as a project in After Effects, retaining compositions and assets. Make edits and then save as a project or export as a new Motion Graphics template for users of Premiere Pro.

Support for Adobe Immersive Environment and improved VR Plane to Sphere effect
Preview your VR composition the way it’s meant to be seen, in a VR head-mounted display. The Adobe Immersive Environment supports the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift on Mac and Windows. An overhauled VR Plane to Sphere effect delivers higher-quality transformations.

Video Limiter effect
Limit chroma and luma values to meet broadcast specifications. Apply to individual layers or to an adjustment layer to limit your entire composition.

Enhanced support for Team Projects
Enhancements include improved tracking of collaborators, better project management, and more.

And so much more
Also includes: A shortcut to quickly cycle through mask modes, the ability to automatically center shape layer anchor points, better disk cache management, and project organization improvements.


After Effects CC
OCT 18 2017

Data-driven animation
Animate motion graphics, such as charts and graphs, using imported data. With custom schemas, third-party partners can write data that can be used by others to generate motion graphics.
See how it works ›
Immersive effects
Add virtual reality effects to your 360/VR videos without creating unwanted distortions at the poles or artifacts along the back seamline. Effects include Gaussian blur, color gradients, chromatic aberration, de-noise, digital glitch, glow, fractal noise, and sharpen.
Immersive Video Titling and Graphics
Instantly format graphics, text, images, or other video clips to look correct in a 360 video.
VR Comp Editor
Using a view window rather than working directly with 360/VR footage lets you edit from the same perspective you see when the video is played back in a headset or on a smartphone.
Extract Cubemap
Convert 360 footage into a 3D cube map format to easily do motion tracking, remove objects, add motion graphics and visual effects, and more.
Create VR Environment
Automate the creation of necessary compositions and camera relationships to create a 360/VR authoring environment for infographics, animated sequences, abstracts, and more.
VR Converter
Easily switch between editing formats and export to a variety of formats including: Fisheye, Cube-Map Facebook 3:2, Cube-Map Pano 2VR 3:2, Cube-Map GearVR 6:1, Equirectangular 16:9, Cube-Map 4:3, Sphere Map, and Equirectangular 2:1.
VR Rotate Sphere
Easily adjust and rotate your 360 footage to level horizon lines, align viewpoints, and more.
VR Sphere to Plane
See your footage in a perspective-based view similar to what it would look like with a headset even if you’re not wearing one.
Expression access to mask and shape points
Animate your graphics like never before. Link masks and shape points to other masks, shapes, or layers with expressions without animating frame by frame. Work with one or multiple points and control handles, and apply new data-driven features.
Enhanced 3D pipeline with Cinema 4D Lite R19
Work in 3D right inside After Effects with Cinema 4D Lite R19. Get viewport improvements with enhanced OpenGL and updated Cinema 4D Take System, support for Parallax Shader, Vertex Color, and BodyPaint Open GL, and the ability to import FBX2017 and Alembic 1.6.
Performance enhancements
Render layer transforms and motion blur on the GPU.
Keyboard shortcut mapping
Find and customize keyboard shortcuts quickly using a visual map.
Helpful start screen
Speed through project setup and jump into editing with a new, intuitive start screen that also includes easy access to CC Learn tutorials.
Auto-saves in Team Projects
Check when auto-saves of your edits were made. Easily revert to a previous auto-save or create a new team project from an auto-save.
New font menu
Get font previews and select your favorites with filtering and search options.
Motion Graphics templates in Adobe Stock
Sell your Motion Graphics templates on Adobe Stock, or share them with Premiere Pro users, who can use most templates without having After Effects installed.
And so much more
Also includes: Animated GIF export on Mac via Adobe Media Encoder and improvements to MENA and Indic text.


After Effects CC (2017.2)
APR 19 2017

Essential Graphics panel
Quickly access frequently-changed parameters and retain stylistic control of your compositions by packaging them as Motion Graphics templates in this new panel. Editors can change variables like text and color without changing the overall aesthetic, and your team can share templates via Creative Cloud Libraries.
See how it works ›
Camera Shake Deblur
Rescue unusable footage by removing camera-shake artifacts such as motion blur.
Lumetri Scopes panel
Evaluate and accurately color-correct your compositions using Lumetri video scopes, which include Vectorscope, Histogram, Parade, and Waveform.
GPU-accelerated effects and performance
Render Fast Box Blur and other effects more quickly for instant feedback on your creative choices, and get faster performance across the app.
Simplified effects organization
Effects that reference layers now include source masks and effects.
Support for high frame-rate footage
After Effects offers native support for footage with frame rates higher than 99fps.
Dynamic Link for Team Projects
Iterate faster using Dynamic Link in Team Projects and save Team Projects compositions back to After Effects.
Learn more ›
Expanded text support
After Effects now supports Indian language scripts and others that read from right to left, such as Arabic and Hebrew.
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/whats-new.html


After Effects CC (2017)
NOV 02 2016

3D rendering engine

Improve rendering performance on your CPU and create elements such as extruded text and shape layers directly inside After Effects with the new 3D rendering engine from Cinema 4D.
See how it works ›

Team Projects (Beta)

Collaborate and share sequences and compositions in real time with Team Projects (Beta). Features like version control and conflict resolution are built right into After Effects, Premiere Pro and Prelude so teams can work better together. Available now for Creative Cloud for teams and enterprise customers.
See how it works ›

Real-time playback

Speed up your workflow by playing back most raw footage in real-time without rendering or caching first.
Faster effects and interactive performance

Get rid of bottlenecks and work faster with more GPU-accelerated effects, as well as Dynamic Link improvements that eliminate intermediate rendering between Premiere Pro and After Effects.
Live Text Template improvements

Package your compositions in a single file that allows users to easily share Live Text Templates with Premiere Pro.
Character Animator enhancements

Make Photoshop and Illustrator changes to your puppet and update faster with improved Character Animator performance. Switch easily between Character Animator, After Effects and Premiere Pro using Dynamic Link.
See how it works ›

Typekit updates

With Typekit Marketplace, you can buy fonts from some of the industry's biggest names and use them in your After Effects projects. Instantly sync your purchased fonts to your devices and bring them directly into your compositions.
Creative Cloud Assets improvements

Archive and restore all your assets stored in Creative Cloud, including the ones in your Creative Cloud Libraries, assets created with CC desktop products, and mobile projects.
Shared templates

Make sure your team and freelancers are always working off the same page by creating your own new project template with set color guides and file structure, and sharing it in Creative Cloud Folders.
Date and time tokens

Keep track of multiple outputs from the same file by adding date and time tokens to your file name output template.
And so much more

Also includes: Better UI retina support, improved markers, scripting enhancements, Adobe Media Encoder export improvements, enhanced Time Remapping, a 360-degree preset for monoscopic equirectangular video viewing, and more.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/whats-new.html


After Effects CC (2015.3)
JUN 20 2016

Smoother playback experience

New audio and video preview architecture lets you playback cached frames in real time with synced audio.
Faster app performance

Move faster when working in the Compositions panel or scrubbing through the timeline.
Accelerated effects

Render faster using GPU-accelerated effects such as Gaussian Blur and Lumetri Color.
Get creative with color

Isolate and adjust colors, balance whites and make subtle shade adjustments with enhanced Lumetri Color tools. Create and apply new preset SpeedLooks in a single click.
Simplified Character Animator

Quickly tag puppet layers and record multiple takes of a character's movement. Export faster with new Dynamic Link to Adobe Media Encoder. Control how each child moves with its parent using new puppet attachments.
See how it works ›
Motion Trigger and Auto Blink behaviors

Drag your characters across the screen and have them automatically animate according to their movements.
See how it works ›

Faster importing

Import image sequences up to 10x faster over a local network or when using shared storage.
Improved Live 3D Pipeline

Export animated 3D text and shape layers to CINEMA 4D for a more efficient workflow. Customize your elements and see them update instantly via CINEWARE.
See how it works ›

Better collaboration with libraries

Control assets in read-only Creative Cloud Libraries so they can be used by team members, but not changed or deleted.
Updated Libraries panel

Find the right content faster with a larger Libraries panel and filtered search of Adobe Stock, as well as new icons that make it easy to identify licensed Stock assets. See the length and format of each video in your libraries and get links to video previews.
And so much more

Also includes: The ability to composite with native 8K and 6K footage, encoding with custom render settings, swiping across open panels with the Hand tool, and more.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/whats-new.html


After Effects CC (2015.1)
JAN 27 2016

Smooth CINEMA 4D integration

Use Live Link to synchronize your timelines in After Effects CC and CINEMA 4D (R17 SP2) and leverage new support for the CINEMA 4D Take System.

Faster, more flexible rendering

You can now use CINEWARE to render CINEMA 4D files saved with Sketch and Toon or Physical and Hardware renderers. Create Multi-Pass layers with an alpha channel for easier compositing against background layers.


After Effects CC (2015.1)
NOV 30 2015

Optimized for touch and small screens

Work on your After Effects compositions using multitouch gestures on devices like Microsoft Surface Pro. Choose and activate panels and workspaces, navigate between panels in a group, and pan and scroll in viewers for smaller screens.
See how it works ›

New video support in Adobe Stock

Choose from over one million royalty-free video clips to use in your After Effects projects. Build your compositions with watermarked assets that automatically update when you license them within the Creative Cloud Libraries panel.

Enhanced color workflows

Send Lumetri color grading effects from Adobe Premiere Pro to After Effects and manage deep color workflows with profiles for ARRIRAW formats and UHD/HDR.

Adobe Character Animator (Preview), now with multitouch

Use your fingers to animate your character’s limbs on touch displays and record the movements. The Character Animator interface is now also available in German, Japanese and French.
See how it works ›

Drag and drop from Creative Cloud Libraries

Drag assets from the Libraries panel directly into the After Effects Composition or Timeline panel.
See how it works ›

Adobe Capture CC integration

Use an iPad, iPhone or Android phone to turn any image into a production-ready asset. Extract a color theme or Look, or create a shape or vector graphic, and then save the asset to your Creative Cloud Libraries to use in After Effects.
See how it works ›

And so much more

Also includes: Refined preview behaviors, new preview options and more.


After Effects CC (2015)
JUN 15 2015

Find the perfect image or graphic for your project

Save time finding, licensing and managing royalty-free stock images and graphics now that After Effects CC integrates with the new Adobe Stock service. Once you save an image to your Creative Cloud Libraries, it’s immediately available for use in your compositions and other creative projects.
See how it works ›

Your assets, available anywhere

Access and share important creative assets — like Looks and graphics — via Creative Cloud Libraries that are available in After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop and Illustrator; mobile apps like Shape; and services like Adobe Stock.
See how it works ›
Preview without interruptions

Adjust a composition’s properties and even resize panels without interrupting playback. Uninterrupted preview keeps up with your creativity.
See how it works ›
Track faces with greater accuracy

The Face Tracker makes it easy to apply effects to select areas of faces. Use simple tracking to color correct or blur a face; track specific points to change eye color or mouth movements; or track measurements, such as how wide an eye is open. You can even export data to Adobe Character Animator.
See how it works ›
Easily animate 2D characters

Give life to characters you create in Illustrator or Photoshop by acting out their movements in front of a webcam. Adobe Character Animator tracks your facial movements, lets you record dialogue or a voice performance and enables you to trigger actions with your keyboard.
See how it works ›
Preview the way that works best for you

Preview compositions, layers and footage based on your experience and preferences. Choose intuitive default behaviors, create customized previews for different triggers or revert to legacy preview behaviors with a few clicks.
Adapt the UI to your preferences

Navigate panels faster thanks to streamlined panel groups. Adjust the brightness of interactive controls to get the contrast just right.
Optimize the UI for touch

In the first steps toward a more touch-friendly compositing environment, After Effects makes it easier to navigate between panels in a group by letting you choose and activate panels with touch-optimized controls.
And so much more

Also includes: Enhancements that save time when working with expressions, the ability to import JPEG 2000 files and more.


After Effects CC (2014.1)
OCT 06 2014

Refined user interface with HiDPI support

A simplified UI puts the focus on your projects and delivers a more consistent experience across devices, including HiDPI Windows 8.1 displays.

Enhanced 3D Pipeline

Work with 3D elements faster now that After Effects includes CINEWARE 2.0 and offers CINEMA 4D R16 compatibility, plus improved layer support.

Improved Adobe Anywhere collaboration

Collaborate on compositions and productions with other After Effects artists without worrying about what to name files or where to store them. Version tracking and project sharing features make remote workflows a breeze.

And so much more

Also includes: More visible anchor points on layers, tracking behavior improvements, and more.
See full release notes › https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/whats-new.html


After Effects CC (12.2.1) bug-fix update

You can install the update through the Creative Cloud desktop application, or you can check for new updates from within any Adobe application by choosing Help > Updates. One way to check for updates is by closing all Adobe applications other than Adobe Bridge, and choosing Help > Updates in Adobe Bridge; this ensures that all processes related to Adobe video applications have been quit and can be updated safely.

Ideally, you should install the updates automatically through the Creative Cloud desktop application or by choosing Help > Updates, but you can also directly download the update packages from the download page for Windows or Mac OS by choosing the “Adobe After Effects CC (12.2.1)” update for your operating system.

We have also been working with several providers of plug-ins, codecs, and hardware devices to assist them in updating their software to fix some errors and crashes. Please take this opportunity to download and install updated codecs, plug-ins, and drivers from these providers, as relevant to your work.

For details of all of the other updates for Adobe professional video and audio applications, see this page.

Please, if you want to ask questions about this update, come on over to the After Effects user-to-user forum. If you’d like to submit feature requests (or bug reports), you can do so here.

summary of what’s fixed in After Effects CC (12.2.1)
Dragging a folder of source items into the Project panel did not import the source items. This is now fixed.
The output audio sample rate was reset to the lowest value (often 8kHz) in the Output Module Settings dialog box. This is now fixed.
QuickTime output files had extra frames at the end when exporting with audio to certain codecs, including ProRes. This is now fixed.
Purging of the disk cache using the commands in After Effects did not function on systems that use comma as decimal separator. This is now fixed.
After Effects crashed when attempting to read temporal XMP metadata from files created by Illustrator 17.1 (as well as files from other applications based on those Illustrator files). This is now fixed for After Effects CC (12.2.1), but the same badly formed files can cause problems in previous versions of After Effects; see this page for details of a workaround for previous versions of After Effects.
We also fixed several bugs related to output file name and location templates.


After Effects CC (12.2): what’s new and changed in this December 2013 update

The After Effects CC (12.2) update is now available to all Creative Cloud members. We also released the After Effects CS6 (11.0.4) update today.

You can install the update through the Creative Cloud desktop application, or you can check for new updates from within any Adobe application by choosing Help > Updates. One way to check for updates is by closing all Adobe applications other than Adobe Bridge, and choosing Help > Updates in Adobe Bridge; this ensures that all processes related to Adobe video applications have been quit and can be updated safely.

Ideally, you should install the updates automatically through the Creative Cloud desktop application or by choosing Help > Updates, but you can also directly download the update packages from the download page for Windows or Mac OS by choosing the “Adobe After Effects CC (12.2)” update for your operating system. (The After Effects CC updates are not at the top of the page; scroll down to find them.)

IMPORTANT: Sometimes, it can take a few hours before the software is available through all channels. If you don’t yet see the updates when you choose Help > Updates, you can either use the manual download and installation links above or just wait for a few hours. Quitting and restarting the Creative Cloud desktop application can force it to check for updates, too; otherwise, it only refreshes once every several hours.

We have also been working with several providers of plug-ins, codecs, and hardware devices to assist them in updating their software to fix some errors and crashes. Please take this opportunity to download and install updated codecs, plug-ins, and drivers from these providers, as relevant to your work.

For details of what was new in After Effects CC (12.0), see this page. For details of what was new in After Effects CC (12.1), see this page.

For details of all of the other updates for Adobe professional video and audio applications, see this page.

Please, if you want to ask questions about these new and changed features, come on over to the After Effects user-to-user forum. If you’d like to submit feature requests (or bug reports), you can do so here.

If you have a Creative Cloud membership, you always have access to the latest version of After Effects. Just go to the Creative Cloud site to download it now or to sign up for Creative Cloud. For information about purchasing a Creative Cloud subscription, see this page about plans and this page with current promotional offers.

summary of what’s new in After Effects CC (12.2)
Auto-save enabled by default
file name and location templates, plus automatic creation of folders for image sequences
settings migration
snapping improvements: shape layers, cameras, and lights
option for creating shape layers based on Bezier paths
command for converting a parametric shape layer path to a Bezier path
new version of OptiX library and new behavior of OptiX library loading and initialization
plus many miscellaneous new and changed features and bug fixes, detailed below
details of what’s new and changed in After Effects CC (12.2)
Here is a virtually comprehensive list of changes, with detail beyond the summaries of the top items listed above.

Auto-save enabled by default
The Automatically Save Projects preference in the auto-save category is now on by default.

Note: An even better approach than relying on auto-save is to use the File > Increment And Save command regularly and habitually. The Increment And Save command has a couple of advantages: it allows you to determine exactly when to save, and it does not overwrite previous saved versions. Once you have developed that habit of using Increment And Save, you may choose to turn off auto-save. (That’s what I do.)

file name and location templates, plus automatic creation of folders for image sequences
The output file name templates feature has been extended to now include output paths. As part of setting up an output module, you can specify a folder in which to place the output file(s), and this can be a folder that After Effects will create at output time.

There is a new preset output file name and location template, called ‘Comp Folder and Comp Name’.

There is a new projectFolder element in the Add Property menu in the File Name And Location Template dialog box. Adding the projectFolder element to a file name and location template specifies that that output file should be placed in the same folder as the one in which the project is saved.

For example, the following template specifies that the output file file should be placed in a folder named ‘output’ inside the project folder, and that the name of the output file should begin with ‘final_’ and end with the composition name followed by a dot and the file-name extension:

[projectFolder]/output/final_[compName].[fileextension]

You can also use the .. operator to go up one level in a path. For example, the following template specifies that the output file file should be placed in a folder named ‘output’ that is next to the project folder, and that the name of the output file should begin with the composition name, followed by ‘_matte’, followed by a dot and the file-name extension:

[projectFolder]/../output/[compName]_matte.[fileextension]

Also, when you are specifying an output file name and location through the Output Movie To dialog box, you can choose the Save In Subfolder option to create a new subfolder at output time.

Image sequences and movie files have different defaults for output file name and location templates, with the primary difference being that image sequences will be placed into subfolders. When you choose an image sequence output module template, if your current file name and location template is the default, then After Effects will switch to using the ‘Comp Folder and Comp Name’ template, which will create a new folder for the image sequence.

settings migration
You can migrate settings from a previous minor version of After Effects. For After Effects CC (12.2), you can migrate settings from After Effects CC (12.0) or After Effects CC (12.1).

To initiate the settings migration at any time, click the Migrate Previous Version Settings button at the bottom of the Preferences dialog box (in the General category).

When you initiate the settings migration, After Effects checks to see whether there are settings folders on the computer for 12.0 and 12.1. For each version for which a settings folder is found, After Effects presents a button with the respective version number, as well as a Do Not Migrate button. If you click one of the buttons corresponding to a previous version, then After Effects will copy and process the appropriate settings files from the previous version’s settings folder into the 12.2 settings folder. To complete the process and load the migrated settings, you need to restart After Effects, so After Effects prompts you to quit and restart.

When you start After Effects CC (12.2) for the first time with default settings, After Effects will automatically initiate the settings migration process.
Settings that are migrated include the following:

preferences
interpretation rules
workspaces
render settings templates
output module settings templates
composition settings templates
keyboard shortcuts (migrated from version 12.1, but not from version 12.0)
user scripts (i.e., scripts saved in the Scripts folder in the user’s settings folder)
snapping improvements: shape layers, cameras, and lights
Beginning with After Effects CC (12.0), you have been able to snap various layer features to one another by dragging in the Composition panel.

After Effects CC (12.2) adds shape layer paths, bounding boxes for shapes within shape layers, cameras, and lights to the list of items that you can snap together by dragging in the Composition panel.

When you click near a shape layer path, After Effects will use a point on that path that is nearest to where you clicked as the snapping point, very much as with masks.

You can snap a shape in one shape layer to a shape in another shape layer, but you can’t snap shapes within one shape layer to one another. If you need to snap two shapes together, they must be in separate shape layers.

One quick and useful trick is to snap a light layer to a camera layer, so that you can effectively “look through” a light or simply illuminate wherever your camera is pointing.

new version of OptiX library and new behavior of OptiX library loading and initialization
After Effects CC (12.2) integrates a new version of the Nvidia OptiX library, which fixes some crashes related to the ray-traced 3D renderer. Also, this library is now loaded and initialized when the ray-traced 3D renderer is used for the first time, rather than when the application starts. This reduces the time that the application takes to start, as well as preventing users who don’t use the ray-traced 3D renderer from being exposed to any problems that might remain with this renderer.

option for creating shape layers based on Bezier paths
When a shape tool (Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Polygon, Star, or Ellipse tool) is active, you can use the new Bezier Path option in the Tools panel to create a new shape based on a Bezier path, as opposed to the default of creating a new shape based on a parametric path. Holding the Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) key while drawing a shape causes the opposite behavior—i.e., if the Bezier Path option is enabled, holding the Alt or Option key causes the shape tool to create a parametric path; if the Bezier Path option is disabled, holding the Alt or Option key causes the shape tool to create a Bezier path.

command for converting a parametric shape layer path to a Bezier path
You can convert a parametric path to a Bezier path after the parametric path has already been created by context-clicking (right-clicking or Control-clicking on Mac OS) the property group for the parametric path (e.g., Rectangle Path 1) and choosing the Convert To Bezier Path command from the context menu. If the parametric path is animated (keyframed), the converted Bezier path is a static path based on the parametric path at the current time; keyframes are lost.

IMPORTANT: When you use the Convert To Bezier Path command to convert a parametric shape path to a Bezier shape path, the Bezier path that is created does not animate well (i.e., interpolation between paths behaves strangely and unpredictably). This is related to path direction and how transformations are stored. For now, you should not use these converted paths for animated paths (interpolation between paths); but, if you do want to try, you may be able to work around the issues by reversing the path before conversion.

miscellaneous new and changed features
The Reload Footage command now attempts to reload items that were previously missing (e.g., because a drive volume needed to be mounted).
The Channel Mixer effect is now a 32bpc effect.
If you drag and drop a script (.jsx or .jsxbin) file onto the Project panel, it will be placed in the user’s Scripts folder. (Note: The standard Scripts folder in the Applications or Program Files directory is still a better place to install scripts, since scripts in the user’s folder can be deleted when clearing preferences, et cetera.)
Layer names are not forced to be unique. When using the Copy With Property Links command or using the expression pick whip, layer names are still made to be unique.
You can move effect control points in the Mesh Warp effect using the arrow keys.
The Brush Size properties in the Stroke effect and in the Write-on effect now have a maximum value of 200, rather than the previous maximum value of 50.
Purging the disk cache for the current version also purges the disk cache for other minor versions within the same major version (e.g., purging from within After Effects 12.2 also purges After Effects 12.0 and 12.1 disk caches).
The default value for the Zoom Quality preference in the Viewer Quality section of the Previews preferences is now More Accurate, rather than the previous value of More Accurate Except RAM Preview.
The minimum size at which the region of interest (ROI) can be drawn with an initial click or drag is 25×25 pixels. This prevents accidental creation of a hidden ROI box.
When you open the color picker dialog box, the text field for the hexadecimal color value is selected. This enables rapid copying, pasting, and manual entry of color values.
Negative times can now be used in composition settings, and negative times can be represented in the Timeline panel.
The Auto-keyframe button has been removed from the default state of the Timeline panel. You can enter auto-keyframe mode by choosing Enable Auto-keyframe from the Timeline panel menu.
a few choice bug fixes
We fixed a lot of bugs in this update. Here are a few that I think are especially worth calling out:

Red frames in renders for preview or final export when using ProRes media. This is fixed.
Cycore (CC) effect plug-ins have been updated to fix a bug with the CC Power Pin effect’s UI drawing incorrectly.
The Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse plug-in has been updated to address several bugs, as well as to make installation and activation easier on render-only systems.
Fixed Three-Way Color Corrector effect exchange with Premiere Pro.
Fixed cause of crashes when using Auto Contrast effect or Auto Levels effect.
Fixed crashes on application startup caused by OptiX library for ray-traced 3D renderer. This update, like the After Effects CC (12.1) update, includes a version of the OptiX library that allows After Effects to start on Mac OS X v10.9 (Mavericks) without crashing. The After Effects CC (12.2) update has additional fixes, including better handling of VRAM.
The Detail-Preserving Upscale effect would sometimes render transparent frames or crash with very large scale values. This is fixed.
After Effects would hand when conforming audio from a sequence served by headless Premiere Pro over Dynamic Link. This is fixed.
After Effects hung when importing a Premiere Pro sequence containing a universal counting leader. This is fixed.
If you had certain fonts disabled, After Effects would fail to start, giving the error ‘Unable to load font “^0″ “Helvetica Neue”‘. This has been fixed.
After Effects CC (12.1) had problems with zooming with the scrollwheel on Mac OS. These problems are fixed.
After Effects would give the error message “Unable to allocate 0.000 MB of memory” or “Unable to allocate 0.003 MB of memory” (or similar) when there was plenty of RAM available. This has been fixed.
Changing the file format to After Effects Template in the project save dialog box on Mac OS did not correctly change the file-name extension to .aet. This is fixed.
A custom value for Starting Number in Output Module Settings was not saved; always reset to zero. This is fixed
Fixed several other causes of crashes and errors.


After Effects CC (12.1): what’s new and changed in this October 2013 update

Among many other changes and fixes, this updates enables After Effects CC to run on Mac OS X v10.9 (Mavericks). This full update makes it unnecessary to install the previous After Effects CC (12.0.1) patch. Unlike the After Effects CC (12.0.1) patch, the After Effects CC (12.1) update can be used to update the trial version of After Effects CC (12.0).

You can install the update through the Creative Cloud desktop application, or you can check for new updates from within any Adobe application by choosing Help > Updates. One way to check for updates is by closing all Adobe applications other than Adobe Bridge, and choosing Help > Updates in Adobe Bridge; this ensures that all processes related to Adobe video applications have been quit and can be updated safely.

Ideally, you should install the updates automatically through the Creative Cloud desktop application or by choosing Help > Updates, but you can also directly download the update packages from the download page for Windows or Mac OS by choosing the “Adobe After Effects CC (12.1)” update for your operating system. (IMPORTANT: The After Effects CC updates are not at the top of the page; scroll down to find them.)

We have also been working with several providers of plug-ins, codecs, and hardware devices to assist them in updating their software to fix some errors and crashes. Please take this opportunity to download and install updated codecs, plug-ins, and drivers from these providers, as relevant to your work.

For details of what was new in After Effects CC (12.0), see this page.

For details of all of the other updates for Adobe professional video and audio applications, see this page.

Please, if you want to ask questions about these new and changed features, come on over to the After Effects user-to-user forum. If you’d like to submit feature requests (or bug reports), you can do so here.

top new features in After Effects CC (12.1)
mask tracker
Detail-preserving Upscale effect
improved performance for analysis phase for 3D Camera Tracker and Warp Stabilizer effects
property linking
HiDPI content viewers for Retina displays on Mac computers
improved snapping behavior, including snapping beyond layer boundaries and to internal wireframes
OptiX 3.0 library for GPU-accelerated ray-traced 3D renderer
improved Cinema 4D integration
Adobe Anywhere integration and an early preview of the Media Browser panel
resources for learning more about new features in After Effects CC (12.1)
videos by Steve Forde

overview
property linking and snapping improvements
Detail-preserving Upscale effect
mask tracker
GPU and performance optimizations
other resources

John Dickinson’s demonstration of several of the new features
(nearly) all new and changed features in After Effects CC (12.1)
Here is a virtually comprehensive list of changes, with detail beyond the summaries of the top items listed above. We’ll be posting a lot more detail over the coming weeks, and the outline below will be populated with links to in-depth articles and tutorials, so bookmark this page and check back.

mask tracker
The mask tracker transforms a mask so that it follows the motion of an object (or objects) in a movie. The tracked object must maintain the same shape throughout the movie, though it may change position, scale, and perspective and still be effectively tracked; this is why the mask tracker is sometimes called the “rigid mask tracker”.

When a mask is selected, the Tracker panel switches to mask tracking mode, showing the much simpler set of controls that are relevant to mask tracking: controls for tracking forward or backward either one frame at a time or to the end of the layer Method, with which you can choose to modify position, scale, rotation, skew, and perspective for the mask. If the Tracker panel isn’t shown, you can show it in mask tracker mode by choosing Animation > Track Mask with a mask selected, or context-click a mask and choose Track Mask from the context menu.

The result of using the mask tracker is the application of keyframes for the Mask Path property so that the mask shape matches the transformations tracked in the layer, depending on which Method setting is chosen.

You can select multiple masks before beginning the tracking operation, and keyframes will be added to the Mask Path property for each selected mask.

The layer being tracked must be a track matte, an adjustment layer, or a layer with a source that can contain motion; this includes layers based on video footage and precompositions, but not solid-color layers or still images.

The search region for the mask tracking analysis is the region encompassed by the mask, considering its Mask Expansion property.

improved performance for analysis phase for 3D Camera Tracker and Warp Stabilizer effects
The background process that analyzes footage for the 3D Camera Tracker and Warp Stabilizer effects is now much faster, largely because of being converted to use multiple threads simultaneously. The increase in speed for the analysis (tracking) phase for the 3D Camera Tracker and Warp Stabilizer has been measured at 60-300%, depending on details of the footage, et cetera.

Detail-preserving Upscale effect
The Detail-Preserving Upscale effect is capable of scaling images up by large amounts while preserving details in the image, so that sharp lines and curves stay sharp. Scaling up from SD frame sizes to HD frames sizes, or from HD frame sizes to digital cinema frame sizes is well within the range in which this effect is intended to operate with good results. This effect is very closely related to the Preserve Details resampling option in the Image Size dialog box in Photoshop.

The controls for the effect are relatively simple:

Fit to Comp Width: sets Scale percentage so that the layer’s width matches the composition’s width, with pixel aspect ratio taken into account
Fit to Comp Height: sets Scale percentage so that the layer’s height matches the compositions’s height, pixel aspect ratio taken into account
Scale: Note that the minimum value is 100%, since this is just for scaling up.
Reduce Noise: Increase this value to apply noise reduction before the scaling calculations, so that noise is not mistakenly treated as detail to preserve.
Detail: The higher this value, the greater the sharpness/contract of edges, at the risk of introducing ringing/halo artifacts. Lower values are more smooth and natural.
Alpha: You can choose to process the alpha channel differently than the color channels, for performance reasons. The default is to use bicubic sampling.
This effect is slower than other scaling alternatives, such as using the layer’s native bilinear or bicubic scaling in the Transform property group.

bicubic sampling option in Transform effect
The Transform effect now has the ability to use bicubic sampling for all of its transformations.

Choose Bicubic from the new Sampling menu at the bottom of the Transform effect’s properties in the Effect Controls panel. Bilinear is still the default.

OptiX 3.0 library for GPU-accelerated ray-traced 3D renderer
After Effects CC (12.0) used the OptiX 2 library from Nvidia for the GPU acceleration of the ray-traced 3D renderer. After Effects CC (12.1) uses the new OptiX 3 library.

The new OptiX library has many advantages, with the most important being the following:

fixes a crash on Mac OSX v10.9 (Mavericks)
improved performance, including improvements with multiple GPUs
The new OptiX library requires CUDA 5.0 or higher.

OpenGL features enabled for all Intel GPUs
In previous versions of After Effects, the OpenGL features were enabled on Intel GPUs only if those GPUs were listed in a “whitelist” file (intel_ogl_supported_cards.txt). This was because early generations of Intel GPUs and their drivers had problems with OpenGL features, so we needed to test each individually and only allow specific known-good configurations to work. Recent Intel GPUs and drivers have been of high enough quality that we have removed this check, and there is no longer an intel_ogl_supported_cards.txt file.

For details of the OpenGL features relevant to this change, see this page: GPU (CUDA, OpenGL) features in After Effects

preference for bypassing whitelist for GPU acceleration of ray-traced 3D renderer
In After Effects CS6 (11.0) and CC (12.0), the GPU Information dialog box has a Ray-tracing menu from which the user can choose GPU or CPU. If the installed hardware is not on the list of tested and supported GPUs, the GPU menu item is disabled (grayed out) and below the menu is this text: “GPU not available – incompatible device or display driver”.

In After Effects CC (12.1), we have added a checkbox: “Enable untested, unsupported GPU for CUDA acceleration of ray-traced 3D renderer.”

Enabling this checkbox will do a couple of things:

After Effects will use the GPU-accelerated ray-traced 3D renderer with any GPU that meets minimum requirements (which include 1GB of VRAM and CUDA 5.0).
The text “GPU not available – incompatible device or display driver” will change to “Unsupported GPU enabled for CUDA acceleration” if the GPU meets the minimum requirements but is not on the whitelist. If the GPU doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, the text remains as the original.
In the CUDA section at the bottom of the GPU Information dialog box, “(unsupported)” is added to the Devices entry if the installed hardware isn’t on the whitelist but is enabled.
When the user enables this preference, a dialog box appears that tells the user that using an untested and unsupported GPU is something that they do at their own risk and that technical support is only provided for supported configurations.

cards added to CUDA whitelist for Optix (for GPU acceleration of ray-traced 3D renderer)
GTX TITAN (Windows)
GTX 780 (Windows)
GTX 770 (Windows)
GTX 760 (Windows)
GTX 680MX (Mac OS and Windows)
GTX 680 (added for Mac OS; was already on Windows list)
GTX 675MX (Mac OS and Windows)
GT 650M (added for Windows; was already on Mac OS list)
GTX 590 (Windows)
Quadro K6000 (Windows)
Quadro K4000 (Windows)
Quadro K2000 (Windows)
Quadro K5000M (Windows)
Quadro K4000M (Windows)
Quadro K3000M (Windows)
Quadro K5100M (Windows)
Quadro K4100M (Windows)
Quadro K3100M (Windows)
Quadro K2100M (Windows)
Let us know what other GPUs you want us to test and support with a feature request here.

property linking
You can select any property or set of properties and choose Edit > Copy With Property Links and then paste those properties on any layer in any composition. The result is that the pasted properties remain connected to the layer from which the properties were copied, such that any change made to the original property is reflected in all of the instances of the pasted property links.

One use case is to create one master effect controller and then paste property links to any number of controlled instances, so that changes can be made once and affect all controlled instances.

You can even copy an entire layer with property links and paste it to create duplicates that follow the changes made to the original.

The property links are established and maintained through expressions, but there is no need to write (or even see) the expressions that are created.

option when precomposing to trim precomposition duration to duration of selected layers
When you precompose, you have a new option: Adjust Composition Duration To The Time Span Of The Selected Layers. Choose this to create a new composition that has a duration that is the same as that spanned by the selected layers. If you deselect this option, then the duration of the newly created composition is the same as the duration of the original composition, without regard for the duration of the layers being precomposed; this has been the only option in previous versions of After Effects.

layers created immediately above topmost selected layer
In previous versions of After Effects, most commands that created a new layer would create the new layer at the top of the layer stack, regardless of whether any layers were selected.

In After Effects CC (12.1), most commands that create a new layer create the layer immediately above the topmost selected layer. If no layer is selected, then the new layer is created at the top of the layer stack. This new behavior should make many workflows more convenient, preventing you from needing to scroll to the top of the layer stack and drag a new layer down to the needed place.

Here is a list of commands to which the new behavior applies:

Layer > New > Text
Layer > New > Solid
Layer > New > Light
Layer > New > Camera
Layer > New > Null Object
Layer > New > Shape Layer
Layer > New > Adjustment Layer
Layer > New > Adobe Photoshop File
Layer > New > MAXON CINEMA 4D File
The new behavior also applies to the respective keyboard shortcuts for these same commands.

The behavior of scripting and AEGP plug-in commands that create new layers has not changed; they still create layers at the top of the layer stack. This is to prevent breaking existing scripts and AEGP plug-ins. (Of course, if your script is using the app.executeCommand(app.findMenuCommandId(...)) pattern to call the menu command, the behavior will be the new behavior of creating the layer above the topmost selected layer.)

user-defined location for Auto-save
In the Auto-save category in the Preferences dialog box, you can choose to either save the auto-saved projects next to the original project (the behavior in previous versions when Auto-save is enabled) or in a custom location.

improvements to keyboard shortcuts for showing properties with keyframes, expressions
The U keyboard shortcut now only shows properties with keyframes, not properties that have expressions but no keyframes. If a property has both keyframes and expressions, the U keyboard shortcut shows the property but leaves the expression field collapsed so that the expression itself is not shown. There is a new command in the Animation menu for this behavior: Reveal Properties With Keyframes.

The old behavior, of showing properties with keyframes and properties with expressions, is still available in the Animation menu as Reveal Properties With Animation. You can reassign the U keyboard shortcut to that command if you’d like to go back to the way things were before.

The UU keyboard shortcut for showing all modified properties is unchanged.

The EE (and Shift+EE) shortcut for showing properties with expressions is essentially unchanged.

command for moving anchor point to center of content
You can set the anchor point to be in the center of the layer content using the new command Layer > Transform > Center Anchor Point In Layer Content.

The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Alt+Home on Windows and Command+Option+Home on Mac OS. You can also Ctrl+double-click (Windows) or Command+double-click the Pan Behind (Anchor Point) tool to invoke this command.

A few great uses for this new command:

setting the anchor point of a shape layer to the center of a single shape or to the centroid of a group of shapes in a shape layer
setting the anchor point for a text layer to the center of the text
setting the anchor point of a layer to then center of the visible area within a masked region
mask path drawn using color that differs from region in which first click to draw mask is made
In the Appearance category of the Preferences dialog box, there is a new preference: Use Contrasting Color For Mask Path. This preference relies on the Cycle Mask Colors preference being enabled, since the new feature is still cycling through the same label colors. If the Use Contrasting Color For Mask Path preference is on, After Effects analyzes the colors near the point where you first click to draw a mask and chooses a label color that is as different from the colors in that region as possible, while also avoiding the color of the last mask drawn.

improved Cinema 4D integration, with updated Cineware functionality
This version of After Effects comes with a new version of the Cineware effect. All features from After Effects CC (12.0) should behave the same, and several bugs have been fixed. This version also adds some new functionality.

There are two new settings in the Cineware effect’s Options dialog box, with which you can specify which instance of Cinema 4D to use with After Effects:

Cinema 4D Render Path: Choose which version of Cinema 4D (R14 or R15) for rendering while working in After Effects. For example, you can choose to use Cinema 4D Studio, Broadcast, Prime, or Visualize if you have it installed. The default is CineRender, which is installed by After Effects.
Cinema 4D Executable Path: Choose which version of Cinema 4D to use when opening a .c4d file with Edit Original or when creating a new Cinema 4D file from After Effects. The default is an installed full-featured edition of Cinema 4D (Studio, Broadcast, Prime, or Visualize), or Cinema 4D Lite if no other edition of Cinema 4D has been installed.
You must restart After Effects after changing these settings for the new settings to be used, and you should purge all memory and disk cache data (Edit > Purge > All Memory & Disk Cache) after changing the Cinema 4D rendering application. In some cases, you may need to reset your After Effects preferences after switching from one Cinema 4D rendering application to another Cinema 4D rendering application.

When you choose to use an edition of Cinema 4D other than Cinema 4D Lite, you can use new rendering capabilities within Cineware beyond the default renderer, including the Physical renderer and Sketch & Toon. You choose which renderer to use in Cinema 4D and save the .c4d file with those settings. Whichever renderer is specified in Cinema 4D is the one that will be used by the Cineware effect when the Renderer setting in the effect is Standard (Final).

The versions of Cinema 4D that are compatible with this version of the Cineware effect are as follows:

R14.042 or above (Use the Cinema 4D online updater to install the current version.)
R15.037 or above
HiDPI content viewers for Retina displays on Mac computers
After Effects will now take advantage of a Retina display on a Mac computer to show each pixel of content in a viewer as a single pixel on the display. This affects the contents of the Footage panel, Layer panel, and Composition panel, including both your video content and some UI overlays and widgets within the content area.

Note that for a given piece of content to appear the same on a Retina/HiDPI display as on a non-HiDPI display, the zoom value for the former needs to be twice that of the latter, since the points are half the size. If you drag a panel from a Retina/HiDPI display to a non-HiDPI display, you’ll see the zoom value change, while the content occupies the same space on the screen.

This does not affects pointers, buttons, other panels, and various other aspects of the After Effects user interface. These are targeted at a later release, since HiDPI content viewers were deemed to be a higher priority.

snapping beyond layer edges, to align layers in 2D and 3D space along lines defined by layer features
There are two new options next to the Snapping checkbox in the Tools panel:

Snap Along Edges Extending Beyond Layer Boundaries: Enables snapping to lines outside of a layer’s boundaries (e.g., to the line defined by the extension of a layer’s edge in 3D space). This makes aligning layers in 3D space much easier.
Snap To Features Inside Collapsed Compositions And Text Layers: Turns on internal wireframes for layers inside of compositions with collapsed transformations and for individual characters in per-character 3D text layers. This can be useful, for example, for snapping a layer’s anchor point to the baseline of a specific text character.
rectified audio waveforms
By default, audio waveforms are shown as “rectified” audio waveforms, as in recent versions of Premiere Pro. This means that the magnitude of the audio is shown only in one direction from the horizontal axis, and the magnitude is shown on a logarithmic scale that makes it easier to see how loud a sound will be perceived to be. You can switch back to the old method of showing audio waveforms by deselecting Rectified Audio Waveforms in the panel menu of the Timeline panel.

added iris and highlight properties for camera layers to the expression language menu
irisShape
irisRotation
irisRoundness
irisAspectRatio
irisDiffractionFringe
highlightGain
highlightThreshold
highlightSaturation
automatically opening and closing folders in Project panel when dragging
If you pause with the pointer over a folder during a drag operation in the Project panel, the folder will open so that you can drop the items into a folder deeper within a hierarchy of folders.

default number of Undo operations available increased from 32 to 99, and preference removed from user interface
We have increased the default number of Undo operations available to 99 and removed the preference from the Preferences dialog box. The lower setting was needed in the past when computers typically had far less RAM.

commands for turning logging on and off and for revealing log files
To enable logging by the After Effects application, so that it records details of the session to a set of text files, choose Help > Enable Logging.

You’ll need to restart the application for logging to begin.

Logging has some negative effects on performance, so After Effects will disable logging after 24 hours if logging was enabled through this menu command.

To see the log files, choose Help > Reveal Logging File.

new Enable QuickTime Video Preview preference in Video Preview preferences category on Mac OS
We have isolated the recent problems with QuickTime files to a conflict with a QuickTime component distributed with the Apple video applications (Final Cut Pro, Motion, Compressor). Specifically, the problematic component is the Apple DVCPROHDVideoOutput QuickTime component, which is used for previews to an external video monitor. This problem with this QuickTime component makes the QT32 Server component crash when After Effects probes the computer system for QuickTime video preview devices. The QT32 Server component is needed for all QuickTime features in After Effects, so having it crash causes failures in QuickTime features in After Effects.

To prevent this crash of QT32 Server, we have disabled the automatic probing of the system for QuickTime video preview devices. To re-enable this feature, you can turn on the Enable QuickTime Video Preview preference in the Video Preview preferences category. Turning this preference on will allow After Effects to use QuickTime video previews to external devices, but it may also cause the crash in QT32 Server This preference is a temporary measure, meant to protect users from the failures in importing and exporting QuickTime movies while we work on replacing the QuickTime video preview system with a system based on Mercury Transmit that doesn’t have these problems. We are working toward having a better system in place in the near future.

better error message for duplicate plug-ins
In previous versions of After Effects, if there were duplicate plug-ins (with the same match names) installed, After Effects would show multiple error messages – one for each duplicate – but it didn’t identify where the duplicates were located on disk.

In After Effects CC (12.1), there is one consolidated error message for all duplicate plug-ins, and it shows the file path for each duplicate.

better expression error messages
The error messages that appear when an expression is disabled because an item (e.g., layer, composition, effect) is missing are now consolidated and more user-friendly.

removal of extraneous warnings regarding missing custom effects
If you used an animation preset based on a custom effect (such as those defined in PresetEffects.xml), you could get a warning that an effect was missing, even though nothing needed for the animation preset was missing.

This has been fixed, but it requires a specific action on the part of the person creating the animation preset: The matchname must be 31 characters or less and begin with the string “Pseudo/” or with another string that has been defined by After Effects. (At this time, other matchname strings are “Prolost_Burns”, “Prolost_Boardo”, “Prolost_Fader”, “Prolost_Oscillate”, “Vignette_Controls”, “Beautify”, “Typist”, “Wiggly”, “Mikey’s_Split”, “Mikey’s_Distress”, “Mikey’s_Flare”, “Mikey’s_Control”, “Mikey’s_Burn”.) If you are someone who creates custom effects like these, let us know, and we can get your matchnames in now, too.

Be sure to increment your matchname any time that you make a change, or else you won’t be able to use both versions within one project.

Adobe Anywhere integration
After Effects CC (12.1) includes the first phase of After Effects integration with Adobe Anywhere.

miscellaneous new and changed features
The preference Write XMP IDs To Files On Import (in the Media & Disk Cache preferences category) is now disabled by default.
The Color Key effect and Luma Key effect are now in the Obsolete category. (In most cases, you should be using superior effects such as Keylight and the Extract effect.)
The Create Shapes From Vector Layer command works on multiple selected layers.
The Cycle Mask Colors preference is enabled by default.
The Viewer Quality preferences are set to More Accurate Except RAM Preview by default, rather than Faster (which wasn’t all that much faster and looked bad).
The kerning option in the Character panel persists so that you no longer need to set the kerning option in the Character panel to Optical every time you want to use this option.
In previous versions of After Effects, if you made a change to the composition while the composition view was not centered (e.g., because you used the Hand tool to look at another part of the composition), the composition view would become centered after the change. This forced you to drag again with the Hand tool to get back to the part of the composition that you were looking at. This is fixed. Of course, if the change made to the composition affects the size or aspect ratio of the composition, it will still be re-centered.
Freezing the segmentation for the Roto Brush & Refine Matte effect operates on all spans withing the entire composition duration, instead of only within the work area.
Wireframes for cameras and lights are shown by default, even when these layers not selected.
After Effects now gives a better message and an alert sound when you try to open a layer in the Layer panel that can’t be opened there (e.g., precomposition layer with collapsed transformations, continuously rasterized layer, shape layer).
Indexed-color PNG files and grayscale PNG files with transparency can be imported.
Photoshop Large Document (.psb) files can be imported.
CMYK JPEG files can be imported.
Dashes and gaps are now explicitly numbered (Dash 2, Gap 2, …) when adding multiple dashes and gaps to a shape layer stroke. (This makes referring to them with expressions easier.)
The Brightness & Contrast effect has been improved and now matches the filter in Photoshop. You can still choose to use the legacy algorithm, which allows HDR results.
You can now open a dialog box for editing values for 3D Point Control effect (by context-clicking and choosing Edit Value).
There are significant performance improvements in propagation for Roto Brush and Refine Matte effects.
The layer index number is now shown in the menu for choosing a target for motion tracking data (opened with Edit Target button in the Tracker panel).
The correct name of the 3D renderer is shown for third-party renderers (e.g., AtomKraft).
Added Center property for shape layer Twist path operation.
There is now an improved error message telling people to update their CUDA drivers.
When converting a layer based on an Illustrator file to a shape layer, the Video (eyeball) switch of the original layer is turned off only if the conversion is successful.
Improvements to Shift-parenting behavior when the target layer already has a parent layer.
Improved performance with imported DPX image sequence read over network.
Ability to use the RED Rocket-X and EPIC Dragon footage.


Adobe After Effects CC

Live 3D Pipeline with Cinema4D
Refine Edge tool
Warp Stabilizer VFX
Track Optimization in the 3D Camera Tracker
Pixel Motion Blur
Automatic Find
Bicubic resampling
Layer and mask snapping
Sync Settings


Adobe® After Effects® CS6 11.0.1

features added or changed in this update
The Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 (a new Kepler-class GPU) can now be used for GPU acceleration of the ray-traced 3D renderer on Windows.

See this page for details of GPU features in After Effects CS6.

Note: An additional delay (approximately one minute) will occur the first time that you start After Effects with a Kepler-class GPU as the new ray-traced 3D library is initialized. Installation of updated display drivers may require this initialization step again.

Enabled basic support for the AtomKraft composition renderer (requires plug-ins from Jupiter Jazz).
bugs fixed in this update
Several bugs with the global performance cache were fixed, which were causing the cache to not be invalidated at some times when it should have been. This meant that sometimes old, invalid image information was being read from the cache and used instead of re-rendering when an aspect of the composition had changed.

If you encounter a remaining bug of this sort, purging the cache will generally fix the problem (choosing Edit > Purge > All Image Memory to clear RAM cache and Empty Disk Cache in Media & Disk Cache preferences to clear disk cache). If you encounter such a bug after installing this update, let us know by submitting a detailed bug report, being especially certain to list any third-party effects used.

One remaining known issue of this sort relates to font substitution: If you load a project with a missing font, After Effects will substitute a placeholder font. If you then install the missing font, After Effects may not update cached image information with the new font. So, if you install a font after loading a project for which that font was reported as missing, purge the cache to force the cached image information to be updated with the new font.

Effects that use the composition camera (e.g., Shatter) did not render correctly in orthogonal and custom views, or when changing the active camera.
After Effects would crash when evaluating some expressions, including expressions added by the Ease & Wizz script, expressions using the this keyword, in-line functions, and nested functions.
After Effects was returning an error “After Effects Error: Ray Traced 3D: … (5070::0)” under various circumstances. Several of these have been isolated and fixed. If you get such an error message after installing this update, let us know by submitting a detailed bug report.
Crash on quit if Nvidia cards running in Maximus configuration are running in TCC mode (on Windows).
Crash using 3D Camera Tracker effect.
Crash resetting Puppet effect.
Unexpected results using Mask Feather tool in various circumstances.
Black frames appeared in MXF footage from Canon EOS C300 camera.
Canon 5D MKIII 720p footage was imported with the wrong timecode.
Error occurred when setting a proxy to a nested composition: “After Effects error: Internal verification failure, sorry! {Src and dest bitdepths are different in PF_World::CopyRect} (37::109)”
Snapping and using the J and K keys to move to keyframes and other items in the Graph Editor didn’t work.
Using the Clone Stamp tool expanded property groups in the Timeline panel.
SDK: The AUTOMATIC_WIDE_TIME flag was not working correctly with the NON_PARAM_VARY flag.
SDK: The AUTOMATIC_WIDE_TIME flag was returning an empty region when attempting to check out a layer at the current time.


Adobe® After Effects® CS6

Create visual effects faster in Adobe® After Effects® CS6 software with Global Performance Cache, which optimizes and keeps your previews so you can beat deadlines instead of waiting for frame updates. Boost your creativity with a new 3D engine for text and shape extrusions, a 3D camera tracker, and variable-width mask feathering.

Global Performance Cache
Create more in less time. With new Global Performance Cache, your previews are saved and ready when you are — no more waiting for the application to catch up. This revolution "under the hood" makes After Effects extremely fast and responsive by taking full advantage of the power of your computer’s hardware for visual effects and motion graphics.

3D Camera Tracker
Track 3D elements with complete control over depth of field, shadows, and reflections. Automatically analyze and place 3D track points onto 2D footage in the background while you work.

Ray-traced, extruded text and shapes
Extrude fully ray-traced text and shapes natively and take full advantage of reflections, environment maps, and more.

Variable mask feathering
Create a separate set of splines to precisely control mask feathering. Get the exact shape you want with the proper degree of softness at any point along the mask edge, resulting in a big boost to creative flexibility.

Integration with Adobe Illustrator
Instantly convert Illustrator vector art (AI and EPS format) into shape layers. Easily animate vector art in 2D or extrude to 3D.

Rolling Shutter Repair
Remove rolling shutter artifacts such as skew and wobble without forcing stabilization.

New and updated effects
Enhance your creativity with 90 new and updated built-in effects, including the complete 16- and 32-bit CycoreFX HD suite.

Avid AAF and FCP 7 XML file import with Pro Import AE
Import and work with files created in Apple Final Cut Pro 7 or earlier versions, as well as Avid Media Composer and Symphony, letting you integrate After Effects with professional production workflows.

mocha for After Effects CS6
Launch mocha for After Effects CS6 directly within After Effects CS6*.


After Effects® CS5 10.0.2

Notable fixes
• Issue where users may encounter a persistent “unexpected data type” error message when opening projects containing missing effects with layer parameters at non-default values. (54666)
• Crashing condition when importing compositions created with Automatic Duck’s Pro Import AE plug-in (W2796549)
• Crashing condition when using the Directional Blur effect with Mthread.plugin enabled. (55603)


What's new in After Effects CS5 10.0.1

Notable fixes
• Crash on launch after creating a custom workspace (e.g., if Project panel was undocked and Brushes panel was opened in the last workspace). (2607269, 54196)
• Crash on quit when not saving changes to a project after Auto-save interval has passed. (54129)
• Crash on launch due to bad fonts.
• Crash when scrubbing through time in a complex or per-character 3D text project when OpenGL is engaged; problem with OpenGL contexts. (54197, 54198)
• Crash previewing or scrubbing properties to create blur with Depth of Field effect when OpenGL is enabled. (54253)
• Crash when copying and pasting Roto Brush effect to text or shape layer. (54086)
• Crash when using a PNG file whose path name is longer than 256 characters. (2620506)
• Crash duplicating a layer after RAM previewing in the Layer panel, with disk cache on. (54350)
• Crash importing Sony XDCAM HD from Sony XCAM Transfer application. (2662575)
• Audio rendered to QuickTime .mov is “jumbled” when using AIFF source audio. Also, RAM previews are being shifted randomly in much the same way. (2632383)
• Slow playback of compositions containing several footage layers, especially for long-GOP footage from DSLR cameras. (53969)
• Cannot snap keyframes or layer markers (via Shift-drag) to layer, current-time indicator, or work area at start of composition. (2576113)
• Cannot auto-scroll in the Composition or Layer panel when dragging a UI item (e.g., track point or mask vertex) off the edge of the panel. (53909)
• RAM preview erroneously states that the composition must have 2 or more frames to work, but purging the cache allows it to work. (54202, 54169)
• 3D View popup does not update if switching between views using the Esc key or reordering cameras in the Timeline panel. (2624299, 2594727)
• Temporary freeze while dragging floating panel to or from another panel that contains a search field if using a Japanese input mode. (2657079)
• Hang (no control comes back) when unfreezing a precomposed layer with Roto Brush effect (with Refine Matte enabled) on it. Also, freeze can sometimes stop when calculating the back part of a span. (54141, 53482)
• Cannot import DPX image sequence either manually or via Automatic Duck Pro Import AE if GlueTools is installed. (2608269)
• “AE_OpenGL: Unexpected Condition: No active gl context for line drawing (due to interrupt during N-up frame render?)” error interrupting render of moderately complex 3D project. (54264)
• Apply Color LUT effect renders .cube files incorrectly, or cannot handle .3dl files with floating-point values, with 3DMESH/Mesh keywords, or exported from ASSIMILATE SCRATCH systems. Also, fixed a memory leak. (2612925, 2619034, 2617393, 2639953, 54417)
• CC Particle World: Crash/hang if Birth Size was set to 0 when using Stars particle type on a motion-blurred layer. (2619917)
• CC Glass Wipe: Crash using a gradient layer larger than the layer on which the effect is applied. (54216)
• CC Composite: Can’t uncheck the RGB Only option after reopening the project or when duplicating the effect. (2602796)
• Color Finesse 3: Hang if certain LUT formats were exported or a modal dialog box appeared above the application. Black and white film profiles might leave the view in color. Color Match button might fail to work. Presets might not appear or be refreshed in the Gallery. Windows taskbar icon might not appear. Can’t type a decimal point in numeric fields in the Full Interface. Problems using an incorrect serial number. (53864, 54387, 2548111, 53755)
• mocha: Issues with QuickTime-related crashes, performance on Windows, and miscellaneous incorrect behaviors.
• Scripting: Crash using Item setProxyToNone() method. (54164)
• ScriptUI: Horizontal or vertical scrollbar in a listbox does not appear when the contents exceed the viewable area. (2538608, 2632237)
• ScriptUI: Controls in a dialog stop responding if the Down Arrow key was pressed for a focused dropdownlist control showing the last item in the list. (2632230)
• ScriptUI: (Mac only) Single white


What's new in After Effects CS5

Trial available NOW!

Adobe® After Effects® CS5 delivers more of the creative control you crave, while making it faster to work on high-resolution projects. Native 64-bit support means you can tap all the RAM on your system to work more efficiently with HD, 2K, and 4K projects. The new Roto Brush tool delivers rotoscoping results in a fraction of the time. Plus, dozens of user-requested features make everyday tasks easier.

PlayDramatically improved performance thanks to native 64-bit OS support
Native 64-bit OS support new

Work fluidly on high-resolution projects — even at 32-bit-per-channel color inside HD, 2K, and 4K compositions. Use all of your system's RAM. View a list of 64-bit third-party plug-ins.



VideoRotoscoping in a fraction of the time with the new Roto Brush
Roto Brush new

Isolate foreground elements from backgrounds in a fraction of the time it would otherwise take using this revolutionary new tool.

AVC Intrat Support
AVC-Intra and enhanced RED support new

Work natively with tapeless footage from the newest high-quality Panasonic cameras thanks to AVC-Intra 50 and AVC-Intra 100 support. Take advantage of improved support for RED R3D formats, and gain additional controls for working with raw footage. Do more with tapeless workflows

PlayDozens of enhancements
Dozens of enhancements new

Benefit from dozens of customer-requested refinements that yield big productivity gains — such as the ability to align layers to comps.

Close lookColor Finesse 3
Color Finesse enhanced

Enjoy an enhanced color correction workflow with the new features, finer control over hue and saturation, and ability to export settings as color lookup tables (LUTs) in Color Finesse LE 3.

DigiEffects FreeForm
Digieffects FreeForm new

Turn flat objects into virtually any 3D shape using this popular 3D mesh warp plug-in.
Expand your video options

Go further with Production Premium

Include After Effects elements in Adobe Premiere® Pro timelines without rendering intermediate files, thanks to Dynamic Link. Animate 3D objects created in Adobe Photoshop® Extended and combine them with other video and graphical elements.
Do more with Creative Suite® Production Premium

Videomocha including variable width mask feather and trackable masks
mocha for After Effects v2 enhanced

Apply motion tracking to hand-drawn masks and import variable-width mask feathers. The powerful mocha shape plug-in is also included.

Auto-Keyframe Mode
Auto-Keyframe mode new

Animate quickly by setting starting keyframes automatically.

Close lookColor Look-Up Table (LUT) support
Color LUT support new

Get consistent color in your workflow by using industry-standard 3DL and CUBE lookup tables.
Refine Matte effect new

Apply intelligent edge tracking, dechattering, and motion blurring capabilities to any layer with a problematic alpha channel, such as keyed footage.


After Effects® CS4 9.0.2

Notable fixes
* Crash on quit if the active workspace when After Effects starts includes a ScriptUI Pane
(48419, 49138, 49163)
* Several memory corruption issues; fix should improve overall application stability.
* Crash on startup on computers with very old OpenGL drivers, or unsupported video card
manufacturers. (49698, 2266571, 2283657, 49758)
* Crash on startup due to a corrupt XML file in the preferences directory, such as used by
workspaces, dialog boxes, and Pixel Bender. Now, the corrupt file will be appended with
a .old extension so that startup can proceed. (49837)
* Crash on startup due to unsupported codec. Now, a warning message will identify the
unsupported codec and associated file name. (49876)
* When a PDFL crash occurs during startup, more information is now provided, indicating
that a bad font may be causing the crash. (49901)
* (Windows only) Drawing surface errors and short RAM previews due to exhaustion of
GDI resources (handles). Now, you should have better memory usage, resulting in longe
RAM previews and improved performance. (49912)
* Cannot open DPX file that can be opened in Photoshop CS4; file converted from
Phantom .cine to DPX using Glue Tools. (49330)
* "After Effect error: internal verification failure, sorry! {fill me in}" error trying to import
multi-image element DPX footage, such as from a Northlight Film Scanner. (50121)
* Audio conforming failure when importing certain FLV files. (2319601)
* Crash when using Pixel Bender effects, GPU-accelerated effects, and Cartoon effect in
low-memory situations. Instead of being marked invalid, Pixel Bender effects can be
reapplied when memory becomes available. (2276200, 50174)
* Crash in the Puppet effect when generating the mesh on a complex shape (possibly
when Expansion is zero). (49971)
* (Mac OS only) Crash in the Puppet effect when pasting keyframes into a non-keyframed
Puppet pin Position property. (49508)
* "could not convert unicode characters (23::46)" error applying CC RepeTile effect in
Chinese OS (49988), or crash using CC Particle World on Mac Pro 8-Core i7 (Nehalem)
machines (50366).
* Crash trying to interrupt rendering (e.g., dragging to adjust values) for the Fog 3D, Depth
Matte, or ID Matte effect when placed after other effects (49491, 49492, 49493); for Fractal Noise and Turbulent Noise effects (50111); and for EXtractoR and IDentifier
effects when placed after other effects. (49921)
* Crash when deleting the Tone effect from one composition, when that composition is
used (nested) in another composition. (50081)
* (Mac OS only) Incorrect Mac type/creator codes for OpenEXR, PICT, PNG, TIFF, and
Cineon rendered files, which made them unrecognizable by Final Cut Pro. (49811)
* Crash on quit or close of project after multiple layers with various video/audio states
(active, solo) are copied. (49632)
* Crash on quit with layers on the clipboard that are adjustment layers with effects with
points or collapsed layers. (50079, 49922)
* Incorrect dimensions of a multiple-layer Photoshop file imported as a composition with
cropped layers and merged layer styles. (50146)
* (Mac OS only) "invalid file location specification (must include name) (3::45)" error on quit
if you create or open a project containing Particle Playground effect. (49892)


4.0.1
Notable fixes
* Miscellaneous performance improvements with MediaCore video formats.
* General improvements to Dynamic Link workflows.
* Mocha AE doesn’t read v210 QuickTime files correctly. (49015)
* On some systems, the application may suspend rendering when the display turns off due to power management or screen saver settings. (49146)
* All Render Queue items are removed when opening or importing a saved project in which the first item has no comment, but other Render Queue items have comments. (49186)
* Crash using “Open Layer” when multiple layers are selected if one of the selected layers does not have a source or has a collapsed transformation. (49207)
* Auto-save is marking a project as saved; user can close project without being prompted to save changes, and multiprocessing can return old frames. (49209)
* (Windows only) Custom eyedroppers in keying effects pick up wrong colors when clicked in custom thumbnail. (49248)
* Exposure effect: negative offset values render garbage/underflow in 8bpc and 16bpc. (49294)
* Puppet Tool: For a 3D layer, results are being clipped to layer bounds. (49267)
* Importing a still sequence via Recent Footage imports only a single still instead of a sequence. (49265)
* For some OpenGL effects in 32bpc projects, overbright colors are getting clipped. (1893997)
* When the “Write XMP IDs to Files on Import” option is selected, MediaCore playback can make some files appear out of sync. (1880742)
* Application may appear to hang for several minutes “Reading XMP markers from footage” (status message) with files that contain deeply nested metadata. (1874477)


v7.0
Adobe® After Effects® 7.0 software is loaded with improvements designed to help you create outstanding, original work. A redesigned UI and a new Graph Editor help streamline your workflow, new presets and effects enhance your creativity, and 32-bit float High Dynamic Range (HDR) color support (Professional Edition only) helps you achieve greater precision.
http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/newfeatures.html


v6.5.1
Adobe After Effects 6.5.1 update - English, French, German, and Japanese
This Adobe® After Effects® 6.5.1 update upgrades After Effects 6.5 software to version 6.5.1 and resolves a number of problems, including crashes at launch with certain hardware configurations when initializing the user interface, layers becoming invisible when soloed, and sluggish performance on certain projects.


v6.5
Advanced Clone tool
Remove unwanted elements from multiple frames more accurately using the advanced Clone tool, which offers five presets and the ability to simultaneously view the source frame as an overlay while you paint.

Disk caching
Take advantage of disk caching to speed up your interactive work.

Animation Presets
Save any combination of animation parameters — including transformations, masks, Expressions, effects, and text — as Animation Presets to quickly reuse without setting keyframes.

Tighter Adobe integration
Import Adobe Photoshop® CS and Illustrator® CS files with layers and other attributes preserved. In Windows®, copy and paste selected Adobe Premiere® Pro clips into After Effects, and create motion menus and buttons for use in Adobe Encore™ DVD and much more.

Color correction and grain management effects
Adjust the color of footage and other elements with powerful color correction tools, such as Color Finesse™. Use grain management tools to add grain to make video look more like film, or remove grain to give film the look of video (Professional edition only).

New special effects plug-ins
Add dramatic effects to your compositions with more than 60 new plug-ins, including Particle World, Light Burst, Light Sweep, and Toner.

New text animation features
Set blend modes between characters, randomize text, write scripts to automate text changes within animations (Professional edition only), and more. Enjoy over 250 professionally designed text Animation Presets.

FireWire video output
Preview your compositions on NTSC and PAL video monitors whether you're using a Windows or a Mac OS X system.

More flexible Motion Tracker
Zero in on any element with the enhanced Motion Tracker, which lets you use as many points as you like or standard one-, two-, and four-point settings; track change in scale or just horizontal or vertical movement; and edit the motion path (Professional edition only).

Enhanced scripting
Use scripts to automate management of the Render Queue as well as production tasks including changes to text and layers, creation of custom palettes, and more (Professional edition only).

All new features:
http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/pdfs/aftereffects_nfhs.pdf