Software » Video Editors » Adobe After Effects 26.0

January 2026 release (version 26.0)

Substance 3D Materials (SBSAR)
Apply Substance Materials (.sbsar files) to 3D models and parametric meshes to explore a wide range of visual styles and achieve stylized looks.
Learn to apply Substance 3D Materials to 3D models ›
Create parametric meshes
Use the new mesh tool to create parametric shapes such as spheres, cubes, and cones directly within the app, and customize or animate their size, shape, and appearance.
Learn to create parametric meshes ›
Enable lights to cast shadows
Add multiple shadow-casting Spot, Parallel, and Environment lights to your 3D scene when using the Advanced 3D renderer in a 3D composition.
Learn to enable lights to cast shadows ›
Support for Variable Font Axes
Animate OpenType Variable fonts in After Effects, using a single font file that includes multiple styles for precise control over weight, width, and style.
Learn more about Variable Font Axes ›
Improved Illustrator layer conversion
Illustrator layers now preserve gradient fills, strokes, and transparency when converted to native shape layers, which also support animatable Scale and Rotation for gradients.
Learn how to convert Illustrator layers to shape layers ›
Import SVG files as vectors
Import SVG files directly into your composition and convert them into editable shape layers, ready for customization and animation.
Learn how to import SVG files as native, editable shape layers ›
Unmult effect for Keying transparency
Remove solid black or white backgrounds from footage while preserving the colors and details of the foreground for compositing or other visual effects.
Learn how to use the Unmult effect ›
Lossless Compressed Playback
Preview longer segments of your timeline while using significantly less disk space, without compromising visual quality.
Learn how Lossless Compressed Playback can help you ›
Crop composition to selected layer(s) bounds
Crop your composition to the selected layers’ bounds by shrinking it to fit smaller content or expanding it to include elements that extend beyond the current frame.
Learn how to crop composition to selected layer bounds ›
New built-in audio effects
Add new audio effects— Distortion, Compressor, and Gate to enhance and manage sound in your compositions, giving you precise control over audio directly within After Effects.
Explore audio effects available in After Effects ›
Refreshed After Effects Preferences
Improved grouping and preference organization for faster access and a more efficient workflow.
Explore the refreshed After Effects preferences ›
New expression and scripting enhancements
Quickly locate the keyframe or marker before or after a specific time, and read the current text value along with the full list of dropdown menu items.
Learn about dropdown menu attributes ›
Windows ARM native support
After Effects now runs natively on Windows ARM systems, delivering improved performance and efficiency for ARM-based devices.
Learn about support for ARM-based Windows devices ›
Improved UI language support
Run After Effects in languages different from the OS display language, enter Unicode characters in UI elements, mix multiple language scripts in a single text field, and more.
Learn about UI language support in After Effects ›

Fixed issues in the January 2026 release (version 26.0)
After Effects no longer crashes when selecting the October India Compressed Hairline font.
Line breaks are now preserved when scripting marker comments that include carriage return characters.
Scale, Rotation, and Orientation values now update live in the Properties panel as you adjust layers in the Composition viewer.
Undoing a change to a Light’s falloff type now correctly updates the visibility of the falloff controls.
Using expressions to create variable font animations no longer slows performance or creates extra font-style menu entries.
Playback no longer drops frames when using Cache Before Playback with cached frames.
The Info panel now updates correctly when navigating the layer stack using Cmd/Ctrl + Arrow keys.
Times in the Project panel’s Date column now display correctly without future offsets.
The Number effect now correctly displays date and time formats when After Effects runs in a language different from the OS.
After Effects no longer crashes when creating Shapes from Text layers with special characters.
The Info panel now shows the number of timeline layers selected with Edit > Select All.
Still Footage duration settings no longer affect new non-Still Footage layers.
Japanese characters are preserved when exporting files from the render queue.
After Effects no longer exhibits rendering issues with fonts when using 3D text extrusion, including cutouts, overlaps, and missing fills.
After Effects now has improved stability during playback when using disk cache, preventing potential crashes.