Not all of the updates coming in After Effects CC (Creative Cloud) are of the earth-shattering variety; some are simply better - or more convenient - mousetraps. After Effects guardian angel Todd Kopriva has posted an exhaustive list on the Adobe After Effects Technical Focus blog; one that we’d like to single out and share some training on is the Pixel Motion Blur effect.

As we mentioned last Thursday, we wanted to share with you more about some of the significant new features in the Creative Cloud version of After Effects. The goal is to make you better informed about your upgrade decision before the June 17 release date.

We wrote a preview of After Effects CC for PVC when it was first announced; since then we’ve released a couple of hours of video training on all the major new features in After Effects CC. Adobe TV has also posted two movies from that course on C4D/AE integration, and we thought we’d share those with you.

As we mentioned yesterday, the Refine Edge tool is one of the most significant new tools added to After Effects CC (due to be released June 17). Refine Edge is built on top of the Roto Brush took, which was originally introduced in AE CS5. A side effect of this is that some parameter names and ranges associated with Roto Brush are changing in AE CC. The following movie reviews some of those changes:

Every time After Effects or any other major tool you use is updated, you go through a decision process of whether or not to buy the upgrade. Adobe has upped the ante this cycle by announcing the end of permanent licenses for most of their software; from now on, their major apps are only available through their Creative Cloud subscription model. We’ve avoided publicly joining the Creative Cloud debate (we happen to actually be subscribers, and we’re very happy - while also realizing it may not work for everyone), but in the meantime, we wanted to share with you more about some of the significant new features in the Creative Cloud version of After Effects so you can be better informed about your upgrade decision when the June 17 release date rolls around.

Ever feel like you’re getting the same old looks out of Cartoon, no matter what you try? In this third and final installment of learning how to get better results with the Cartoon effect, we will show you how to combine Cartoon with the After Effects Brainstorm module to get unexpected looks out of Cartoon, including images that look like they were created with a fine pencil, fat markers, or a photocopy machine.

In this second installment of learning how to get better results with the Cartoon effect, we will go beyond altering Cartoon’s own parameters from their less-than-ideal defaults and explore pre- and post-processing the video clip getting the Cartoon treatment.

As we’ve mentioned before, we updated our After Effects Apprentice video courses last year. As part of adding and reorganizing material, some movies got cut. But we hate to see anything go to waste, so we’re reposting them here for free - including a three-movie set on using the Cartoon effect.

Cartoon may be one of the most unfairly maligned tools in After Effects. Some of that is due to burn-out based on the popularity of the this look a few years ago; a lot of that is due to the less-than-attractive default settings for Cartoon. But if you’re reading this, you know to go beyond the default settings - and learning those settings is the basis of this first movie.

Adobe has started to “reveal” information about its next generation of pro video tools, and yesterday we wrote an overview of some of the more significant new features being slated for a future version of After Effects. But if you’re hungry for more information, and sooner rather than later, then you may be interested in some more in-depth videos we’ve recorded, plus a pair of sessions Chris is presenting at next week’s NAB show.

On the heels of their Refine Edge sneak peek last week and just a few days before NAB, Adobe is releasing more information about some of the cool technology we may see in the next generation of their other pro video tools – including After Effects (now known to be After Effects CC, to be released June 17 2013). Adobe has given some folks like us the opportunity to work with these features in advance, and we wanted to share our thoughts with you.

In the third of our rescued movies on Brainstorm, I demonstrate a much less common use of Brainstorm: to randomize keyframes. Brainstorm can essentially randomize any property you can select in the Timeline or Effect Controls panels - including values that vary over time. In this movie, I create a swarming-style animation by duplicating a layer multiple times, and then using Brainstorm to randomize the intermediate Position, Rotation, and Scale values the layers go through.