Adobe MAX 2021 is planned for October 26-28, and is online and free again this year. Registration is open. Based on experience of past years, we can expected formal releases of current beta features, news on mergers, and perhaps announcements of newer features!

School of Motion posted a very nice discussion, Accelerating the Future of After Effects, which includes Victoria Nece, the AE product manager and engineering manager Sean Jenkin (below). It’s the easiest way to catch up on this very promising development.

Adobe wants you to jump into checking out this feature set (latest notes), which seems to be nearing completion. You can find a rundown of Multiframe Rendering and Spec Preview in After Effects Roundup July 2021. You can dig through the beta forum for more info on changes and additional features, like Scene Edit Detection, Cineware and Cinema 4D Comp Renderer Update, Composition Profiler and Dynamic Composition Analysis.

{ mograph } Motion Design Lifehack for new Speculative Rendering in the After Effects Beta that just released.

Drop every comp you’re working on into one Main Comp – when you walk away for coffee, if you leave that Comp focused, AE will chew through IT ALL for when you get back.

— Ryan Summers (@Oddernod) June 25, 2021

Jake In Motion continues to dutifully chug out his series on the filter plug-ins built into After Effects. He did almost 30 videos on this in September! Check out Wave Warp | Effects of After Effects:

Here on PVC, Chris Zwar posted 2 new articles, Using EXRs and DWA in After Effects and How to scale a 3D scene in After Effects. The later includes a video and notes a built-in script to scale imported scenes, to avoid possibly tedious details. If you want to explore details, Chris’ resurrected article Fractal Noise: Advanced analysis of After Effects most versatile plugin is highly recommended.

4 Infinite Loop Motion Graphics in After Effects | Tutorial from SonduckFilm Films takes a dive into four different ways to create tunneling motion graphics.

SonduckFilm also released a couple of planet-related tutorials, Create ANY PLANET in After Effects With Space Scene Animation and Create Space 3D Motion Graphics Animation in After Effects.

Of course there’s are numerous approaches to creating planets, and a classic alternative was provided by Andrew Kramer a few years ago in Ultra 3D Earth Tutorial! + Free ORB Plug-in! 100% After Effects! It might be too much to ask, but we hope that his free plug-ins will be ported over to the new SDK for acceleration and Apple Silicon.

VFX Artists EXPLAIN Evolution of Lightsabers, from Corridor Crew, is fun and has an Andrew Kramer (Sabre) plug-in connection too!

Red Giant Software has new products and updates (including Particular), and some of it is mentioned in VFX and Chill | Special Guest Stu Maschwitz. Stu talks about a dedicated muzzle flash plug-in (AEP roundup), which reminds us of a plug-in that became Hitfilm.

Film Riot shared Virtual Production with an iPhone, featuring CamTrackAR. Fanmail from some flounder? Just listen.

free VFX tool is MAGIC for After Effects Artists! by ProductinCrate, is an interesting use of content-aware fill. It features a free After Effects script for texture projection onto pre-animated/simulated VFX.

No Film School posted Turn Cheap Miniatures Into Awesome Visual Effects, part of a larger series at Adobe Video & Motion with additional tutorials of some of the effects shown here. In this video, Todd Blankenship experiments with a variety of methods using miniatures for visual effects and compositing.

School of Motion posted audio by Ryan Summers in Designing the UI of Tomorrow – Stephen Lawes of Cantina Creative. It’s a podcast with show note links and a transcript. Cantina Creative has worked on numerous films and TV shows, including Furious 7 and Blade Runner 2049 to the films and limited series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Film UI is fun, eh.

Ukramedia posted 4 Easy Expressions to Enhance Any Animation in After Effects (feat. Ben Marriott), shares four basic expression tips to sublty elevate animations in After Effects.

Herman Huang posted a fast but entertaining 5 Matrix GLITCH Effect Transitions, on RGB splits, displacement, flickers, and AE Pixel Sorter.

After Effects: Long Shadows Preset & Tutorial (FREE PRESET) by Creative Dojo is apparently based on Plugin Everything’s tutorial and Shadow Studio 2 plug-in. This effect’s popularity seems to have peaked into 2014, as seen in the AEP roundup Long shadows: adding body to flat design in After Effects.

Advanced Shape Layer Techniques in After Effects – with Alex Deaton and an update was posted about a year ago by School of Motion. Alex shows you how to build single-layer shape “precomps” utilizing groups, merge paths, and simple path expressions so you can avoid redundant matte layers. There are free project files to help you follow along.

Limber is an add-on for AE that focuses on doing one thing really well — limbs for character animation. Limbs are shape layers that can be generated in just a couple of clicks. You can dedicate time to customizing and rigging them, or be animating in a few seconds, depending on your needs. Limber can   generate two types of limb by default – tapers and bones. Here’s the Limber – Character Animation for After Effects – Showcase:

Cool, Cavalry is getting physics! That’s great for those with giant pulsating brains, but I’m still a little gun-shy after spending so much time in great but dead-end apps like Commotion and Illuminaire/Combustion.

Putting Forge Dynamics in @cavalry__app to good use. Great work as ever by @SennepLDN
–#cavalryapp #mainframe #motiondesign #motiongraphics #animation pic.twitter.com/ERk7Fg5YVb

— Cavalry (@cavalry__app) July 16, 2021

Didja know? You can get decent motion blur right inside @adobe #PremierePro! Use Transform effect, dial Shutter Angle to taste. Also good for tweaking animations w/ existing multiple keyframes – need to nudge whole thing w/o tweaking many keyframes? Transform! #postchat pic.twitter.com/w581bO278w

— Christian Glawe (@ChristianGlawe) September 17, 2021

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Please note that these roundups are for quick review and comparison. There is almost always vital information from the originating authors at the links provided — and often free presets, projects, or stock footage too.

Comments & suggestions are welcomed! @aerich