Adobe has unveiled the latest version of After Effects, version 23. This release is packed with exciting new features, including selectable track mattes, a suite of new animation presets, native H.264 encoding, and much more.
Enhancing Compositing with Selectable Track Mattes
Track mattes are essential for defining transparency in designs, allowing for precise integration of visual elements. Previously, motion designers often had to create individual mattes for each layer. With the new Selectable Track Mattes, users can now apply a single matte to multiple layers, regardless of their position in the layer stack. This significantly streamlines the editing process and enables global adjustments, leading to efficiency gains and less complex compositions.
Accelerate Animation with Over 50 New Presets
High-quality motion design often involves repetitive tasks. Presets are a crucial tool for saving time by acting as building blocks for common actions. This new release introduces over 50 professional-designed animation presets to simplify day-to-day tasks. These include creative animations for text, animated elements like map pins, convenient design elements like a 2D text box, and more.
In addition to the new animation presets, After Effects 23.0 features new composition presets that make it easier to start new projects. These composition presets define frame rate and frame size for common output formats. There are updated and new presets for social platforms, vertical video, and Ultra HD.
Native H.264 Encoding for Efficient Exporting
Native H.264 encoding, including hardware acceleration, enables users to export H.264 files directly from After Effects. Depending on project needs and system resources, motion designers can choose to export directly from After Effects or offload the task to Adobe Media Encoder, allowing them to continue working on their compositions while exports are in progress.
Precision Editing with Focused Keyframe Navigation
Refining animations hinges on the ability to review and fine-tune keyframes. Shortcut keys enable motion designers to navigate keyframes efficiently. New commands now allow users to focus on the keyframes of specific properties or layers. Additionally, users can switch back to the navigation of all visible properties or layers in the animation using existing commands.
Enhanced Template Performance in Premiere Pro
Premiere Pro now supports multi-frame rendering for animated title and motion graphic templates (MOGRTs) from After Effects. This results in boosted preview playback and render performance, which can improve by 200% or more, depending on the template and the user’s system.
Additional Features in Public Beta
Several additional features have been introduced in the After Effects Beta version:
- 3D Model Import (Beta): Designed for motion designers needing to combine 2D and 3D assets. This lets users import 3D models without requiring third-party plugins.
- Context Sensitive Properties Panel (Beta): This panel shows only the controls needed to edit the selected item, reducing the time spent navigating layers and opening panels.
- OpenColorIO and ACES color management (Beta): Allows working with the highest levels of image quality through workflows utilizing OpenColorIO color management, including Academy Color Encoding System (ACES).
Source: Adobe blog
