Adobe After Effects 2026 Lands With 3D, Text and Performance Boosts – digital production

For those who don’t know the tool: Adobe After Effects is Adobe’s motion graphics, compositing and visual effects software in Creative Cloud. It sits alongside Premiere in postproduction and motion design workflows, and this update extends native 3D and typography capabilities with new core features.
Adobe has released After Effects 26.0 as the first major update of 2026. The release focuses on native 3D geometry, material workflows, typography enhancements and performance improvements. Official documentation and Adobe announcements confirm availability through the Creative Cloud desktop app.
After Effects 26.0 adds native parametric meshes that let artists create and animate basic 3D shapes, such as spheres, cubes, and cones, directly in compositions without external 3D modelling tools. Users can customise the size, shape, and material properties of these meshes in the Properties panel. Integral to this 3D workflow is support for Substance 3D Materials inside After Effects. These are .sbsar procedural materials that can be applied to both imported 3D models and native parametric meshes. Controls exposed in the material allow artists to adjust colour, roughness and pattern parameters without rebuilding assets.
Typography and vector workflows see notable upgrades. The release introduces support for Variable Font axes in OpenType fonts, enabling animation of weight, width and style from a single file. This gives precise typographic control in dynamic titles and motion graphics.
On the vector import side, After Effects now imports SVG files as native editable shape layers that preserve paths, fills and transforms, ready for animation. Illustrator layer conversion has also been improved to retain gradient fills, strokes and transparency when converting into native shapes.
Compositing and keying tools are extended with a new Unmult effect that removes solid black or white backgrounds while preserving foreground detail, easing integration of stock elements into scenes.
Performance and workflow improvements include lossless compressed playback, which reduces disk space during longer previews without visual quality loss, and a refreshed Preferences UI for quicker access to key settings. Native support for Windows ARM devices aims to improve performance and efficiency on ARM based systems.
Lighting in the Advanced 3D renderer now supports multiple light types that cast shadows in 3D compositions, offering more realistic depth and integration for scene lighting.
The release also introduces new built-in audio effects, Distortion, Compressor and Gate, that provide essential sound control within compositions without external tools. Expression and scripting enhancements simplify navigating keyframes and reading text values in scripts.
Adobe lists After Effects 26.0 as available now via Creative Cloud. As with all major updates, artists should test new features in isolated projects before adopting them into production to ensure compatibility and workflow stability.
https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2026/01/20/new-ai-powered-video-editing-tools-premiere-major-motion-design-upgrades-after-effects
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