Friday, November 4th, 2016 Posted by Jim Thacker

Adobe releases After Effects CC 2017


Originally posted on 12 September 2016. Scroll down for news of the commercial release.

Adobe has announced the new features due in the next update to After Effects, including the option to use Cinema 4D’s Standard renderer directly inside the software, plus a range of new GPU-accelerated effects.

The release will also introduce Team Projects, a new hosted online service that enables users to work collaboratively on shared projects in After Effects, Premiere Pro and Prelude.

The update – still officially unnamed, although it’s presumably going to be CC 2016, Adobe having put in an extra CC 2015 update earlier this year – was announced at IBC 2016.

Updated: It’s actually now called After Effects CC 2017, Adobe having skipped CC 2016 entirely.

Integrated 3D rendering, improved GPU acceleration
New features due in After Effects itself include the option to use Cinema 4D’s Standard renderer – the Lite version of which is bundled with the software – from directly within the AE timeline.

The ongoing overhaul of the core architecture – begun in CC 2015 with mixed results – also continues.

According to Adobe, increased use of GPU processing and other under-the-hood changes mean that “most video footage can now play back in real-time before effects are applied, without waiting for it to cache”.

The list of GPU-accelerated effects within the software has also been extended, with new additions including Hue/Saturation, Brightness/Contrast, Mosaic and Find Edges.



Team Projects: a new hosted online project collaboration service
To make use of the other new functionality, you’ll need to be using Premiere Pro or one of Adobe’s other professional video projects, new versions of which were also announced at IBC.

The biggest is Team Projects (shown in the video above), a new hosted online service that enables users of After Effects, Premiere Pro and Audition to collaborate on shared projects.

Rather than create separate project files for the three applications, each app can access a single project.

The system handles version control automatically, with users able to select a range of preset options where version conflicts are created by their latest update.

Project data is stored online, while the media files referenced in a project can be stored online, referenced online via shared proxies, or duplicated locally.

Other new options for collaborating with Premiere Pro users
Outside of Live Projects, the process of sharing live text templates with Premiere Pro users has been improved.

Rather than having to collate the assets for a project manually, After Effects users can now pack a comp and all of its referenced assets into a single file that Premiere Pro can open directly.

In addition, TypeKit fonts used in a comp will now sync automatically when the project file is opened, meaning that collaborators don’t have to install any missing fonts manually.

Character Animator, Adobe’s 2D animation tool, the beta of which is currently installed alongside After Effects, also gets a few new features, including its own .puppet file type for collecting project data and source images into a single shareable package.



Updated 4 November 2016: After Effects CC 2017 is now shipping. You can read Adobe’s blog post announcing the release and summarising all of the new features via the link below.

The final release notes contain a few extra features, including the option to export DNxHD and DNxHR files without the need to install the Avid codecs package, and the option to process RED footage on the GPU.

After Effects is only available via a subscription to Adobe’s Creative Cloud. New subscriptions cost $19.99/month for AE alone; Complete subscriptions to all of Adobe’s creative tools start at $49.99/month.

Read a full list of new features in After Effects CC 2017