Adobe releases After Effects 26.0 with native Substance support
Adobe has released After Effects 26.0, the next major version of the compositing tool for motion graphics, post-production and VFX work.
It’s a sizeable update to the software’s 3D toolset, adding native support for Substance 3D materials, and the option to create 3D primitives directly inside after effects.
VFX artists get a new Unmult keying effects for compositing stock clips of smoke and fire.
Motion graphics artists get the option to import vector designs in SVG format, and better support for animating variable fonts when creating motion typography.
Import and apply procedural materials in Substance format directly inside After Effects
For CG artists, one of the biggest changes in After Effects 26.0 is native Substance 3D support.
Users can now import procedural materials created in Substance 3D Designer as .sbsar files, assign them to 3D objects, then edit their parameters directly inside After Effects.
That should make working with 3D assets inside After Effects much easier, with artists able to make changes on the fly, rather than having to do all of the look development in other software.
Adobe also hosts online libraries containing thousands of readymade Substance materials.
If you only have an After Effects subscription, there are over 1,300 free user-created materials in the Substance 3D Community library.
If you also have a Substance 3D subscription, Adobe recently removed the download limits on the main Substance 3D Assets library, which includes only professionally created materials.
Other new 3D features: parametric 3D meshes, plus shadows from Spot and Parallel lights
It is also now possible to create simple 3D primitive shapes directly inside After Effects, rather than having to import them as 3D assets, via a new mesh drawing tool.
The tool makes it possible to draw out 3D forms – cubes, spheres, cylinders, cones, tori and planes – and assign basic material properties, including roughness, metalness and emissivity.
In addition, Spot and Parallel lights can now cast shadows when using the Advanced 3D render engine.
New Unmult keyer for compositing stock VFX elements
VFX artists get a new Unmult keying effect for compositing effects elements like fire or smoke.
It removes the solid black or white backgrounds from stock FX clips without affecting the foreground element, and supports 8-, 16- and 32-bits-per-channel color.
Import vector graphics in SVG format
Motion designers also get new features in After Effects 26.0, including support for SVG files.
The change makes it possible to import vector designs in the popular cross-platform SVG format, rather than just importing files from Adobe’s own Illustrator software.
Imported SVGs are converted to native shape layers, making it possible to edit them inside After Effects.
The process of converting vector designs – both SVGs and Illustrator layers – to shape layers has also been improved, and now preserves gradient fills, strokes and transparency.
It is also now possible to animate every axis in variable fonts – according to this blog post, users can animate up to eight axes per layer when using the text animation system.
Other changes: lossless compressed playback and native Windows on ARM support
After Effects 26.0 also adds a new lossless compressed playback system intended to make it possible to preview longer segments of the timeline without significantly affecting visual quality.
The new feature is the latest update to After Effects’ caching system, following the rollout of High Performance Preview Playback in After Effects 25.2.
Other changes include new Gate, Compressor and Distortion audio effects.
In addition, After Effects 26.0 introduces native support for Windows on ARM.
The change should improve performance on current PCs, particularly laptops: you can find out more in our story on which other CG applications support Windows on ARM.
Price and system requirements
After Effects 26.0 is available for Windows 11 and macOS 14.0+ on a rental-only basis. Single-app After Effects subscriptions cost $34.49/month or $263.88/year.
In the release notes, the update is also referred to as the January 2026 release.
Read an overview of new features in After Effects 26.0 on Adobe’s blog
Read a full list of new features in After Effects 26.0 in the online release notes
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