Adobe updated some of their core applications at Adobe MAX this year and After Effects was certainly one of them. The latest version, CC 2020, can be downloaded from your Creative Cloud desktop application right now.
Note. As ever with new releases only use this version on test projects until you are satisfied there are no critical bugs. Never use a new version for main projects.
The new release brings some new features to the platform as well as some improvements to the general performance of the application. YouTube School of Motion have given a thorough breakdown of the new changes in CC 2020 above. For a quick overview keep reading.
The Main Talking Points
Ok, so what are the hottest things we should know about?
Drop-Down
A small but significant update is the ability to now use dropdown menus with expression controls.
So you can now control many settings at once or provide dropdown boxes for templates you may have for yourself or clients.
This also translates to Essential Graphic templates inside of Premiere Pro. So instead of sliders and tick-boxes you can now have dropdown menus there too!
As well as this there are expression improvements overall with calculations simplified and for static elements calculations only simulated once instead of continuously.
Cinema 4D R21 Lite
That’s right, Cinema 4D has been updated in CC 2020 to the R21 edition. It is obviously still the ‘Lite’ version of the software but that’s not to be shrugged at.
With the new version of 4D comes new bevel tools for us to use for creating extruded text and splines and a new high-performance denoising filter improves visual quality and reduces rendering times.
As with major version updates you can expect performance and stability updates too.
Content-Aware Fill
A big release earlier in the year, the new tool has new been improved in CC 202 as well.
We covered how you can use the tool to create 2.5D effects solely inside of After Effects here:
The tool is now twice as fast in CC 2020 and uses half the memory too!
Playback Performance
The playback performance of CC 2020 has also been drastically altered with threading improvements and a new GPU-accelerated display system core.
This should mean more consistent real-time playback of your timeline and less cache errors or frame drop outs.
Other Improvements
There are a ton of other features and improvements that Adobe have included in this latest release, such as; enhanced EXR workflows, grouping and expanded format and playback support.
Download the latest version now to really see what the new version is capable of.
After Effects is available for under £20 a month or get the whole Adobe Creative Cloud Suite for under £50 a month.
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For more After Effects content check out our article on How to Center the Anchor Point:
And our article on Splitting a Clip in After Effects:
