After Effects CC / Features

Objects and scenes from popular 3D modeling and animation software CINEMA 4D can be used directly as footage inside After Effects CC without rendering first. This eases roundtripping between the programs and opens up numerous creative possibilities.

It's the end of hard matte lines. Keep the details when separating complicated foreground elements like frizzy hair or motion-blurred edges from complex backgrounds. This means you can create natural-looking composites without keying specially shot footage.

A major upgrade to the much-loved Warp Stabilizer, VFX adds the ability to choose which objects within a scene get stabilized, reverse a stabilization, and preserve a scene’s original scale to fix tricky shots such as aerial fly-throughs.

The 3D Camera Tracker makes it possible to reproduce the original camera movement in a scene so you can add new layers — including video and text layers. It also now features much-requested Track Optimization, so you can refine tracking points over time.

Create more in less time, even in high-resolution projects. With Global Performance Cache, your previews are saved and ready when you are, even if you close a project and open it later. Duplicate compositions and undo edits without waiting for After Effects to catch up.

Inspiration doesn't like to wait. That's why After Effects crunches pixels using multiple processors and has improved support for NVIDIA GPUs. It's a full 64-bit application that uses all the RAM your OS allows, for caches and to render multiple frames simultaneously.

Add or enhance motion blur for moving objects in live footage and rendered scenes. You can use this effect to add realism, exaggerate movement, match shots, and make stuttery footage easier to watch.

A powerful typesetting and text animation engine lets you craft titles from classic to manic, in either 2D or ray-traced extruded 3D. Define, draw, and animate vector shapes to create almost anything from a lower-third bar to animated characters.

After Effects CC includes CINEMA 4D Lite for 3D animation, the award-winning Keylight for color keying work, the popular motion tracker mocha for After Effects, and the powerful color correction tool Color Finesse. Plus Cycore FX HD adds dozens of creative effects.

After Effects is a media creation and processing platform that can be extended with hundreds of third-party effects and file format plug-ins. Download and install scripts created by fellow users to automate a variety of essential tasks.

See all of your sources as originally intended. Manage your source, monitor, and destination color spaces with color management and LUT support. Work at multiple bit depths, including 32-bit floating point, and well as linear gamma.

Whether you’re scaling a layer up or down, you can make sure every pixel looks its best with your choice of bilinear and bicubic resampling algorithms.

Choose from a variety of options for controlling and smoothing motion within your shots, including a graph editor, subpixel positioning, motion blur, and frame blending. Multiple motion trackers and stabilizers are also available.

Work smoothly in 2D, 2.5D, and extruded 3D spaces. You can even combine 2D and 3D in the same composition. Use native 3D tools, and import data such as camera position from a variety of dedicated 3D applications.

If you can imagine an effect, After Effects can help you create it. Hundreds of plug-ins let you add blurs, shadows, distortions, particles, colorizations, transitions, and much more. Effect presets help you get the results you're looking for, fast.

There’s more than one way to cut an alpha channel. That’s why After Effects includes a variety of color keyers as well as the revolutionary Roto Brush, which automatically finds the edges of objects. You also get masks with variable-width feathering, and more.

More tasks are now streamlined. Locate missing fonts and effects in your compositions so you can relink or replace them quickly. New layer and mask snapping behavior makes aligning both 2D and 3D objects much simpler, without needing to calculate and type in values.

Save time by using hundreds of presets to generate text animations, backgrounds, shapes, lower thirds, transitions, and more. Plus you can create and save your own. There are even behavior-style presets for automatic movements.

Write expressions that can control virtually every parameter stream in the After Effects timeline to coordinate animations across layers or even compositions. Create scripts to automate broader functions and streamline repetitive actions.

Use vector-based brushes to clone, erase, and paint over any portion of your image. Animate brush strokes to create hand-drawn effects. You can use your Wacom tablet as well, including pressure support.

Pro Import AE makes it possible to work with files created in Apple Final Cut Pro 7 or earlier versions, as well as Avid Media Composer and Symphony. This lets you integrate After Effects with a wider range of professional production workflows.

Mix media from multiple sources, including industry standards like QuickTime and CinemaDNG, as well as vendor-specific formats such as AVC-Intra, XDCAM, and RED raw files. Pair After Effects with Adobe® Media Encoder CC to deliver your masterpiece to multiple devices.

After Effects offers multi-track audio support, including the ability to mix, process, and even generate animations from your soundtracks. Extend these powers with Adobe Audition®, also in Creative Cloud, for more sophisticated audio editing chores.

Work in a group? Adobe Anywhere for video provides an innovative new way to collaborate with other After Effects users on the same project. (Integration expected in 2013; requires separate purchase and implementation.)