5 new and changed features in After Effects CC (12.2)

Adobe After Effects Blog by Tim Kurkoski

5 new and changed features in After Effects CC (12.2) that resulted from visiting users in Vancouver, BC

As often as possible, the After Effects team visits artists at their work site. Talking face-to-face not only gains us direct feedback and criticism about After Effects but also allows us to observe how they work in a way not possible from our offices.

One such recent trip to Vancouver, British Columbia resulted in 5 small but significant changes that were made to After Effects CC (12.2), which was released yesterday. These features make After Effects more approachable and take some of the everyday frustrations out of working with After Effects.

After Effects team members Amir Stone, Seth Monger, Steve Forde, Todd Kopriva, and Tim Kurkoski (me) traveled north to visit with artists at Vancouver Film School and Blink Media Works in November 2013. We opened the trip by inviting After Effects users to talk shop over beers in Vancouver’s Gastown district. More people showed up than we could keep track of and we enjoyed chatting with as many of you as we could. We apologize sincerely to those we couldn’t say hello to because we left early for a hockey game.

The next morning the After Effects team visited the Digital Design program at Vancouver Film School. Big thanks to Lizzie Hudson, Kyle Norby, and Myron Campbell for hosting us there. The students and instructors at VFS all asked great questions and gave us valuable perspective on both how they use After Effects and their workflows with Cinema 4D and Premiere Pro.

We made the following three changes in After Effects CC (12.2) based on what we learned at VFS:

Auto-save is enabled by default. After watching students work for 20 minutes, we noticed that none of them had saved their project yet, and none had auto-save enabled. This made the point to us that auto-save is only useful when it is turned on, so in After Effects CC (12.2) we have turned it on by default. If you prefer not to use auto-save or use an alternate workflow such as Increment And Save, you can disable auto-save in the Auto-save section of the Preferences dialog box. read more...