Adobe MAX and After Effects 17.0

It's Adobe MAX time and with that we are seeing a new version of the application, After Effects 17.0. If you're at MAX, please check out the After Effects sessions. If you're not at MAX, we'll go over the key new features below.

After Effects 17.0 Key New Features

Dropdown Menu Control effect: After Effects now allows you to hook up properties of a layer to a dropdown menu in addition to sliders and checkboxes. Discuss this feature here. 

Shape Layer performance improvements: Discuss this feature here.

Enhanced EXR improvements: Discuss this feature here.

Other New Features: 

• System Compatibility Report: After Effects detects and alerts you to any known issues with specific hardware and older hardware drivers you are using on the computer.
• Expression Editor Improvements: Smarter autocomplete, support for Hi-DPI displays and more.
• Save Project Version and History panel changes: 
• Layer transforms and blending may now utilize the GPU instead of the CPU for increased rendering performance: 
• Expressions Performance Improvements: After Effects now attempts to detect an expression that does not change throughout a comp and calculates the expression only once.

Relevant documentation

• Adobe Digital Video Blog: Faster, Smarter, More Creative: Latest release of Adobe video and audio apps available now
• Adobe After Effects Team Blog: After Effects is Faster than Ever
• School of Motion: Exploring New Features in After Effects 17.0

In addition to the new features, please review the following items before updating to the new version.

• After Effects does not support the Ray-traced 3D renderer now.
• After Effects Knowledge Base Document: macOS Catalina Compatibility
• After Effects 17.0 Release Notes
• After Effects 17.0 Fixed Issues
• After Effects 17.0 System Requirements 

Breaking news, information, and new videos.

Watch the Tuesday MAX Keynote Live. 10AM PST here.
Tuesday MAX Keynote Live. Live Blog here.
Watch the Monday MAX Keynote Live. 9AM PST here.
MAX Live Blog here.
MAX 2019 live events on YouTube here.

UPDATE: 

How to use the Drop-Down Menu effect:

Duik Bassel.2 has been released and it leverages the performance improvements in After Effects to make it faster to rig characters and use them in different animations. 

Read this blog post for more details: https://rainboxlab.org/documentation/performance-and-master-properties-in-after-effects-2020-and-dui...

School of Motion: After Effects 17.0: New Features