Adobe recently launched their latest update to After Effects 2023 at their annual creativity conference, Adobe Max 2023. This latest update comes with a lot of new ground breaking features. To see all of them, watch my video below that covers all significant updates. But in the post, I’ll be deep diving my top 3 favorite ones.
Separate Position Dimensions
An underrated but yet time saving update is the ability to separate the position dimensions automatically when creating layers inside After Effects. To enable this go into your After Effects preferences menu and check the box in the image below.
This this very helpful if you find yourself animating the position of layers a lot. And let’s be honest, most of us probably only need to animate the x or y value. So this is such a great way to save time in After Effects 2023.
Select Track Matte Layer Controls
Probably one of the best and revolutionary features inside After Effects 2023 is the newly designed track matte layer controls. If you’ve updated to After Effects 2023, you might be wondering how to use these new controls. Well lucky for you, I actually made a new video going over how to use the new layout for creating alpha mattes and luma mattes in After Effects. Check out my video tutorial below.
Now one of the best things about this update is that layers don’t necessarily have to be over a layer in order for a track matte to work. Layers can be in any order. This eliminates a lot of accidental errors that may occur when creating graphics and visual effects in After Effects. Especially if your composition has several layers.
Native H.264 Encoding
Now this new feature is a weird one. It actually use to be available in After Effects CS6 and before. And they just recently brought it back to life in the latest update. This new feature saves a lot of time, because instead of having to kick a composition to Adobe Media Encoder, you can now, again, export compositions directly out of After Effects in an H.264 encoding format. If you want to see how to automatically export in H.264, watch my video below!
Now not everyone needs this… This feature is primarily great for animators that are creating final deliverables for clients directly out of After Effects. Some animators might not need this if their animations are being used in other projects. Such as an opening motion graphic for a YouTube video or other assets that may be used within other video projects.
If you are curious on the best composition export settings for After Effects, check out my video below where I cover the absolute best export settings for Adobe After Effects compositions.
Conclusion
Adobe After Effects 2023 has a lot of new features inside it. What’s your favorite new feature? Leave comments down below. I’d love to hear from you!
Now new features can only get you so far. If you want to jump start your After Effects experience, check out my other blog post on the best plug-ins for After Effects. I use these all the time, and you may find them helpful as well.
Otherwise, thank you so much for reading and happy video creating!
John Vlach 