Animate and Blend 3D Objects Easier Than Ever Before in Adobe After Effects

Along with some pretty significant updates to Premiere Pro (currently in beta), Adobe has also announced a major set of improvements and upgrades coming to the 3D workspace in After Effects.

As part of their IBC 2024 showcase, Adobe is here to make it easier than ever before for motion designers and video editors to animate and blend 3D objects seamlessly with real-world footage and other 2D elements.

Let’s take a look at these new updates for After Effects and explore how these new improvements could make motion design easier and more streamlined overall for working with 3D objects.

Adobe After Effects Updates

While 3D might still feel a bit scary to some NLE-based video editors, Adobe’s overall push at IBC 2024 has been all about making video editing easier and less scary for those just starting out in the industry. So if you’re an online content creator, or video editor who just might have been a bit intimidated about working with 3D models in AE, these updates should really be for you.

Adobe has unveiled a range of new tools to help motion designers work with native 3D objects in the 3D workspace—including new features to allow designers to make their 3D objects blend more seamlessly with their photo-realistic and real-world environments.

Here are the highlights:

• Embedded 3D Animations: After Effects now supports embedded 3D animations from imported 3D models. Artists can breathe life into characters and objects created by external animation software. Seamlessly import 3D models (GLB or GLTF) with embedded animations such as skeletal rigs. Keyframe animations and bone-based deformations are natively supported and can be smoothly retimed. With embedded 3D animations, After Effects becomes a great place for motion designers to get started working in 3D in the motion design app they already know and love.
• Ultra-Realistic Shadows and Color Shadows: After Effects introduces shadow catchers, allowing 3D objects to interact realistically with video footage. Shadows cast by virtual objects onto the environment are accurately captured. Color shadows enhance realism since shadows cast in the real world are rarely a pure shade of black or grey.
• Depth Mapping for 3D Models: Depth maps are essential for compositing 3D elements into live-action footage. Extract depth maps from Advanced 3D scenes just by precomposing. These maps encode the distance information for each pixel, enabling post-processing effects like depth-of-field blur or fog.

New Presets and Faster Performance

Adobe has also shared info about 30 all-new animation and number-counting presets for all different types of infographics which should help reduce the time designers need to spend keyframing. There are also some new camera and light support features in Adobe’s new Properties panel as well as new avenues for connecting After Effects to Adobe Substance 3D.

The new beta version of After Effects should also feature a refreshed, modern UI as well as all of the new 3D and animation features mentioned above. You can learn more—or check out the beta After Effects—yourself by following this link to Adobe’s site here.