Emery Wells announced that Frame.io Is Joining Forces with Adobe — “this $1.275B deal will allow us to continue our mission of transforming and creating the future of collaborative video workflows.” He continued:

“Our joint mission with Adobe will be to continue building Frame.io with expanded resources, while continuing to support a broad ecosystem of workflows. Over time, you can expect to see Frame.io more deeply woven into Adobe’s creative apps with a focus on making Premiere Pro the world’s most collaborative video editing platform… The changes you’ll see will be additive to our existing capabilities; you can expect to see deeper integration with Premiere Pro and other Adobe products. We will also continue our commitment to invest in other partner integrations including Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and AVID Media Composer.”

Frame.io Is Joining Forces with Adobe

Adobe MAX 2021 is planned for October 26-28, and is online and free again this year. Registration is open. In addition Adobe is putting a paid creative team together, to help bring Adobe MAX 2021 to life. Applications are open 8/31/21; see Adobe CoCreate for specifics.

Victoria Nece, the AE product manager, noted a beta bonus for After Effects scripters: Three long-requested APIs are now available: get and reference layers by unique IDs and get the source property of an Essential Property by Becky Fox.

Also, Ryan Summers aka @Oddernod posted a tip: “Motion Design Lifehack for new Speculative Rendering in the After Effects Beta that just released. Drop every comp you’re working on into one Main Comp – when you walk away for coffee, if you leave that Comp focused, AE will chew through IT ALL for when you get back.”

You can find a rundown of Multiframe Rendering and Spec Preview in After Effects Roundup July 2021. You can dig through the beta forum for more info on changes and additional planned features (for example Composition Profiler and Dynamic Composition Analysis).

{ mograph } Motion Design Lifehack for new Speculative Rendering in the After Effects Beta that just released.

Drop every comp you’re working on into one Main Comp – when you walk away for coffee, if you leave that Comp focused, AE will chew through IT ALL for when you get back.

— Ryan Summers (@Oddernod) June 25, 2021

Creative Dojo posted some news in AEViewer 2 Free Plugin for After Effects, INSYDIUM Fused, and Creating 3D Textures.

After Effects Beginner posted his now monthly roundup of “right bangers”, Top 5 AFTER EFFECTS Tutorials August 2021.

SonduckFilm posted his favorite effects and associated plug-ins inside After Effects, Top 25 Best Effects in After Effects | 2021. He also posted  Top 10 After Effects CHECKLIST You Should Have For EVERY Project:

“Here are 10 things you should do in every After Effects project. Of course, you may not be able to do all 10, but at least each of these will come up throughout most your After Effects work. In this motion graphics tutorial, we talk about keyframing, color palette, creative animation, motion blur, frame rates and much more!”

Via After Effects Beginner, here’s 21 helpful Tips, Tricks, Scripts and Resources for a successful 2021 | After Effects by Keyframe Academy.

Jake In Motion shared a wink with COPYING other people’s work for PROFIT | After Effects Tutorial. He thinks that taking the time to  reproduce work you admire in is a great exercise for motion designers, and helps develops problem-solving skills as well. Jake also continues to dutifully chug out his series on the filter plug-ins built into AE. Check out Echo & Onion Skinning + Auto Smears | Effects of After Effects.

ukramedia has moved into mainly YouTube Shorts. They’ll keep you busy enough; otherwise you can visit their large library of hour-long tutorials. A recent example is How to Control Color Brightness Using Expressions in After Effects.

A few years ago Animoplex @animoplex posted over 30 free tutorials in his World of Expressions – After Effects Training series. He has a written introduction on Medium, Getting Started with Expressions in After Effects and other supporting materials available.

Last month Evan Abrams posted Random Expressions in Adobe After Effects. He’ll get you busy helping you create procedural results, exploring main methods and functions, and ways to control, clamp, and refine “randomness.”

Adobe Video & Motion has over 30 tutorials in their series Learn from the Pros for After Effects. Here’s a recent exmple, Learn From the Pros | 3D Camera Tracking with C.M. de la Vega | Adobe After Effects Tutorial.

Motion Ape has a donationware tool called Auto Bend Tool, which is a somewhat better version of the CC Bend It plug-in effect in AE. CC Bend It can be used in unexpected ways, but Auto Bend Tool seems more straight forward and better behaved. Next, check out Bounce Tool, also free from Motion Ape.

Free Bend Tool for After Effects from AfterEffects

Runway has unleashed its marketing department, which is now teasing us with its “professional video editing powered by machine learning — all on the web.” They’ve augmented the initial release, Introducing Sequel: The Next Chapter of Video Editing. It’s perhaps something to keep an eye on — though uploading seems like a drag.

Learn How To Edit Stuff called RunwayML “an unbelievably fast and accurate web based A.I. rotoscope and compositing tool for video editors” in The Craziest A.I. Video Editing Tech I’ve Ever Seen. He even compares it to Rotobrush in AE. Several months earlier, Boone Loves Video called it The EASIEST Way to Rotoscope in 2021! And in January 2021, the Corridor Crew posted a test with VFX Artists Compete Against Artificial Intelligence.

Epic Games really worked overtime on a marketing push for Unreal Engine 5. Here are some influencers under the influence (though not in chronological order).

Cinecom.net posted related tutorials, Realtime 3D Video Production is here! (Unreal Engine Tutorial) and Stranger Things -uʍop ǝpısdn- VFX (After Effects & Unreal Engine). The same topic was covered recently by Alex Lindsay and associates in Office Hours 210828 – Unreal. There are 3 more pieces from some usual suspects: School of Motion on How to Get Started in Unreal Engine 5, Film Riot with Is Unreal Engine the Future of Filmmaking?, and Kriscoart with Game Engine VFX – Unreal Engine 5 + After Effects.

As a bonus, you might watch How To Make Unreal Look More Cinematic by William Faucher.

If you’re obsessed with a past that few care about now, check out What Happened to Adobe TV and Adobe Creative Suite by Cecilia Hwung. It’s questionable to assume that Adobe Creative Cloud is really better for consumers than the permanent license approach of the old Adobe Creative Suite.

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Please note that these roundups are for quick review and comparison. There is almost always vital information from the originating authors at the links provided — and often free presets, projects, or stock footage too.

Comments & suggestions are encouraged! @aerich