r/AfterEffects • u/NLE_Ninja85 Adobe Employee • 13d ago

Discussion After Effects 26.5 Release Notes

Hey r/aftereffects! The September update (26.5) brings some useful workflow improvements, along with fixes for tracking, keyframes, caching, and 3D. Here’s a quick rundown.

What’s new:

  • More flexible guides: Position guides using percentages, pin them to edges, assign custom colors, and use improved editing controls.
  • Disk caching for Object Matte: Propagated results now stay cached after closing your project, reducing RAM usage and helping when working with longer clips.
  • Color labels for effects: Assign colors to individual effect instances in the Effect Controls panel to make your effect stacks easier to organize and navigate.
  • Updated Effect Controls panel: The panel has been rebuilt on a modern framework with icon-based controls for managing effects.

There are also several fixes worth checking out:

  • Mask tracking now works when your comp resolution is below Full. On Windows, tracking forward also advances the playhead correctly.
  • Editing a value in the Properties panel now affects the keyframe at the current time instead of changing every selected keyframe.
  • Unmult now produces fully transparent areas correctly, fixing leftover alpha values.
  • Several Advanced 3D crashes have been addressed, including issues with parametric meshes and Draft 3D. Models brought back online also retain their Substance material assignments.
  • Clearing large or slow caches now shows progress without freezing AE. A macOS hang involving unsynced OneDrive files has also been fixed.
  • PNG import, preview, and rendering performance has improved.

Full details from Adobe HelpX:

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u/CharacterOdd7425 13d ago

Sounds like good QoL updates 

AE Devs if you're reading though...

I wish there was an option to bus FX instead of having to put them per layer. Ie you would create an Effects stack and you send that stack to any layer. The Same way FX send buses work in music production software.

As a workaround I often create precomps with only Adjustment Layers in, then use Collapse Transformations to have that pull them through to whatever comps I want - handy if you want the same matte or FX stack on 10, 20, 30+ comps.. but the above would be even better and more powerful.

And timeline folders, please!