Adobe MAX’s Craziest Reveals, After Effects Upgrades & The Mill is Back? | Motion Mondays

This week After Effects Beta 26 is here with parametric 3D meshes, native SVG imports, and compressed playback caching that'll save you tons of disk space. Also Volinga just dropped a plugin that lets you relight Gaussian splats in real-time inside Unreal Engine, which is genuinely wild. Plus the Mill is making a comeback under new ownership, but there's a sticky situation with unpaid freelancers that really needs addressing.

We've also got an incredible fireside chat with Newfangled Studios' Macaela VanderMost about the future of motion design at scale, plus amazing work from Laika's upcoming Wildwood film, a killer showreel from Taiwanese artist Juhng Peeng Lee, and a peek at how Capacity Studios is pushing Unreal's broadcast capabilities.

But the real star of the show is our Adobe MAX 2025 roundup, where we dive deep into Project Graph (basically Nuke for Photoshop with AI) and cover all the mind-bending Sneaks like Frame Forward, Light Touch, and Project Trace Erase. Don't forget our holiday card submissions are due December 3rd, and our brand new After Effects Insider course with Eran Stern just dropped on All Access.

New Course: After Effects Insider!

We are excited to release After Effects Insider, a comprehensive 12-hour course designed for professionals who want to maximize efficiency in After Effects and unlock its full potential. Learn to customize workspaces, optimize performance, create reusable templates, work with 3D models, and discover hidden effects and techniques. Taught by Eran Stern, this course covers essential workflow optimizations and advanced production techniques that will transform how you use After Effects—from setup to final render.

COME INSIDE ➔

🎓 SCHOOL OF MOTION COURSES MENTIONED

• School of Motion All-Access

• School of Motion Team Training

• Expression Session

• Unreal Engine for 3D Artists

• NEW: After Effects Insider

• Courses & workshops coming soon

🗒️ SHOW NOTES

• After Effects Beta - New Features

• The Biggest After Effects Update in Years - Eran Stern

• Volinga Plugin Pro

• SOM Holiday Card 2025

• Frankenstein for After Effects

• The Mill is Back

• Fireside Chat with Macaela VanderMost

• Exploring the Unreal Sports Motion Graphics Template

• Atom - AI Agent for After Effects

• Boords

🅰️ ADOBE MAX 2025 ROUNDUP

• AdobeMAX 2025 Opening Keynote

• AdobeMAX 2025 Inspiration Keynote

• Project Graph

• Unlimited Generations w/ Firefly and partner models

• AdobeMAX Sneaks

• Project Scene It

• Project New Depths

• Project Trace Erase

• Project Sound Stager

• Project Frame Forward

• Project Surface Swap

• Project Light Touch

• Project Turn Style

• Project Clean Take

• Project Motion Map

🎨 ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

• LAIKA - Wildwood First Look

• Cheng Ping Li - Motion design reel

• Short Pants - I said 'just 5 mins'

• I said just 5 minutes BTS

• SOM Student of the Week - Sabine Krueger

• Sabine Krueger's Portfolio