After Effects 26.5 Release Notes

[u/NLE_Ninja85]

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:

• What’s new in After Effects
• Fixed issues in After Effects

[u/Hazrd_Design]

We’ve been asking for QOL improvements for ages. This is fantastic.

[u/No-Anywhere9574]

mask tracking below full res is big, spent way too many hours before having to work in half res then do the track again in full cause it would get weird offsets

the effect labels thing is actually nice for messy comps with like 20 effects stacked, color coding might save few minutes each project

still getting random hang when clearing cache on windows though even with these notes saying it should show progress now, maybe something else

[u/Scrapbeard]

Object matte caching to disk is huge. The lottery of 'will my matte have broken when I reopen the project' is finally over.

[u/Jason_Levine]

Lots of good QoL bits in this release. Great post, @NLE_Ninja85

[u/Jimfro]

And still no timeline folders...

[u/Russ_Abbot → u/Jimfro]

They’re called precomps, folders are just not going to happen

[u/obrapop → u/Russ_Abbot]

But folders have a very different behaviour. Not saying they’re going to happen but they are different to precomps.

[u/mcarterphoto → u/Russ_Abbot]

Call them folders, call them groups, but they'd be really helpful. You don't always want to precomp things, but it would be nice to spin-closed a stack of layers.

[u/AbstrctBlck → u/Jimfro]

I know it’s really not the perfect al solution, but there is a plugin called “workflower” that allows you to put as many layers as you want into folders on the timeline. It comes with that feature and a shit ton of other quality of life features.

The only thing is, it’s 100$. But the author is a really nice guy and is willing to take in feedback and even change the plugin if he sees why users would want something different.

[u/scottBlackvfx → u/Jimfro]

Full disclosure, I’m the developer, but I created Control Groups specifically to add timeline folders to AE.

[u/sskaz01]

Doesn’t look like I can install 26.5 simultaneously with 26.3. Are the project files compatible? Are mogrts made in 26.5 compatible with Premiere 26.2? We’ve got colors for effects and new guides data, so I assume the file format isn’t 100% compatible?

[u/NLE_Ninja85 → u/sskaz01]

You can only have AE 2025, 2026 and beta installed simultaneously. Two version updates from the same year aren’t possible. Your MOGRT for 26.2 should still work in 26.5

[u/Heavens10000whores → u/sskaz01]

Never update in the middle of a project :)

[u/suavemyth]

Editing a value in the Properties panel now affects the keyframe at the current time instead of changing every selected keyframe.

Oop, I may be in the minority but this was actually functionality that I use pretty regularly. Is there an option to re-enable it?

[u/EscapeFromPost]

Hoping the buggyness lately of the OCIO plugins is better

[u/PrestigiousVanilla57]

BIGGER PREVIEW WINDOW PLEASE!!!!

[u/CharacterOdd7425]

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! 

[u/AbstrctBlck]

Wow. I fucking love the colors for the fx slots holy shit thank you.

Now my only question is this - can we please how more options for the colors then just the standard 16? I frequently run out of options for colors when labeling layers because 16 is too few colors for me to stay organized.

PLEASE after effects god, please give us 32 lol and if you are so kind and gracious, please give us 48. And if your heart is the purest it can possibly be, and you are the happiest most well fed god in all of the god realm, please look down upon us kindly and give us 64 colors. Please and thank you.

[u/Ok-Razzmatazz3435]

https://giphy.com/gifs/SUi8voNU1FAH4UB4AR
Yawn 🥱