The October 2017 release of After Effects introduces Data-driven animation, which allows import of JSON files and use as a new type of project footage. After Effects now offers native support for complex VR workflows for an immersive video experience. This release also expands on multiple performance ehancements such as additional GPU accelerated effects for a seamless user experience.
Data-driven animation:
Import JSON data files into After Effects to drive interactive animations inside the application. The JSON file format is flexible and can contain static data easily represent database such as election statistics, survey results, or weather reports. MGJSON can be created and imported for time based sampled data from data sources such as fitness trackers, telemetry, and motion capture. These data files can be used as footage, to create animations, pie charts, sliders, or create high-quality motion graphics in After Effects.
Visual keyboard shortcut editor:
Change the way you work with keyboard-driven editing with the new visual keyboard shortcut editor. You can assign shortcuts to keys to suit your requirement and simplify the keyboard-driven editing process.
Expressions access to path points on masks, shapes, and brush strokes:
You can now use expressions to read and write the x and y coordinates of path points, or vertices, for Layer masks, Bezier shapes, Brush strokes on the Paint, and Roto Brush & Refine Edge effects.
Create Nulls From Paths panel:
Create Nulls From Paths panel enables you to create expression-driven animations without having to write expressions yourself. The panel creates nulls for each path and shape point. This script automates the linking of these nulls using the new expression access to paths points and creates interactive animations.
360/VR transitions, effects, and titles:
After Effects offers a cutting-edge line-up of tools for 360/VR editing. Create high-quality VR productions, effects, titles, and seamless transitions to enhance the Immersive video experience.
Performance enhancement:
The following effects are now GPU accelerated in After Effects:
Layer transforms (position, rotation, opacity, etc.)
Layer motion blur
Bicubic sampling
Transform effect
Directional Blur effect
Immersive video VR effects
Third-party effects that use Premiere Pro's Mercury GPU acceleration API
http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/features.html
