Apple’s CHEAP Adobe Alternative + Maxon’s Digital Twin Makes Sense Now | Motion Mondays
This week: Noodle is a free script panel that makes springy, delayed animation way easier to control in After Effects. Apple Creator Studio bundles Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro and other apps for $13/month, which is honestly kind of all over the place but surprisingly cheap. Rive officially launched scripting using Lua with an AI agent that writes code for you, and people are already building full games inside it. Maxon finally explained Digital Twin, which lets you place accurate 3D product models into AI-generated environments without the usual AI weirdness. Boris FX updated their roto tools with better AI edge detection. And some sad news: Perception, the legendary studio behind the Iron Man 2 UI, is closing after 25 years.
We’ll check out some great work like the A$AP Rocky "Helicopter" music video that used gaussian splats to capture every performance, Ravie’s restrained piece for Google that honestly made me tear up and Paul Trillio's "Etherea" which shows how to use AI tools with taste and intent. Plus, we’ll look at Apple's SHARP tool for turning 2D images into 3D scenes in seconds, Strada's cloud-free file sharing from the Frame.io founders, MOHO rigging demos, and student work from Gavin Feiritear in Character Animation Bootcamp.
⚡️ New Course: UX Animation Essentials
We are excited to release UX Animation Essentials, where you’ll learn to transform static interfaces into engaging experiences using industry-standard UX motion tools. You'll work through a realistic music app project from kickoff call to developer handoff, learning not just how to animate interfaces, but why certain motion choices solve specific user problems. You’ll also get introduced to the strategic toolkit - Figma for rapid prototyping, After Effects for polished assets, ProtoPie for gesture-based interactions, and Rive for runtime animation - while also learning when to reach for each tool, how to speak the language of product teams, and how to spec your work so engineers can build it.
LEARN MORE ➔
Please Note: UX Animation Essentials is included as a part of our All-Access and Team Training programs.
🎓 SCHOOL OF MOTION COURSES MENTIONED
- School of Motion All-Access
- School of Motion Team Training
- Character Animation Bootcamp
- NEW: UX Animation Essentials
- Courses & workshops coming soon
🗒️ SHOW NOTES
- Noodle/Spring Anything for After Effects
- Apple Creator Studio
- SOM Podcast - Rive founders
- Rive scripting is live
- Moho - 2D animation software
- New features in Mocha Pro 2026
- Roto and Prep in the age of AI
- Perception shuts down
- Perception - Tech and film reel
- Apple's Sharp Monocular View Synthesis
- Strada
- Maxon Digital Twin
🎨 ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
ENROLL NOW!
Acidbite ➔
50% off everything

ActionVFX ➔
30% off all plans and credit packs - starts 11/26

Adobe ➔
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30% off Boom One, their 48,000+ file audio library
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33% off pro subscriptions (11/29 - 12/4)

FXFactory ➔
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Knights of the Editing Table ➔
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Maxon ➔
25% off Maxon One, ZBrush, & Redshift - Annual Subscriptions (11/29 - 12/8)
Mode Designs ➔
Deals on premium keyboards and accessories
Motion Array ➔
10% off the Everything plan
Motion Hatch ➔
Perfect Your Pricing Toolkit - 50% off (11/29 - 12/2)

MotionVFX ➔
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Rokoko ➔
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Shapefest ➔
80% off a Shapefest Pro annual subscription for life (11/29 - 12/2)

The Pixel Lab ➔
30% off everything
Toolfarm ➔
Various plugins and tools on sale

True Grit Texture ➔
50-70% off (starts Wednesday, runs for about a week)

Vincent Schwenk ➔
50% discount with code RENDERSALE

Wacom ➔
Up to $120 off new tablets + deals on refurbished items



