After Effects Kills FX Console & Junior Artists Feel the Pinch | Motion Mondays

Adobe just quietly started eating its own plugin ecosystem, a Japanese fashion company handed Blender a Houdini-grade cloth solver for free, and there's a talent gap in this industry that's been building for a decade.

After Effects 26.3 landed with a faster mask tracker, native SVG paste, and a Quick Apply menu good enough that even Jake Bartlett is threatening to uninstall FX Console. Brands In Motion published a piece on why studios have quietly stopped hiring junior artists, and why that's setting up a real mid-level and senior shortage a few years out. And Google dropped two new AI models, Nano Banana 2 Lite and Omni Flash, aimed squarely at speed and cost instead of raw polish.

There's also a Bond game title sequence worth studying, a fashion company's cloth solver landing inside Blender 5.2, JangaFX making an old tool free forever instead of killing it, Reallusion's new 3D-first approach to AI video, Notch getting an AI upgrade, a couple of clever new image tools, and this week's student spotlight out of Lisbon. Grab your Pictoplasma NYC tickets before the discount runs out. Show notes and links below!

New Course: Unreal Engine for Broadcast Design

We are excited to release Unreal Engine for Broadcast Design, taught by Jonathan Winbush. The course is built for motion designers who want to bring their work into Unreal for real-time graphics, broadcast packages, and motion design workflows. This is not a general Unreal course - it is built for people who come from After Effects and want to understand what Unreal can actually do for the kind of work they make. Live for All Access members now.

LEARN MORE →

Please Note: Unreal Engine for Broadcast Design is included as a part of our All-Access and Team Training programs.

Did You Know?

School of Motion has two FREE courses!

Path to Mograph is an in-depth look at a career as a Motion Designer, aimed at students who are ready to start their mograph journey.

Level Up is for motion designers who've already gotten started, but need to figure out the next step in their career.

If you decide to take the plunge into All-Access, then you'll also get access to our Jobs Board, as well as monthly livestreams and workshops with industry experts!

All that on top of joining our amazing SOM Community, and access to ALL of our courses, with unlimited (real human!) coursework critiques!

🗒️ Show Notes

• After Effects 26.3 Feature Roundup
• Quick Apply (AE docs)
• Shape Layer Pro Techniques - Eran Stern (SOM Hub)
• Overlord
• The Junior Artist Problem
• Fliers on the Wall
• VectorayGen Goes Free
• Blender 5.2 Physics
• Google Nano Banana 2 and Omni Flash
• Reallusion AI Studio
• Notch 2026.2
• ABN Painterly Normals
• Bria Extract Object
• Pictoplasma NYC (SOM Discount)

🎨 Artist Spotlight

• Ponies Title Sequence - Imaginary Forces
• Optimizely - Giant Ant
• 007 First Light Title Sequence - Territory + IO Interactive
• SOM Student of the Week - Roman Tanasienko
• Roman's portfolio