Motion Mondays March 2 2026 - Canva acquires Cavalry, After Effects new features

Article

Canva Buys Cavalry, NEW After Effects Features & Buck Goes Big with Rive | Motion Mondays

School of Motion

The big story this week is Canva's acquisition of Cavalry, the powerful 2D animation tool sometimes called the Houdini of 2D. Canva already made Affinity completely free after acquiring it, and now they have a full design-to-animation pipeline under one roof. Rive for Unreal Engine is now live on Fab as a free plugin, which opens up some genuinely exciting possibilities for broadcast and live event graphics. Buck dropped a case study on their insane Rive project that has to be seen to be believed. On the After Effects side, the new Object Mask tool brings fast AI-assisted rotoscoping into the beta, and Quick Apply lets you search and apply effects from a command bar without touching a menu.

Also this week: Apple SHARP gets used for instant virtual production sets, Beeble launches Switch for AI video relighting, VideoMamba teases a future without manual roto, a new studio called Spot launches around data-driven motion, Quixel Mixer gets discontinued, Wafer brings stylized iPad texturing to 3D models, Brevity launches Auto Crop for automatic video reformatting, Maxon is hiring a full-time motion designer, and we spotlight student Pawel Wukana's killer NASA design boards from Design Bootcamp.

New Course: Substance Painter for Motion Designers

Learn pro-level material authoring techniques for 3D models.

We are excited to release Substance Painter for Motion Designers, an 8-hour course where you'll learn to create professional, realistic textures and materials for 3D models using Adobe Substance 3D Painter. Taught by multi-Emmy winning 3D artist EJ Hassenfratz, you'll master non-destructive workflows, procedural weathering, custom smart materials, and integration with Cinema 4D and Redshift to create photorealistic and stylized renders.

Please Note: Substance Painter for Motion Designers is included as a part of our All-Access and Team Training programs.

🎓 SCHOOL OF MOTION COURSES MENTIONED

🗒️ SHOW NOTES

🎨 ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

The All-Access discount is SOLD OUT, but you can still get 25% off all individual courses! We’ve been quietly rolling out our new All-Access program, where you can get every course we make for one low price. It’s a crazy good deal even without this sale. But until Wednesday 12/4, you can get it for 25% off. For this sale we are opening up 100 spots. After those sell out, you’ll have to wait at least a few months until we open more. Don’t sleep on this deal. We expect it to sell out fast.

ENROLL NOW!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Success! Check your email (including spam folder) for your download link. If you haven't yet confirmed your email with us, you'll need to do that one time.

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Featured