Photoshop’s Big Update, Rive’s Real-Time 3D & AI Render Engines | Motion Mondays

Photoshop evolves, interactions design goes 3D, and AI joins forces with your favorite 3D program.

This week, we saw full 3D rendering capabilities in Rive through scripting, Maxon appointed a new Chief Product Officer with deep After Effects roots, and The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman weighed in on AI art with a nuanced take that might change how you think about the whole debate.

We’ll see how Frederick Berria created a full 3D render engine inside Rive and dive into Brands in Motion’s argument that motion design has shifted in a big way. We also cover new tools including aescripts' Fractal Noise Browser, Marvelous Designer's new indie license, and a free open-source VHS artifact plugin.

Plus the big news that Adobe dropped major Photoshop updates including grain and clarity adjustment layers, improved Firefly generative fill with higher resolution, and a new community portal where you can vote on After Effects features. Netflix Animation Studios joined the Blender Development Fund as a corporate patron. Plus great work from Google's "Dear Upstairs Neighbors" short film using AI as a finishing pass, Daan Snels' stunning reel on Frame Rate, and NOMINT's innovative stop-motion Winter Olympics trailer. We also feature our Student of the Week Young Fishman and his work in UX Animation Essentials.

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

• NEW: UX Animation Essentials

• Courses & workshops coming soon

🗒️ SHOW NOTES

• Frédéric BERRIA - Rive with Blender

• Orbot 404

• Fractal Noise Browser

• Steve Forde joins Maxon

• Emanuele Columbo on the State of Motion

• Krea Realtime Edit

• Marvelous Designer

• NTSC-RS - Free After Effects Plugin

• Frame Rate

• The Oatmeal - on AI art

• The Blender Foundation

• Brandon Larry - Using AI as a render engine

• Dagger for Premiere Pro

• Photoshop New Features

• Adobe Community Portal

🎨 ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

• Dear Upstairs Neighbors (Trailer)

• Daan Snels 2026 Reel

• Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games

• SOM Student of the Week - Young Fishman

• Young Fishman's Portfolio