Motion designer Mike Gaynor built Caddis over four months in nights and weekends, and pitched it as the layer timeline you already know paired with a node graph inside every single layer.

Work starts in a familiar stack of layers, with keyframes and timing edits on a timeline. Select a layer and its node contents appear in a graph panel beside the timeline and viewport. The idea is to avoid choosing a single paradigm when motion work often lives between both. Inside that per-layer grahp, the beta already includes more than 100 nodes to wire together. Nodes can drive parameters directly, with examples like linking rotation to scale, scale to audio, and audio to color.

Caddis Layers can stay simple, or turn fully procedural

A layer can stay as basic as one line of text, or expand into a fully procedural build with fields, shapes, video, and audio flowing through it. The demo frames it like patching a modular synth, with links between values, movement, and math. The product site leans into the same concept with a promise of visual logic in place of expressions, and a workflow where every parameter becomes something you can wire, modulate, or replace. It also positions the node graph as the home for compositing work like blending, masking, and mattes. Color tokens appear in the demo as a way to recolor a whole project in one click. The demo also shows saving subgraphs as recipes, then reusing or sharing them as a single file.

Responsive comps, plus GPU-native rendering

The demo says designs can be responsive, showing a resize from 16 by 9 to 9 by 16 with the layout adapting on its own. Caddis describes itself as a native desktop app on a modern GPU pipeline. The website calls out GPU-native rendering, aiming for a responsive viewport while iterating, and exports without leaving the tool. Treat that as a marketing claim until your own workstation agrees. Either way, new tools and innovations should be tested before use in production, ideally on real shots, real deadlines, and at least one truly cursed client change request. Beta is coming, so we obviously haven’t tried it yet – sign up as well, we’ll learn together what actually appears when Caddis comes out.

Import and export reality check

Caddis positions itself as an alternative rather than a drop-in replacement for After Effects and does not import After Effects projects. Instead, it works by importing media and rebuilding comps inside the app. On export, the product site lists standard formats including Apple ProRes, MP4, and image sequences including H.264 and ProRes, plus PNG and OpenEXR image sequences, and standard web formats. The demo additionally names WebM and GIF, plus PNG sequences, as native.

Caddis Pricing, beta status, and platform notes

Caddis is free during beta. The product site lists a $99 launch price for early adopters and $129 regular pricing, positioned as a one-time purchase with no subscription. The software should be compatible with macOS 12.0 or later, with a Windows version due shortly after launch. If you plan to roll it into a pipeline, assume the usual early-tool homework: bake out deliverables, double-check colour management expectations, and confirm the layer graph behaviour does not change between beta waves.

https://www.caddis.app/

The post Caddis mixes layers with nodes per layer first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

Mesh first, regrets later

Tangenten positions Puppet Pin Tool as a mesh deformation tool for the Fusion page inside DaVinci Resolve, built around a node you drop into a comp and feed with an image. The first stop is the mesh tab, where the plugin generates a triangulated mesh automatically.

Mesh generation follows the non-transparent pixels of the input, so cutouts with clean alpha give cleaner boundaries. The mesh can be adjusted with generation controls when the automatic result needs a nudge, including cases where you want tighter coverage around thin shapes or want to avoid clipping at edges. Everything else in Puppet Pin lives on top of the automatic mesh step. Pins grab vertices from that mesh, then move them around. Deformers move pins. Solvers push the rest of the vertices into place. Locators output motion data from the whole mess.

Pins: source, destination, and mseh wrestling

Pins in Puppet Pin have two positions. A source position defines where the pin grabs vertices from, and a destination position defines where those vertices get moved to.

The workflow starts in the pins tab. Adding a pin enables it and switches the viewer into source pin view so you can place it exactly where you want. After placing source pins, create controls switches the viewer into destination pin view and gives you per pin viewer controls you can drag to pose the subject.

For quick pose edits, this stays pleasantly direct: place pins on key body parts, generate controls, then pull and rotate until the silhouette behaves. The demo workflow uses four pins for a simple pose tweak, with pins on feet, hips, and neck to bend and tilt the figure.

Pin radius acts like the pin’s grip size. Increasing radius makes a pin grab and lock down more vertices, and it also enables rotation and expansion controls. Radius becomes essential once you want feet to stay planted or once secondary motion from other pins starts pushing things you intended to keep still.

Pins also include a render layer control that changes triangle render order. That makes it possible to decide which parts draw in front when pieces overlap after deformation, like choosing whether a tail renders in front of a body or behind it.

Keyframes and loops, because artists like sleep

Puppet Pin supports standard keyframing on pin controls, and the tutorial example builds a short loop by animating a neck pin across a 30 frames per second section. Two keyframes set the motion, then spline controls apply smoothing and a ping pong loop for a back and forth cycle.

This is the kind of tiny feature that saves real time. You can rough a loop from a still without opening another tool, without baking a bunch of transforms, and without manually copying and pasting keyframes to fake a cycle.

It also means Puppet Pin fits neatly into the existing Fusion animation muscle memory: set keyframes, shape curves, loop when needed, and keep moving. If you plan to drop it into a show, test the whole setup in your own comps before you trust it with client deadlines.

Deformers: follower, wave, and IK FK rigs

The deformers tab adds another layer, letting you build relationships between pins so you can animate less and get more motion for free. A follower deformer makes one or more pins follow a target pin. In the example setup, the hip pin follows the neck pin, with amplitude and delay controls creating softer secondary motion.

The post Tangenten Puppet Pin brings mesh warping to Resolve first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.

For those who don’t know the tool: Autograph is a 2D plus 3D compositor with a USD core, can hook into Maxon Studio and Red Giant, and imports SVG from Adobe Illustrator and Figma plus PSD from Affinity and Adobe Photoshop.

Free now, with a catch that is not scary

Maxon has released Autograph 2026.0.0 and made it free for anyone with a (free) MyMaxon account. The same release adds native integration with Maxon Studio for searching, navigating, and applying Red Giant effects, and it adds full OpenFX support for third-party plugins. Pricing beyond that free individual access is not specified yet.

The Autograph pitch in plain production terms

Autograph is a motion graphics and compositing application that mixes a layer-based timeline with a 3D mode for manipulating 3D assets. Think Nuke met After Effects at the Flame Birthday party, and they got drunk.

From the left..

The new kid on the block!

The timeline includes a standard layer stack and a dope sheet, then it switches into a 3D workspace when you need to push assets around in depth.

Autograph also promotes a responsive design workflow aimed at delivering multiple resolutions and aspect ratios from a single project file. Autograph calls these “responsive-design compositions”. Elements can be positioned relative to frame dimensions so one project can render multiple aspect ratios without duplicating layouts.

On the feature list side, Autograph describes itself as a tool for motion graphics, VFX and compositing, plus 2D and 3D projects. So, eveything Comp. It also sports a GPU-powered engine and extensible capabilities as part of how the tool approaches performance and expansion.

OpenUSD 3D inside a compositor timeline

Autograph includes an integrated 3D workspace powered by OpenUSD. The 3D space blends with the 2D workflow and supports extruded vector shapes and text, using compositions as textures, and compositing with multi-pass renders inside the same application.

That same 3D space is useful for motion designers who want depth, lighting, and dimensional design without moving to another application, and for 3D artists who want to streamline texture creation and final composite across the broader toolchain.

Plug-ins, Studio integration, and the new OFX door

Autograph 2026.0.0 introduces full OpenFX support. That matters if your shop already lives and dies by OFX (because, why wouldnt it…), or if you want a compositor that does not treat third-party effects as an afterthought.

The release also adds native integration with Maxon Studio. The stated goal is quick search, navigation, and application of Red Giant effects from inside Autograph. Capsules are explicitly not available in Autograph yet.

One naming change also comes with the re-release: Instancer has been renamed to Cloner, aligning naming with Cinema 4D terminology. The Sources do not list additional feature renames beyond that one.

System requirements and supported platforms

Autograph 2026.0.0 supports Windows and macOS. On macOS, the supported versions listed are macOS 15 Sequoia and macOS 26 Tahoe, and the supported hardware requirement listed is Apple Silicon M1 or better, with 16 GB of memory.

On Windows x64, the supported operating systems listed are Windows 10 version 22H2 and Windows 11. The minimum CPU requirement listed is a 64-bit Intel or AMD CPU with AVX2 support. The minimum GPU requirement is either an NVIDIA GPU from the Maxwell generation or newer with at least 4 GB of VRAM, or an AMD RX 570 or RX 580 with 4 GB or 8 GB, or a discrete GPU with at least 4 GB VRAM and support for OpenCL. The memory requirement is 16 GB.

Test new tools and updates before you put them into a production-critical pipeline!

https://support.maxon.net/hc/en-us/articles/26689114527388-Autograph-2026-0-0-April-15-2026

The post Maxon Autograph 2026 is here first appeared on DIGITAL PRODUCTION and was written by Bela Beier.