New Motion Design Tool Brings Per-Layer Node Graph Workflows

Recently, there's been a wave of free software emerging as After Effects alternatives, including Maxon's relaunched Autograph and Canva's Cavalry. We also featured ArcBrush by Albert Omoss, which is a free node-based image editor positioned as a Photoshop alternative.

Another recent solo-developed project, Caddis, is a motion design tool that combines a familiar layer-based timeline with a procedural node graph. When you select a layer in the timeline, its corresponding node structure is displayed in the graph beside it.

Caddis is currently in beta and is expected to launch in June, along with tutorials and documentation. At launch, it will be macOS-only and will not support importing After Effects projects. Users can import standard media such as video, audio, images, and vector files, and rebuild their compositions within the tool.

For exports, Caddis supports H.264 and ProRes, as well as image sequences such as PNG and EXR.

There are also AI-powered nodes, although the current policy around them is still unclear. The description reads: "Depth maps, segmentation masks, mattes, generated as nodes, fed straight into your graph. Not a chatbot, not a generator."

The beta is free, so if you'd like to try it out, you can do it here. Subscribe to our Newsletter, join our 80 Level Talent platform, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

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