After Effects

Node Based and Layer Based Compositing in After EffectsOpen for Voting

I'm a big fan of the layer based compositing and layer based editing After Effects currently has. That being said I'm well aware of the demand for node based workflows from other professionals in my field who use software like Davinci Resolve/Fusion/Nuke. From what I gather I have heard the excuse that AE is too old and integating such feature's would be too difficult. I'm no expert on software development but my suggestion would be to devide After Effects in two. Upon opening After Effects you are greeted with a choice of what kind of project you would like to make. A "Layer Based" or "Node Based" project. Selecting Layer Based will take you to the traditional layout. Selecting Node Based will launch you into a new UI that visually more akin to something like Nuke. Over time Adobe can work on ways to integrate the two halves together but by doing this they can cater to professionals or new enthusiasts who want to try out other methods of compositing.    

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9 days ago

John+SoldaParticipant

object matte tool totally broken, it worked initally then just wouldn't work anymore. Unacceptable software design, seriously considering to switch platform now.Open for Voting

The Object Matte tool initially worked correctly in this project and I was able to identify and isolate several cars in the footage very accurately. After working for a while, however, it suddenly stopped functioning properly.Now, when I hover over a car, After Effects still appears to recognise the object and highlights it correctly. But when I click to confirm the selection, one of two things happens: The entire frame/layer becomes outlined in purple, as if Object Matte has selected the whole image instead of the car. Nothing happens at all and no object matte is created. The same problem can also occur when using the brush selection.I have already tried restarting After Effects, reopening the project, clearing memory and disk cache, reopening the footage in the Layer panel, switching tools, resetting preferences and trying again from frames where the tool had previously worked. None of this has resolved the issue.This is particularly frustrating because the exact same footage and

3186

9 days ago

affectionate_Galaxy5C40Participant

Substance 3D materials (.sbsar) render incorrectly on 3D models in After Effects 26.5.0 on macOS. The model turns solid red or disappears at Full preview resolution, while default materials work correctly.Open for Voting

Software: Adobe After Effects 2026, version 26.5.0 (Build 89)Operating system: macOS3D renderer: Advanced 3DIssue description:I am experiencing a rendering issue when applying Substance 3D materials (.sbsar) to imported 3D models.The model (GhostMaiden) displays correctly with its default material, including all geometry and surface details. However, when I apply a Substance 3D material, such as red_metal.sbsar or solid-magma-rock-02.sbsar, the model renders incorrectly.Steps to reproduce: Import a 3D model (OBJ or GLB) into After Effects. Add it to a composition using the Advanced 3D renderer. Import a Substance 3D material (.sbsar). Assign the material to the 3D model through Material Assignment. Observe the rendering issue. Actual results: The model becomes almost entirely solid red, losing its surface details. Sometimes the material appears correctly for a fraction of a second before rendering incorrectly. When changing preview resolution from Quarter to Full, the model

494

Alessandro_Yoshimura 0449Participant

AE SDK 26.5 — Metal synchronization and GPU world lifetime in PF_Cmd_SMART_RENDER_GPU

We are designing a SmartFX GPU backend for After Effects on macOS using SDK 26.5 and Metal. We plan to use the host-provided command_queuePV, input/output GPU worlds obtained through SmartFX checkouts, and temporary GPU worlds allocated through PF_GPUDeviceSuite1::CreateGPUWorld.Our investigation has been limited to documentation and static code review; we have not executed GPU commands.Is the following sequence supported inside PF_Cmd_SMART_RENDER_GPU? Encode the required passes into an MTLCommandBuffer created from the host-provided Metal command queue, with appropriate resource retention. End encoding and call commit. Call waitUntilCompleted before returning from the callback. Inspect the command buffer's terminal status and error. Dispose of plugin-created temporary GPU worlds and check in input pixels. Return success only if execution completed successfully. We understand that commit does not establish completion. We also do not assume that Metal resource retention exten

social_partner155cParticipating Frequently

after effects showing adjustment layers thats not there???? i deleted it and all and its still showing there what the heck???

why is it showing a effect, i promise u its not under or behind the comp or anything under that i promise u i checked everything, so why is this buggy thing showing, its been showing all around my edit can someone please help me fix this????

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caroline_editsCommunity Manager

FAQ: How to reset (trash) preferences in After Effects?

  It can be really frustrating when After Effects starts misbehaving. One of the most efficient ways to fix this is to reset After Effects preference files. Trashing preferences resets the program to its factory defaults.   Resetting preferences will undo most of your customization such as length of your default transitions, brightness of the user interface, labels colors, changes that you've made to your audio hardware settings and more. Some changes won't be affected though, such as changes that you've made to memory allocation for After Effects and other Adobe apps, new workspaces that you've created and some other stuff. It's worth noting that changes that you've made to existing workspaces (changes such as resizing panels and moving them) will be reset to defaults.   Preferences that you set for scratch disks, however, are saved with your projects. Whenever you open a project, it automatically defaults to the scratch disks you selected for it when you set up that p

13455833

Blakk76Inspiring

After Effects 2022 (22.2.1) All Caps IssueReleased

After updating to 22.2.1 build 3 I've got strange problem with "All Caps" feature in Character control.Some letters are "caps" and some are not, some letters can be made bold after that and some not. No issues like that were present in previous version.See attached file. If font is anything else that "Regular" "All caps" is tottaly crazy.

980844

octaviosaInspiring

Custom UI parameters are very slow in AE 26.5In Development

in After Effects 26.5 custom controls feel a lot slower than the same controls in AE 25.In After Effects 26.5, PF_Event_DRAW for an effect's custom UI in the Effect Controls panel is delivered at about 10fps for as long as the mouse is captured in a send_drag drag. The same plugin build on AE 25 receives 40fps under identical conditions. Hovering is unaffected — 26.5 delivers 90–130 there, which is faster than AE 25.You can reproduce the issue with any plugin shipped with AE that features custom parameters, for example “Curves”. I tried to fiddle around with update flags and working around the drag system but was not able to find a solution or any significant improvement.This is what I’m working with:Windows 11 Pro 26200, NVIDIA GPU. Effect uses PF_OutFlag_CUSTOM_UI, PF_OutFlag_SEND_UPDATE_PARAMS_UI, PF_OutFlag2_SUPPORTS_SMART_RENDER, PF_OutFlag2_SUPPORTS_THREADED_RENDERING. Custom UI drawn via PF_GetDrawingReference + the Drawbot suites, on an arbitrary-data parameter.Here’s a video s

733

SteveCalParticipant

Pairing anchor points

Hi,Hopefully I can describe this correctly…I’m essentially looking to pair/join the bottom anchor points of the green rectangle with the top anchor points of the orange rectangle, so that I can animate the boxes changing their depth up and down whilst the overall group never changes height or width.Does that make sense?Can anyone help with this?CheersSteve

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Robert36629440xr7aParticipant

Holding down shift and clicking "New Folder" in the project panel will automatically move any selected layers into the new folder.Open for Voting

Holding down shift and clicking "New Folder" in the project panel will automatically move any selected layers into the new folder. The same feature that’s in Photoshop.

141

UI / interface scaling issues on Windows 11. Preferences dialog box clipped and hiding options.Open for Voting

ahoagmediaParticipant

posted in Questions

Have tried all sorts of varieties of drivers, hardware acceleration on/off, Windows display scaling, high DPI Windows compatibility settings for application launch, nVidia Control Panel app settings, different cables, ports on my GPU, etc. Even fresh installed Windows 11 and AE and still have the issue. The most frustrating is the preferences panel does not size properly and cuts off buttons/options - making it basically useless.Clipped preferences window.In addition to that, pretty regular flickering of UI elements when resizing panels.Often the mouse cursor's hit detection boxes when resizing is extremely narrow. Divider borders feel like "dead zones". The mouse sometimes doesn’t change to the resize icon. System info Application: After Effects v26.5.0.89 OS: Windows v10.0.26200, RAM: 93.61 GB GB, CPUs (logical): 32GPU - nVidia RTX 4080, Studio Driver 616.92

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Jacobson MadeInspiring

Project Tabs for AEOpen for Voting

It would be super rad if AE has the ability to have Project Tabs.A lot of other software, like Cinema 4D for example, allows multiple projects to be open at the same time, making switching between projects more seemless and allows for a quicker workflow.Is this something After Effects is able to handle on the backend? Would greatly depreceate the time it takes to close and open between projects, especially when working between multiple projects during the day. I think a majority of users will appriciate this new feature! Thanks!

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abstract_hands0688Participating Frequently

Effect & Preset for moving object

This van is moving fast & comes to halt suddenly. Is there any Effect & Preset to show this in the image?File is attached as well.S4-L40-van

521

ludvig_4465Participant

After Effects 26.5 crashing on launch of old projects

After Effects 26.5 crashes whenever I try to launch projects that contain multiple files, it continues running in the background. I’ve tried launching in safe mode and removing preferences. Also tried deleting all plugins. I have Mac Golden Gate 27.0.1.

171

SebABFKnown Participant

Overhaul the Gradient Ramp effectOpen for Voting

Could the devs please look at updating the Gradient Ramp effect so that it allows for multiple colours with keyable, adjustable positions, more like how the Gradient Overlay Layer Style works? Having two colours can be really limiting sometimes.

6184

FinfinInspiring

Your system's hardware does not support hardware acceleration for the current settingsOpen for Voting

Hi Adobe Community,I’m experiencing an issue with Adobe Media Encoder where Hardware Encoding is not available, even though I have an NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti installed.When I try to switch to Hardware Encoding in the H.264 export settings, I receive this error message:“Your system's hardware does not support hardware acceleration for the current settings.”

222418

sumtriffleParticipant

After Effect 2026 playback lagging heavily despite decent PC

Current Spec: 64GB DDR4, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, set my disk cache at 115GB on 3400MB/s read speed, about 5000MB/s write speed, set ram reserved for other app to 6GB, paid application, enable multiframe renderingSomething likes this took me like 1 min to play back, its literally just basic 3d rotation and positioning keyframe, no crazy plugin or effectTried switching the codec for the video on another comp but it doesnt help muchI can add some other settings/info if needed

42913

shermenm11908304Participant

Audio glitches and distortion after importing audio files in latest After Effects version

I am experiencing an audio glitch/distortion issue in the latest version of After Effects.Whenever I import audio files into my project and play them back on the timeline, the sound becomes glitched, distorted, or stutters heavily. The original audio files plat completely fine in external media players. Macs version 26.6.2

252

Santosh Kumar_Sethi2131Participant

After Effects 2026 and Beta (Both) Freezes the Preview on 3D Camera with RTX 5080(Ryzen 9 9950X) – Driving Me Nuts!

Hey everyone,I've been using After Effects for years without issues, but lately, whenever I add a 3D camera layer to a comp, the preview just freezes solid. I have a 3D button enabled on all the layers. I have two viewports open too – one with an active camera, another with a custom 3-view camera. It throws this annoying "using processor graphics" error even though I've got a beastly RTX 5080. Sometimes it shows this message and sometimes it doesn't—just stuck the preview. This wasn't happening before—everything was smooth. After Effects keeps telling me it's using your processor graphics after I disable it on the Device Manager—there is no effect to it. It still gets stuck and won't preview at all. Super frustrating for my motion graphics work!How to Reproduce (Easy to Test) Open any project or new comp. Layer > New > Camera (make it 3D). Hit spacebar or 0 to preview—instant freeze with the graphics warning. My Setup After Effects 2026 (fully updated) Windows 11 CPU: Ryz

1985

Jimmy PapasInspiring

How can I manually adjust the Planar Surface in Mocha?

When tracking on Mocha, the Spline usually looks fine, as it’s flexible and I can manually adjust it, which will create keyframes and is very practical. However, when I enable the Planar Surface (blue rectangle), it always seems to drift away from the Spline. Is there a way to manually adjust it?

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Commander Z3kParticipant

After Effects freezes on start before the splash screen

This is a recurring issue that started around the time MacOS 26 came out and I’ve been struggling with it ever since. After Effects (and sometimes Illustrator) fail to start. They don’t even get to the splash screen, the freeze before that. They will remain frozen and if you mouse over the control bar at the top, it will show the spinning beach ball. Pressing Cmd +Opt + Escape to open the force quit applications window shows After Effects as not responding.Waiting hours for it to start: No effect. Never starts Force quitting: launches prompts to report the issue to Adobe and Apple. All subsequent attempts to run After Effects get crash repair options but no options do anything. The window has the spinning beach ball when I mouse over it and in Force Quit Applications it shows that After Effects is already not responding. None of the buttons do anything when clicked.Uninstalled After Effects and restarted: no effect, still freezes on crash repair options Uninstalled all adobe apps, and

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lofloflofParticipating Frequently

Expression Editor UI Issue: Cannot Fully Expand Expressions Near the Bottom of the TimelineOpen for Voting

When editing expressions in the Timeline panel, expressions that are located near the bottom of the visible timeline become difficult to edit because the expression editor cannot be fully expanded within the available viewport. After Effects Version: 25.6.4OS: Windows 11 Enterprise Steps to ReproduceCreate multiple layers with multi-line expressions. Place the layer containing the target expression near the bottom of the visible Timeline panel. Open the expression editor. Try to expand the expression editor vertically to view the full expression. Expected ResultThe expression editor should automatically stay fully visible, or the Timeline should scroll as needed so that the entire expression editor can be expanded and edited comfortably. Actual ResultThe expression editor is constrained by the bottom edge of the Timeline panel. As a result, only a few lines are visible, making it cumbersome to read and edit longer expressions. Users must constantly resize panels, collapse properties, o

483

Finn.ClParticipant

Download AE 2024 in 2026

Is there a way to still obtain the AE 2024 in 2026?The oldest version I can find when I click on the three dots is version 25.0. If I click on "see more," I just get redirected to the website where the 2024 version is also not listed.Thanks

6193

sebastianvindParticipant

AEGP_GetMainHWND: supported callback context, threading, and HWND lifetime

Hello After Effects SDK Support,We are developing an internal native AEGP plug-in for After Effects 2026, using After Effects Plug-in SDK 26.5 on Windows x64.The plug-in would retrieve the host window handle through AEGP_UtilitySuite6::AEGP_GetMainHWND. An external component would use this handle solely for read-only association with the running After Effects process. No UI manipulation or write automation is involved.Could you clarify these API contract details? Supported calling context Is calling AEGP_GetMainHWND from a registered AEGP IdleHook officially supported? If not, which AEGP callback or lifecycle point is recommended? Thread requirement Must this function run on the After Effects main/UI thread? If so, which supported AEGP callbacks guarantee that thread context? Initial availability At what lifecycle point is the main window guaranteed to exist? Is this call supported during the plug-in initialization entry point defined by AEGP_PluginInitFuncPrototype, or only afterw

463

Jaydude-wbInspiring

Skip masks when choosing Create Reference FrameOpen for Voting

When working with Content-Aware Fill, I find myself deactivating and reactivating Masks all the time. Please make an checkbox to skip applied masks when choosing ‘Create Reference Fram’.