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Participant
May 4, 2026

MOGRT Expression Selector stagger freezes in Premiere Pro — valueAtTime() unreliable for large time offsets

  • May 4, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 14 views

In a .mogrt file, a text layer using an Expression Selector with a 
character stagger expression based on valueAtTime() produces incorrect 
results in Premiere Pro's renderer. The issue does not occur in After 
Effects RAM Preview.

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Reproduction steps:

1. In After Effects, create a text layer inside a mogrt comp (25fps)
2. Add a text animator → Expression Selector → Based On: Characters
3. Add a Slider Control effect named "Evolution", keyframed 100→0 
   over 19 frames
4. Add a Slider Control effect named "Delay", value 0.30
5. Set the Amount expression:

   var v = effect("Evolution")(1);
   var delay = effect("Delay")(1);
   var offset = (textIndex - 1) * thisComp.frameDuration * delay;
   v.valueAtTime(time - offset);

6. Export as .mogrt, place in Premiere Pro timeline
7. Use a text string with 50+ characters

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Expected behavior:
Characters stagger in smoothly — each character evaluates the slider 
at a slightly earlier time, creating a cascade effect.
After Effects RAM Preview renders this correctly.

Actual behavior:
In Premiere Pro, the last several characters freeze at an intermediate 
displaced position for ~6–8 frames, then jump instantly to their final 
position. The severity increases with longer texts — more characters 
means a larger time offset passed to valueAtTime(), and a worse freeze.

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Root cause (identified via workaround):

valueAtTime(time - offset) is called with offsets of up to ~1 second 
for long texts. Premiere's mogrt renderer appears to return stale or 
incorrect cached values for valueAtTime() calls with large time offsets.

A secondary contributing issue: Premiere stops re-evaluating the text 
layer once the last effect keyframe is reached (frame 19), even though 
the stagger expression continues producing changing values beyond that 
frame for the remaining characters.

Both issues are Premiere-specific — After Effects evaluates the same 
expression correctly.

---

Workaround:

Replace valueAtTime() with a direct time-based linear() calculation, 
and extend the effect keyframe range to cover the full stagger duration. 
This reduces the freeze to 1–2 frames but does not eliminate it entirely.

---

Environment:
- Premiere Pro [26]
- After Effects [26]
- OS: Windows 11
- Frame rate: 25fps

    1 reply

    IanB_360
    Community Manager
    Community Manager
    May 12, 2026

    Hi ​@Galiga ,
    Can you send me the MOGRT? We are trying to gather problematic MOGRT’s to better understand what causes this breakage. You can direct message me and fileshare links you have, and we will gladly take a look.

    Here to help.
    Ian

    GaligaAuthor
    Participant
    May 12, 2026

    Hi ​@IanB_360 

    Thank you very much for getting back to me.

    The issue I’m experiencing in Premiere happens when I work with MOGRTs. In After Effects, they generally work smoothly and perfectly fine.

    However, once I bring them into Premiere, they start lagging and become very unstable.

    I’m encountering various bugs: the animation freezes in the middle, starts glitching, and overall the MOGRT becomes very difficult to work with inside Premiere. Every time I change or enter values, it takes a while for the changes to update. Sometimes buttons even get triggered without me clicking them. The whole workflow feels very slow and unresponsive compared to working directly in After Effects.

    I attached a video where I demonstrate the bug clearly, and I hope you’ll be able to reproduce it on your side.
    https://www.loom.com/share/92e98973244e41648c48dab55d9a65d3

    For now, I’m only sending the MOGRT file, but if needed, I can also send you the Premiere project file.
     

    Overall, I work quite a lot with MOGRTs, and I’d be happy to contribute from my experience and share the various bugs and issues I encounter during my workflow in order to help improve this Adobe product.

    I truly think it’s a great product with a lot of potential, though it sometimes feels like it may not be receiving enough ongoing development and refinement.

    Thnaks again 😎
    Gali