Feature Requests

This is one element that has been around and has been annoying - but seems like a great quality of life improvement. In After Effects, when adjusting properties like position, scale, etc., dragging a value (for example, dragging left or right on a number) is constrained by the bounds of the app’s panel. Once your cursor hits the edge of the panel or screen, you're stuck – unless you stop, reposition your cursor, and start again. It breaks the flow and adds unnecessary friction to what should be a smooth interaction. Compare this with how apps like Blender handles UI interactions: you can drag infinitely in any direction. Your cursor can move off the screen or out of bounds, but the value continues to change fluidly. You never run out of space. This isn’t about replacing existing workflows or shortcuts, it's about enhancing user interaction. Being able to click and continuously drag in any direction, without interruption, would make tasks like fine-tuning position or scal

Please fix the way Replace footage works so that when you look to replace a file, the window opens TO WHERE THAT FILE IS CURRENTLY LOCATED!!!!!!!!!!!!

A node based environment, should be implemented esp for basic tasks like applying the same effect to multiple layers, alpha mattes, value parenting (like the current pick whip in the expression options), Anything that you can currently do using an adjustment layer (but would be selective), I'm sure many more uses. You could use it in tandem with the layer system, but would be an easy way to do these kind of tasks without copying and editing multiple instances of the same thing.

See above!! So if I create a text layer and then duplicate and move it and then take text from PSD, want the option like I have in all the other apps, to be able to drop that new text content but take the text box settings in AE, NOT keep the settings from PSD. Thanks!

I'd really like more control over what is and isn't hidden.  Right now it's show everything or show nothing.  It's so annoying, especially when doing anything with character rigging or Collapse Transformations, that I see a bewildering amount of boxes around every signle object.  Just a little toggle like the shy guy to show/hide layer controls for a specific layer.  

Many times, we need a Drop Shadow / Radial Shadow only on lower layers, not on the transparent / alpha background.Would be a great addition to have a switch to apply that behaviour. Or make the promising 'Compositing Options' functionality complete by adding  Blending Modes and Layer Mattes.(currently only a Mask and Opacity can be set)

Hi! I must have placed this request in the wrong part of the After Effects discussions a couple of years ago, because no one at Adobe has responded, even though it has over 100 upvotes. Is it on the road map to update Add Grain plug-in to be 32-bit, GPU accelerated and the ability to do multiframe rendering? Thank you!

 Idea:Quick change a keyframe to easy IN/OUT by holding CTRL while dragging left for easy IN or right for easy OUT. /J

We all use Easy Ease mostly anyways, so why not giving us the option to have it as a default instead of linear?It should be under preferences. And we shoulod be able to change it back to linear, or hold, or whatever.

Align 3D layers. Distribute them, etc. That's it really.

Bewegungspfad Anzeige optimieren:Der Bewegungspfad in der Vorschau ist sehr hilfreich.Allerdings ist diese Option für langsame Animation fast nicht zu gebrauchen, da immer die Punkte für die Keyframes verschwinden.Wenn in den Einstellungen die Option dahingehend verändert wird, dass zb. mehr Keyframes angezeigt werden sollen, wird das Programm sehr langsam. Beim markieren einer Ebene dauert es teilweise bis zu einer halben Sekunde bis das Programm reagiert. Es wäre toll, wenn die Anzeige vom Pfad optimiert wird, damit auch langsamere, lange Animationen mit vielen Keyframes flüssig bearbeitet werde können. Keyframe automatischer Offset:Auch wäre es super, wenn es eine einfache Möglichkeit gibt (Shortcut, Toggle, ...) eine Ebene mit zb. Position-Keyframes zu verschieben ohne gleich einen neuen Keyframe zu erstellen - die Positionsänderung würde sich auf alle bestehenden Keyframes auswirken (Aktuell geht es nur, wenn alle Keyframes markiert sind und der Zeitschieber exakt auf ei

For large projects, I often split up parts of work in separate .aep files. I can bring those together by importing, but then a big project is the result, and the original parts do not update when something in the big project is updated. How grateful would it be when projects could be nested, and remain connected to there originals (e.g., when saving, a dialog comes up asking if the changes should be implemented in the original .aep as well.) There could also be a read-only status initially (allowing rendering and placing assets in comps), and when breaking that read-only status, the connection will be lost, and the components of the nested .aep will be actually imported. Food for thought.

Figure 1. Web page that is launched by numerous commands on the Help menu. Figure 2. The highlighted commands all go to the same website (that which is depicted in Figure 1).Hello Adobe Community,My name is Brian.  I am an astrophysicist.  I use Adobe software primarily for creating educational videos.As a user of Adobe After Effects 25.3, I went to the Help menu for help using the product. I clicked the following commands, thinking that they would lead to online Help on their related function:After Effects HelpAfter Effects Online TutorialsScripting HelpExpression ReferenceEffect ReferenceAnimation PresetsKeyboard Shortcuts ALL the commands on the Help menu, that are listed above, ALL launch the user's default Web browser (as depicted in Figure 1) and point it to:https://helpx.adobe.com/support.html This is not useful.  It is also not 100% clear why these commands are even here in the first place, if all of them simply go to the s

The final trajectory for Firefly in AE is obviously something you are all working on, but as you deliberate how it could work, check out this workflow that integrates ComfyUI Server inside Nuke for incredible masking, inpainting, and image generation to perform a complex paint out: Comfy Nuke 

I have a couple of (I reckon) cool idea around the keyboard shortcuts for"Go to previous/next keyframes (J / K);"I use this shortcut it ALLLL day every day as I imagine many of us do, and I think we couldimprove upon it quite easily. Here are my thoughts:1) If no layer is selected - functions as it does now.2) If a layer is selected, j/k takes you to the prev/next keyframe of THAT LAYER ONLY.3) Add modifiers for Transform specific keyframe jumps.e.g. Something like SHIFT+P+K takes you to the next POSITION keyframe of a selected layer, OR, if no layer is selected the next possible position keyframe on the timeline.I think this would be really useful and save a heap of time, especially in and around detailed character rigs where there are tonnes of keyframes in short succession.

We need native support for a “live link” feature—just like Battle Axe’s Overload—built right into After Effects. Imagine designing in Illustrator and having your artwork stream straight into AE in real time so you can animate without any extra steps.It’s baffling that something this essential is still locked behind third-party plugins. Sure, you can kind of rig it today, but the Illustrator ↔ After Effects workflow is awful:You can only import one artboard at a time. That forces you to split every screen layout into its own .ai file.Illustrator files come in as single Vector layers. Unless you manually convert them to Shape layers, you can’t even move a sub-layer independently.Even when you do convert to Shapes, you can’t import each sub-layer as its own AE layer. Everything ends up grouped, and shortcuts like P, S, T, and U simply open the parent layer’s transforms—not the individual pieces you need.Right now, you can’t iterate between After Effects and Illustrator: build a rough comp

Hello, Adobe Society! In After Effects and Premier Pro, replace the video (or already cut) parts on the edited track with another video with the same timings. Ersultan Nurash, Kazakhstan. ersultan.nurash@gmail.com

Ok Adobe has finally recently brought Smooth Zoom to AE, so I guess this is also coming sooner or later - I'm not gonna go too hard on them 😁😁 they're the best! From what I understand Photoshop was the only app to have a History panel, right? and they have implemented it along all Adobe apps now. Same with the Properties tab, which in Premiere makes a huge difference!

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.    

I'm copying this from Spencer Tweed's suggestion from December 2, 2019--of course, since the ideas forum is not searchable I couldn't find this in this forum, just the old features suggestion, so I'm cutting-and-pasting someone else's idea, as follows:It would be very nice to re-write the "Simple Choker" effect to perform more closely to the Nuke "Erode" node. Specifically the precision is much higher and the results more reliable. When using "Simple Choker" any feathering is lost and the matte becomes hard, it seems to exponentially get less effective the wider you go, and it does not keep the original shape of your mask very well (there seems to be a blurring effect which rounds out edges). On the other hand the Nuke "Erode" node works in pixels and no precision is lost in terms of your mask shape, so it is reliable and predictable. It is behaves much like "Mask Expansion" does for a mask (no precision is lost, it is measured in pixels, etc).

Add how like Photoshop has a depth map, but in After Effects

Bonjour After Effect est devenu une veritable usine à Gaz, comme Photoshop en son temps, Pourriez vous envisager de faire un After effect simplifié pour les usages de base comme vous aviez fait avec lightroom pour photoshop?

Sometimes with complex/large projects we have a desire to clean up stuff that has been floating around from testing phases. Typically the best way to clean everything up is to reduce the project based on selected comps.   What often becomes an issue is that we can't do this if we want to maintain our global folder structure because it deletes any folder that doesn't have contents.   Would be nice to have an option to perserve folders and then clean up the ones you actually don't need manually.   Another big hurdle with reduce project is that expression that reference comps that aren't used anywhere in the selection for reduction get deleted so they break. At the minimum I would expect a warning (prior to reducing), but even better would be to simply preserve them by default.   So: - Option to keep all folders - Default: Preserve comps that are referenced via expressions  

It’s 2025. I open After Effects and… it feels like I’m still working in 2013.While Blender, Unreal Engine, Houdini, and even newer tools like Cavalry are evolving with bold updates, After Effects has barely moved. Every time a new version drops, it’s disappointing to see tiny improvements disguised as “major features.” It’s as if Adobe is keeping the program on life support without actually developing it.Let’s call it out:Graph Editor – still outdated, clunky, and untouched for over a decade. No real-time preview, no modular behavior, no intelligent UI. No modern easing tools – no built-in bounce, elastic, inertia, or overshoot. You still need to rely on Expression tricks or 3rd-party scripts for basic animation finesse. No native effectors or procedural animation tools – while tools like Cavalry, Cinema 4D, and Notch offer real-time procedural workflows and effectors, After Effects is stuck in manual keyframes and precomp hell. Still no native IK (inverse kinematics) –

every time a change is made, the program automatically saves the project. to prevent work loss every time after effects crash