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mateuszs65813689
mateuszs65813689
Participant
July 15, 2024
Open for Voting

"The Global Switches" idea..

  • July 15, 2024
  • 5 replies
  • 921 views

Hi,

Would it be possible to add this kind of feature into After Effect in future?

Lets call it "Global Switches", how it should work:
- we are creating a single "global switch"
- under it we can search for every effect

- after finding effect we want we are clicking OK and the one global switch is created

- we can rename it for example "CC Force Motion Blur"

- right now, every time we check/uncheck out "CC Force Motion Blur" global switch

every "CC Force Motion Blur" effect in our project or comosition will be turned on/off

 

This would help turning on/off effects that can take a long time to render, and we want to make a quick preview..

    5 replies

    JohnColombo17100380
    Community Manager
    JohnColombo17100380Community Manager
    Community Manager
    November 18, 2024

    Hi all,

    Thanks for your feedback on this idea for project-wide effect switches. I've moved the thread over to our Ideas forum for further discussion and votes to gauge wider interest in this idea.

     

    Some questions to spur further discussion:

    • Where might these global switches be accessed? Maybe an existing panel like the Project panel or perhaps a new panel?
    • How might these switches interact or co-exist with the Render Settings in the Render Queue? E.g. maybe effects could be marked as "Off for Draft" or something similar.

     

    Thanks again all!

    - John, After Effects Engineering Team 

      C
      CucaramblaX
      Known Participant
      November 6, 2024

      If you make own ctrl layer with switches, won't it work if you multiply .effectOpacity by current state of checkboxControl switch state, expressions? I tried myself, and RenderTime stats seem change to 0ms if the effectOpacity is 0 (oops, just noticed what @sskaz wrote). Requiring special "global switches" panel imo would be a nice-to-have,  yet non-essential feature, as it can be emulated with expressions when necessary.
      Meanwhile, there are many switches that can't be equipped wih expressions at all, that require external scripts, like the one @Paul Tuersley suggested, where I can argue with what @Shebbe already said. Some examples of those switches are the calculations-greedy castsShadows, acceptsLights, acceptsShadows, appearsInReflections in lights and 3D layers.
      I've mentioned this issue to @Jessica McMillan from UI team, and she will pass this to design team for consideration.

        Mike Choo
        Mike Choo
        Inspiring
        October 15, 2024

        I've been using Lightswitch from Workbench on an effects-heavy project recently, and I've found it definitely works for me in terms of being able to turn off specific layers or effects with one click:
        https://workbench.tv/products/scripts/lightswitch/
        For my uses at least, well worth the money.

        But also, Paul Tuersley has made some of my all-time favourite scripts so it's probably a good idea to check his solution out too!

          sskaz
          sskaz
          Inspiring
          July 26, 2024

          My trick to this is adding a controller layer with a checkbox to my main comp, then under all heavy effect instances, link the Compositing Options > Effect Opacity to it like so:

           

          comp("main_v01").layer("controller").effect("Render FX")("Checkbox")*100

           

          (The Compositing Options are only visible in the Timeline Panel at the very bottom of an effect, as seen in my screenshot.)

           

          Unfortunately there’s no easy way to apply this project-wide. Here’s an opportunity for someone to make/sell a script to automate this. 

           

          When an effect’s Compositing Options > Effect Opacity is 0%, AE will not process that effect at all. Other effects sometimes have their own Show Original/Opacity controls, but even these still add some processing overhead. In an effects heavy project, those milliseconds count!

            P
            Paul Tuersley
            Inspiring
            July 15, 2024

            You can easily find and turn multiple effects on/off with my pt_EffectSearch script:

            https://aescripts.com/pt_effectsearch/

             

            I'm always wary about new niche features cluttering and over complicating the UI, which is one of the great things about scripting, which can fill specific gaps for people that need it.

            Shebbe
            Community Expert
            ShebbeCommunity Expert
            Community Expert
            July 24, 2024

            I can partially agree. In the same argument context however you could say, more native features doesn't require users to grab external tools for which most.

             

            - you need to pay

            - you are at the mercy of their support duration for future compatibility

            - depending on the nature of the tool, sharing open files with other parties can be problematic

             

            I think in this particular case having such a feature built in is not a bad thing. I can see myself using it as well.

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