Inspiring

Question

AFTER EFFECTS WISHLIST

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
August 31, 2009
203 replies
212715 views

What features would you like to see implemented in After Effects? New ideas for plugins? Interface changes? Post 'em here!

Let's keep bug identification to individual posts, as these will probably be addressed more readily. Let's use this thread for specific ideas about ways that AE can be improved and expanded.

These Forums are for users, not Adobe employees, so don't forget to also fill in an Adobe feature request form .

To view the Wish List posts prior to September 2009, look here .

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I

IMIGdave

Participant

SWATCHES, and integrate Kuler

E

ekreidler

Participating Frequently

I work with Illustrator artwork in nested comps in 3d space quite a bit.

What I want is some sort of "continuously rasterize" function that is independent of collapse transformations.

I want to be able to zoom in 3D on a nested comp that contains vector artwork, and not have to have the layers inside that comp be 3D layers.

And blowing up the subcomp to 400% or something is not acceptable.

How about a global setting or plugin that ALWAYS rasterizes illustrator or shape layers no matter how they are nested?

This would save me MASSIVE HOURS of time -- every project I get my artwork in and suddenly -- time to push in the camera -- four hours of monkeying around of having 8 million cumbersome 3d layers for no reason other than having to collapse transformations. And of course this screws up motion blur.

I want a 3D card that is a comp whose vector layers stay sharp past 100%.

J

jo_krieger

Participant

Layer Comps like in Photoshop.

For easily solo switching a group of layers. This would speed up the workflow extremely, because the manual selecting and solo switching - and back - is taking so much scrolling in the timeline window, when having render-intensive and complex compositions. I think people often do not take the performance option inbetween the working process with having layers in solo mode...

TheFosterHouse

Known Participant

Stretch/Duration & Time Remap to Timewarp converter. Since Stretch and Time remap happen before nearly anything in the layer render order, time stretching precomped composites results in mismatched source, effects and masks. Timewarp eliminates these errors because it puts the duration change after the precomp frame is already rendered. The problem is that this needs to be done manually. To exacerbate the issue, Timewarp has no Time Code/Source Code input, Frames only go up to 5000 (which is a problem with R3Ds and Transcoded RED footage with embedded timecode), and the speed parameter doesn't work the same way that the Layer's stretch parameter does. Copying layers with duration changes from Premiere Pro and pasting them into AE makes the duration change occur in the stretch parameter. I'd love to see a way to circumvent this where a dialoged box could pop up to give the option to auto convert all instances of Duration/Stretch changes to Timewarp.

A

Arivl

Known Participant

I'm a big fan of the mask feather tool, but it's such a shame that the keyframes for it are folded into the shape keyframes for the mask itself. I'd love for them to be their own independent set of keyframes so that (A) you could set per-vertex feathers for the entire timeline and, (B) if you prefer to set your main mask shape keyframes first, then you don't end up with a giant mess when going back and setting feathers. Also as a bonus, if you've done your masking in Mocha and pasted the mask, you'll then have the ability to set per-vertex feathers without them resettng every frame.

D

Dave Dunbar

Participant

I would like to see an ipad app that syncs over wifi to control motion sketch and timing, inverse kinematic elements etc. Using the touch apps within photoshop like NAV is brill and. I am sure the bowfins at adobe could create something that speeds up and makes the animation process more fluid and less time consuming.

A

Arivl

Known Participant

I think the idea of using an iPad or similar device as an input device in AE is a fantastic idea! I would just add, that its most important function for me would be for doing multi-touch rotoscoping. In other words, adjusting the positions of multiple mask points simultaneously and by varying amounts. An input device like this would save hundreds of hours of roto time.

N

Navarro Parker

Inspiring

How would this be better than a Wacom tablet?

Netcommercial

Known Participant

How about some basic interface upgrades for those who bought recently. ?? Like Media Link. cs6 was the new face lift and within a year it seems that a late 'goodie' is now a cloud or v12 option. Something that interfaces the adobe suite should not have to pay for an upgrade, rather an update. It is not like it is an effect or goodie. IT is an interface to talk to the other products IE: PP to AE without closing or importing.

P

P0T4T0x

Participant

1) Layer styles in the effects panel

2) Node view for compositing

3) 3d compositing including materials and textures

4) More rendering options

5) All layer styles from PS

6) Better cutting tools

Thanks for asking!

prowl

Known Participant

1. Collapsable folders for the layers.

2. Flowchart: Make nodal.

Comp node have input layers points for the layer and allow layers to be swaped by dragging and changing the

node entry points

MOST IMPORTANT - Single Effect nodes that can be linked to ANY layer! change one and it effects all the layers linked

3. Proper EXR integration - Faster!

4. No modal pop up windows anywhere - i.e Composition settings. Keyframe interploation. Other things only hidden in right click menus... All these shoudl be in dockable pannels - look at Cinema 4d's interface.

5. Better keyboard shortcuts customisation. The script only goes so far.

6. better audio scrubbing on the timeline.. analog emulation...

M

my_patfish

Participant

adobe start to think in long terms! ... since 3 years i preach in different forums that adobe, especially after effects, needs a real 3D enviroment! ... don't waste your time with that old 2.5D thing or the new raytrace-gimmick! ... we need somthing new! ...an "real 3D" engine with simple modeling/texture/projection and lightnig tools + an strong fbx,obj importer... an engine were the company can build on for the next 10 years...the future is an fusion of 2D and 3D in one package! i promise: if adobe don't invest in an strong partner with good 3D knowlage like cd4 and co. they will loose a lot of there marked influence in the next 5 years... and not only in the composting part!... 3D will play also in other products like photoshop and co. an importend roll ---> so go for it!

reagds pat!

A

Andy Bay

Known Participant

Couldn't agree more. I'm using more and more other tools than AE because of the 3D-demand in the current motion graphics industry. It happens almost always that when a company gets huge like Adobe, product development slows down and they start avoiding risks. As a long time fan, I really hope Adobe doesn't go down that path. But the competition is really catching up at the moment. Just look at what is happening with Blender. It can already do almost everything AE can (plus a lot more) and it's totally free.

N

nextseason

Participating Frequently

I'm sure some of these have been covered, but here's my list... hope someone sees it, most are simple workflow ideas... I'm still on CS5, so if some of these exist, forgive me:

- When replacing or importing a layer from a PSD as footage, I would love the option to be able to sort PSD layers by name instead of only layer order. When replacing large numbers of layers this would save lots of time.

- Would love to be able to assign a second anchor / pivot point to a layer.

- Would love to be able to group layers in folders for organization. Pre-comps sort of work this way, but sometimes I want more organizational options in the same timeline.

- Should be able to lock individual properties of a layer(position, scale, etc...). There are lots of times I don't want the layer's position to move, but I'd like to be able to adjust other properties.

- Similarly, I want to be able to lock in and out handles for comps (Work Area Start and Work Area End).

- Editorial timeline options; It would be amazing to have a different kind of pre-comp that you could assign as an editorial pre-comp with basic Premiere functionality integrated into AFX. The contents of this pre-comp could play as simple footage layers in other comps.

- If there was a way to be able to select all of your mask keyframes and move them all together across multiple keyframes the way you can position, scale, etc, that would be most helpful.

- I want a composition crop tool (same as the Photoshop crop tool).

- I'd love to have bold, italic, and underline options when naming layers so I can use different text styles to easily differentiate different types of layers.

- I wish there was a more deliberate way to create shape layers so I don't make them on accident all the time when I try to draw a mask but don't have a layer selected.

- I wish Interpret Footage would let me switch between Layer Size and Composition Size even after importing.

- I could really use the ability to search for effects within a given composition. If I'm missing a plug-in or one is causing errors, I need to be able to easily locate (or disable) all instances where that plug-in is used. I've since found a script for this, but it would be a good standard feature.

- I wish you could set up a render in the queue - then duplicate that queue item and replace which comp it is pulling from, rather than having to go to every comp and queue them up individually.

- "U" key command should not reveal expression text. A separate command should be available for expressions. If I have a bunch of expressions, it negates any easy way for me to expand key frames only.

- Ability to lock in and out points of a composition so you don't accidentally move them.

- I want After Effects to know how to import layers in beyond the layer-level in Illustrator. Any sub-layers (Groups, etc…, things contained inside of AI Layers) should import in as layers in a pre-comp.

- If I reuse a Null Object (IE Drag in from my solids folder rather than creating a new one) it should not come in as a white square that is visible in my render. It is a still supposed to be a NULL right?

- I would love to have a History States Window like Photoshop has, and to be able to cache a higher number of history states / undos (more than 99).

- It would be awesome to be able to assign label colors to groups of key frames… to color code sections of layers across the timeline rather than just layers.

- I want to be able to highlight a group of layers or items in the Bin and press Ctrl+G to group them into a new folder (like Photoshop). Similarly clicking 'New Folder' in the bin should put any currently highlighted items into that folder.

- When queuing a single frame into the render queue (Ctrl + Alt + S), it defaults default to Current Settings and not Best Settings. I do not know of a way to change that, but I would love to be able to reverse that.

- In multiple view set ups I want to be able to adjust the size of each view so I can customize primary and secondary views. This may be possible and I'm unaware, but if it doesn't exist it would be a great addition.

- I would like unlimited and fully customizable label colors that translate / load correctly across multiple computers. I have a co-worker who re-ordered his and every time we open each other's projects the labels are jacked up. It would be great if the layers worked from RGB values or Hex codes and not from a limited list.

- I want to be able to animate / keyframe (on or off) motion blur for a given layer. - to avoid having to split layers when a layer should have motion blur at one point but not at another.

- I want the save-as dialogue box to default to where I last saved THE FILE IN QUESTION, not some other random file that I just had open. I routinely have to navigate between job folders when working on multiple jobs at the same time just because I saved one when I was working on it. Same thing for import, even if .aep is what was last imported. This might be a network issue, but if not, it would be a great fix.

- It would be great if the anchor point could be made to be visually larger like Mask Verticies are now so it can be found and grabbed easily

- J and K hot keys should also jump to Comp Markers and not just Layer Markers.

J

Jzen013

Participating Frequently

THE OPTION TO IMPORT .FBX FILES !!!! .obj is nice... but .fbx gives much much much more options !!!

Alot of people want/ need support for 3d models. ( .fbx will do much more then just that).

ok there are plug-ins that provide obj support. (nice btw but feels more like a workaround). Using it to animate stuff... yeah... some things... moving and scaling the object... using it as a giant 3d particle thingie. maby even break up the model into different files just so i can animate something like a wheel on my car or a rotorblade on my.... plane..?

One of the... SUPER HANDY (so to speak) things to do when compositing or doing motion graphics and using 3d stuff in combo with ae is matching the camera's (ae camera and 3d program camera). FBX HELPS WITH THAT since you can just import the camera with .fbx

Supports animation data on individual verticies.. so not just the whole model needs to move.. it can still deform! .fbx even suports bones/ rig data. on models and stuff.. instead of just importing camera and locator/ null layer data. (big limitation compared to having a model that doesn't need to be rendered first to use for instance as a mask layer).

and beacuase it all comes in one file... you don't even have to re position/ align a thing !!!

SO.... PLEASE .FBX SUPOORT FOR AFTER EFFECTS !!!

looking forward to it

cheers!

G

gungrave4ever

Participant

Has anyone mentioned a built-in 3D utility? I don't mean this ray-traced 3D or Video Copilot's Element 3D plugin; I mean something like Autodesk Maya or 3D Studio Max with bones and everything, built right into After Effects so we don't have to keep jumping around to different programs.

Barring full-fledged integration in AE, how about then Adobe makes its own separate 3D program like the aforementioned Autodesk, that uses the Adobe Dynamic Link to talk to .aep files?

PFuerst

Inspiring

how about then Adobe makes its own separate 3D program like the aforementioned Autodesk, that uses the Adobe Dynamic Link to

I don't think Adobe will develope it's own 3d program. But maybe they buy Cinema 4d as it has a tight integration with AFX (much like the foundry who just joined with luxology). There is also a 3ds max feature which acts like a kind of Dynamic Link http://usa.autodesk.com/3ds-max/features/

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