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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J

jahesscreen

Known Participant

1.: select multiple layers and change the expressions of ALL OF THEM simultaneously!

2.: use e.g. an null object as a "master expression object" for other layers so you can use for several layers the expression of the null.

3.: same as 2. for other atributes like layer styles (so that you can change the look auf maybe 300 layers by just changing one layer. A Slider Expression would work, but it`s really inconvenient

3.: Link text objects to a .txt File (to do an animation with hundreds of words without typing each of them with the text tool)

prowl

Known Participant

1. Agree. AE should have a referenced expression window... Create and manage all you expressions in one place. Like Flash with it's Actionscript window. You can edit Any expression anywhere within the project in one place. AND Apply to an object as a function. Control any aspect of an element from one function.

2. Well you can use the picker to point from any / all elements, say transform to the Null transform - you can link as many as you like. Or jsut parent it and it will copy all the Transforms - but still not ideal.

3. http://aescripts.com/compsfromspreadsheet/

C

Constant Production

Participant

CUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTSCUDA GPU ACCELERATION FOR ALL GRAPHIC & EFFECTS

That's all I have to say.

There's no reason having processor and RAM doing work with something graphical when there's a graphics card with a lot of power stuck in there with them. Make the processors and RAM deal with other calculations and let all the effects and pixels render with CUDA. If there where no change to AE what so ever from 5.5 except this type of acceleration I would be happy for a long time.

If not, then please make the engine better so that more processors can work with parts of the frame divided, like Nuke does.

There's a lot that could be done with speed enhancements in AE and all the other shortcomings with certain tools and a like are really just minor updates compared to this. This would change every process in AE making everything better.

Todd_Kopriva

Inspiring

I just wrote up a summary of the top feature requests that we've gotten for the past year or so, with commentary on each.

TheFosterHouse

Known Participant

Rework how Dynamic Link creates a comp in AE to give more control to the user:

I don't like how Dynamic Link trims the footage and places it in a comp at 0:00:00:00. I'd like the option to have a "Leave all Attributes" style of comp creation, where it creates a comp the same length as the original footage, trims the footage and work area to the the edits in Premiere with user specified handles (in seconds or frames), does NOT trim the comp to the work area, and places comp markers or layer markers on the actual in and out points specified in Premiere. I Like having a comp where the footage and the comp have the same timecode relationship which makes it so much easier to find, perform and track changes.

jeromeOlivier

Participating Frequently

I haven't read through every post and I'm sure this has already been mentioned, but wanted to include myself for these:

1. native 3D extrusion -- especially for text. I think this is long overdue.

2. shadow color. We can adjust the color of a light, but why not its shadow as well?

3. light color fall off. Much like light shadow color, but the ability to apply a gradient to a light's color and create varying colors based on the distance an object is to the light source.

Best of luck to the software development team on future releases of AE.

J

jahesscreen

Known Participant

4.: White Balance Effect like in CameraRaw

J

jahesscreen

Known Participant

- the ability to fade in / fade out transfer modes (if this is possible)

R

Rick Gerard

Community Expert

jahesscreen wrote:
- the ability to fade in / fade out transfer modes (if this is possible)

Duplicate the layer with the transfer mode you want to use, set the top duplicate's transfer mode to alpha add, set the bottom copy's transfer mode to the desired mode (add for example), then animate transparency of the top copy.

PFuerst

Inspiring

- A few months ago gridiron stopped the develpmonent of nucleo pro. It had really nice features like constantly filling the cache so that you could play back the timeline a lot faster. It would be really great if AE would include those features . I think it makes a lot of sense because our computers constantly get faster so we would benefit from those features.

-Another feature we really need is a per vertex mask feather option. I know there is a plug in out there and you could achive this with mocha but thats not always an option to use. Please add those necessary features. It would help so many people with their daily work. It's like scopes you really need them but After Effects lacks those features way too long.

But never the less. You guys are great. Keep up the good work. Can't wait to see what you come up with next. :-)

A

Andy Bay

Known Participant

I would rework the whole "save" consept to something like this:

Automatically save every step the user makes. Also save the undo history on a separate file on hard disk (not just in ram).

Benefits:

-User never has to worry about saving

-Crashes never result in lost work

-Undo history is available always, not just during the same session

N

Navarro Parker

Inspiring

Andy, that sounds a lot like the Versions feature of Mac OS X Lion, except it makes a version for each operation you perform. The cool thing about versions is that it only saves the difference between the old and new version, so it's pretty lightweight as far as disk I/O goes. (And probably imperceivable if using a SSD.) If AE went entirely to an XML-based .AEP, it would be pretty simple to implement, I would think.

TheFosterHouse

Known Participant

• A real 3D coordinate system with a 0,0,0 origin point.

• Parenting that doesn't change the values of the child.

• Easily cloning and linking of filters and layers (see ff-Effect Instance at AE Scripts)

• Keyframing in roto brush

• Ability to changing the order in which masks are applied to a layer in relation to layer styles and filters.

• SCOPES!!!!!!! dear god give me a histogram, vectorscope and a waveform monitor. Color finesse doesn't count.

• Multi-pass Comparative forward and backward tracking. (like Tracker Viz)

• re-center on track as it's tracking.

• Create new text layer, adjustment layer, Solid, null etc… above currently selected layer.

• Better Disk Caching for RAM previews. I really want RAM previews to remember the state of a comp so if that state gets changed then changed back, the ram preview is restored and playable.

R

Rick Gerard

Community Expert

TheFosterHouse wrote:
• A real 3D coordinate system with a 0,0,0 origin point.
• Parenting that doesn't change the values of the child.

Just a comment on these two ideas. 0,0,0 at the center of the comp would cause more troubles than it would solve and it would be out of sync with any other compositing and editing app. 0,0 has always been the upper left corner of video and pixel based images. It's always the starting point for vector drawings. 3D apps use 0,0,0 as the center of the world, but it's an easy task to translate those coordinates to the pixel based measurements used in image and video processing apps.

When you parent a layer to another the new position is measured from the upper left corner of that layer. This makes a lot of sense to me and it's useful info for a lot of manual positioning once you wrap your head around it because it defines the relationship between the layers. Tying the values to other values through expressions is easy with the toWorld and toComp arguments. Personally I don't think either of these are good suggestions. That's my 2¢.

The rest of your ideas are prety good.

TheFosterHouse

Known Participant

Hey Rick, Compositing applications like Nuke have an actual 3d Origin point. it can translate just fine between 2D & 3D. As for the parenting thing, I find it completely idiotic that the values of a layer should change to where it is in relation to another layer rather than where the layer actually is. I can't tell you how many times this has completely screwed me in a project. Here's an quick example: I want a new layer to have the same position of a layer that is the child of another layer. in order to make that happen, I have to un-parent the layer, copy/paste and parent the layers again. I shouldn't have to do that. Besides, it's super confusing when I look at a layers values and they aren't representing what's actually going on. As for changing the expressions, if the values change by them selves, then the expressions should change by them selves. Better yet: have a switch in the timeline that switches between absolute and relative values.

Hey Bob, I actually own a copy of Test Gear, but I can't use it all the time because it causes 1-2 seconds of lag after any mouse button release. I'll click on a click on a layer to select it, release the mouse button, then move the mouse, and most of the time, the layer will move in the timeline because AE thought that I've had the mouse button down when i moved the mouse. I've done a LOT of testing to nail down the problem and it always came back as Test Gear. I've put bug reports in, but it's never been fixed. You guys were super fast about fixing a crashing bug in test gear 2.5, but this one hasn't been updated. I did go back and test it in CS4 with the previous version and the lag isn't there. I really want to use it, but the lag is unbearable.

B

bad Timing

Participating Frequently

We need to preview live green screen in 1080.

We would pay the entire price of After Effects for just the ability to get one frame for setup confirmation.

We don't need to capture live. We can work with the files in post production. We just need a simple preview.

R

Rick Gerard

Community Expert

You need a computer with a capture card and something like DV Garage's Conduit to pull the real time key. There are many products that will do that, but none without some way to capture live video from a camera.

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