Questions

Please help me, I am no expert, still learning. Why is make comp size greyed out??? is there an issue with my file? I have mercury software only enabled, followed various tutorials.. what am I doing wrong??? thank you

Hey beta users!    Starting today (August 1), the After Effects beta will save in project version 23.0. This means that projects saved in the 23.0 beta will not be able to be opened in other versions of After Effects (including the 22.5 public release) without file conversion.    If you need compatibility with 22.x or before, please follow the instructions below:  Moving from v22.x to v23.0 - On opening a project in the 23.0 beta, you will be presented with a message that the project needs to be converted. Simply click “Ok”, and the project will be updated automatically. If you would like to preserve your 22.x version of the project, please be sure to “Save as” the 23.0 project so that you don't need to convert again in the future.  Moving from v23.0 to earlier versions of After Effects (I.e. 22.x or below) - Please use the option Save As > Save a copy as v22/v18 to create a project that is compatible with older AE versions.  We apologize fo

Hi, I'm setting lots of expressions to comps & layers via a jsx file.In current versions I have no problems, but the Beta app (23.4.0) gives me errors, while there are none... What the issue probably is, is that I'm setting e.g._ references to effects (and ffx files) which are not applied yet_ linking to layer names in compositions which are renamed afterwards in the jsx file etc... So it seems that the Beta version is evaluating expression on the fly, while current AE versions check the expressions afterwards.I tried to fix some issues with "autoFixExpressions", but that doesn't work in this case... Is there anything to worry about when the new release comes out, or will this behaviour of "evaluating expressions" change?The reason I ask, is because it's a bit clumsy to go through "expression errors" only to click them away and be totally fine at the end. Anyhow, hope to hear from you, Jochem

Hi All,   We've made some changes to the Default Workspace in Beta, and we'd like to hear your thoughts!   These changes will not impact any custom workspace settings you have. To see the new Default Workspace, click the hamburger menu next to "Default" in the workspace toolbar, then select "Reset to Saved Layout". Please note that if you have previously changed and saved over the Default Workspace, you will have to reset your preferences to see the new Default Workspace.     In the new Default Workspace, the Libraries Panel is nested horizontally with the Project Panel on the left-hand side of the workspace. The Info Panel is stacked on top of the right-hand side, with Preview, Align, and Audio Panels nested horizontally. The Properties Panel is stacked directly below the Info Panel, with the Effects and Presets Panel nested horizontally.   Tell us what you think! Do you like the new Default Workspace? Do you hate it? Other thoughts? Your feedback is critica

Hello everyone,I am currently working on a project with After effects Beta (23.5), in my project I use 3D elements in .glb format.The problem is that it is impossible to export it to mp4 format because every time there is this error that appears.I wanted to know if any of you have managed to export projects correctly from after effects Beta and if so how did you do it?Thanks 

 Select a text layer.Choose Animation > Browse Presets…In Adobe Bridge, choose a text effect to apply. Result: ...Error: Can't import file "[name-of-effect.ffx": unsupported filetype or extension. (0::1)Expected: Animation Preset should be applied. This works as expected (no error) in AE 22 (non beta). System info    Application: After Effects (Beta) v22.2.0.59    M1 Mac mini, OS: macOS v11.6.2, RAM: 16.00 GB, CPUs (logical): 8

No matter what my permissions settings on the folders, I constantly get this "An error occurred migrating the settings files. Check the permissions of the After Effects preferences folder." I have checked them OVER and OVER. What is going on?

when i  try to paint strokes with rotobrush it doesnt work, it just leaves a purple outline around the video and says "after effects warning: roto brush strokes cannot be added until the current frame has finished rendering

Is it possible to focus the lumteri scopes to just a selected area of the frame?Ie. I just want to see the scopes for an actor's face - I don't want the rest of the scene visible in the scopes.If there is no such feature - can we make Lumetric Scopes work with Region of Interest?It's the first thing I tried, I was surprised it didn't work. I think selecting a part of the frame with RoI should be reflected in the scopes.

  In After Effects Beta 23.4 build 26, available today in Creative Cloud, we’re rolling out a very, very, very small (11 pixel) change in the Track Matte column…a new pickwhip icon just for the Track Mattes. Combining the pickwhip shape with just a hint of transparency grid, this stylish new icon should make it very clear that it’s here to do one thing and one thing only: help you set up your track mattes!   While the pickwhip icon is a standard icon used elsewhere across After Effects, we have heard (and experienced) that 30 years or so of only having one pickwhip in the timeline is a lot of muscle memory to overcome so we (ahem) whipped this up.   We’d be very interested to hear if this new icon makes sense to you, helps you differentiate at pickwhipping time, and means less undoing because you grabbed the wrong one!

Hello,somehow I can't get HDR to work in the viewport on a Pro Display XDR in an ACES project. Is this perhaps not possible? if I select p3 d65 1000 nits for example, the image in the viewport only gets darker and flatter...Is srgb the correct preview mode on the pro display xdr?

Changing the fonts of multiple text layers at once doesn't work via the Character Panel. On change, the new font gets applied to the text layers correctly and the change of font can be seen in the comp viewer, but it then toggles back to the initial font.

When working with timeline/keyframes/graph editor I am experiencing extreme lag.I thought initially that was my workstation fault (Win 11 latest update, 3080 nvidia latest update, i10900k, 64gb ram) but then I found on Twitter a lot of people with the same issue. Here's the source post (there's also a gif showing the issue):https://twitter.com/TaylorJonpeters/status/1623778202241085440How to reproduce: create some layers and drag them around, also happens with keyframes and sometimes, also affects the  graph editor. As a daily/heavy AE user I think this is a tier 1 issue, makes working with projects a real struggle.Hope sometimes in the future timeline operations can be as smooth as in "Skew" plugin! (http://goodboy.ninja - not an ad, just for reference and comparison)

Hi everyone! We are very pleased to announce that Scene Edit Detection is now available in After Effects (Beta) starting in build 22.0x88.   Powered by Adobe Sensei, Scene Edit Detection automatically detects scene changes in an edited clip and creates scenes as markers or layers for a faster project setup. This makes it much quicker and easier to reuse part of an edited video clip, or apply motion graphics and visual effects to specific scenes. This feature was first released in Premiere Pro last year and now it has been brought to After Effects. Using Scene Edit Detection After adding footage to the Timeline in After Effects (Beta), select one or more footage layers and go to Layer > Scene Edit Detection or right-click and select Scene Edit Detection. You'll be shown a dialog with options to determine how the detected edits will be applied to the footage:     If you choose "Create Layer Markers", the selected footage layers will have numbered Segmen

We are pleased to announce that in After Effects Beta 23.2 build 26 we have two new features: Effect Manager, and Startup and Repair preferences panel. Effect Manager Frequently, when After Effects crashes, it’s because something went awry with a rendering effect and wouldn’t it be great if you knew which one? With Effect Manager, when launching After Effects after a crash, we now show a dialog explaining what effect may have crashed during the last session and allows you to keep it enabled and proceed as-is or disable the effect on your After Effects installation — particularly helpful in the event the effect is crashing on project load. But dialogs are fleeting and ephemeral and you need to know the state of your system at a glance. Now, in the application-level Effects menu, our new Effect Manager dialog allows you to see a list of all your installed effects, with all the details you’d expect of a Manager: Effect Name, Category, Version, File Path on disk. But most importantly: each

HI all .... i'm pretty adept at AE overall ... less so in the 3D space .. I'm on the Beta version ..... and have been working with the Draft button .... i'm wondering if anyone has seen any good tutorials (videos or otherwise) on the ground plane  ? I'm trying to natively build a 3D room in AE 3d space, place 3d objects, cast lights and shadows on the walls etc. It seems (?) you should be able to pin a shape onto the ground plane and make a floor out of it ? any advice or guidance would be appreciated .. .sjk

Dear Adobe Developers, I am the founder and developer at KeenTools. Recently, we released GeoTracker, a plugin for After Effects that enables easy geometry tracking. We were excited to learn about the upcoming native support for 3D models in After Effects! We believe that the combination of our plugin and native 3D will bring unlimited creative potential. The After Effects community is already making incredible things entirely within AE, empowered by the synergy of 3D objects and the ability to easily track them in footage. This tutorial is a telling example of that. Through this post, I would like to express my gratitude for this monumental step and ask some questions from a developer's perspective. Additionally, we have received feature requests from our users that we plan to implement. However, since they are mostly related to the general 3D object pipeline, it is important for us to be in sync with you on these matters. We would greatly appreciate it if the SDK (API)

Text animators are not listed in the Essential Properties Panel. 

Hello Beta users!   We've extended the Properties Panel to support text as of After Effects 23.2 build 53 and we'd like you to try it out!       With Text Properties in the Properties Panel, you can quickly and easily edit all the properties from the Character and Paragraph Panels for your selected layer. Update your font, change your fill and stroke, set your paragraph alignment, and even add Text Animators, all without needing to switch between panels!     Known Issues: The hamburger menus in the new Text & Paragraph sections do not yet work as expected when multiple Text Layers are selected. Adding or removing keyframes using the right-click menu in the Properties Panel will only affect keyframes on the first selected layer. Users who have enabled operating system settings that use a comma (,) in place of a decimal (.) will see the tenths place of transform values truncated in the Properties Panel (i.e. position value in the Properties Panel

Greetings After Effects users! We’re accelerating shape layer rendering with multi-threading, and we’d like to hear how it's working for your projects. In our testing, many shape layers now render at least twice as fast.   In your Creative Cloud app, update to After Effects Beta 23.3x9 or later. You don’t need to do anything special to enable the updated rendering.   Give things a try with some of your more shape-heavy compositions, especially ones with more complex shapes and gradients. You can use the Composition Profiler to compare performance with the release version. Projects are compatible across beta and release. If you have compositions where your shape layers aren’t seeing a speedup or have unexpected behavior, please let us know.   Looking forward to your feedback!  

The lastest After Effects Beta build (23.3x19) includes a performance improvement for selecting layers in the timeline window via mouse click. The improvements should be most noticeable when there are many visible layers in the window. When selecting a layer or layers in the timeline with or without a mod key After Effects should now properly invalidate and redraw only the previously selected layers and the newly selected layers. This will likely be most noticeable when selecting a single layer in the timeline when many layers are visible. Please let us know how this update works for you or if you run into any problems with it. 

In the latest After Effects Beta, you can now access source item timecode via scripting through a new frameTime attribute. This will enable you to specify a particular frame, so you don't need to worry about precision limitations due to floating point rounding that you may have encountered accessing time in seconds. You can set frameTime as far back as 3 hours before the 0:00:00:00 time and as far forward as 1 frame less than 24:00:00:00. Compositions can be a maximum 3 hours in length; these limits exist so you can slide layers that far back or forward. A couple usage examples:   Get the current frame time with var curFrame = app.project.item(1).frameTime;   Set the current frame time with app.project.item(1).frameTime = 105; frameTime is an AVItem attribute, so app.project.item(1) can be replaced with any reference that resolves to one of those. Please give it a try and let us know how it’s working for you.

3D animated FBX file import would be great to import for little animated characters, etc. 

Hello! Starting in After Effects Beta v23.3 build 9, you can now snap layers in 3D space while dragging the constrained X, Y, and Z position handles of the 3D gizmo.   This new behavior is in addition to non-constrained snapping, which has worked with 3D layers since snapping was introduced in After Effects many years ago. Non-constrained snapping is when you reposition a layer by clicking on an arbitrary point on that layer and snap it to another layer.   There's actually quite a lot of subtlety to snapping! If you're not familiar with how snapping works in After Effects, here's a great overview video. This was made when snapping was introduced in a much, much older version of After Effects, but the basic principles still apply.https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/how-to/using-layer-snapping-aftereffects.html   What's new and different today is that snapping now works when you click and drag on the X, Y, and Z handles of the 3D gizmo. This includes the XY, XZ, and YZ

Hi All,I just tried to download and open the Beta v 23.2 on my Mac Studio but the app closes directly before launch. I only see the very first AE splash screen (no loading activity). No crash report generated.The associated Beta Media Encoder opens fine.I have the latest non-beta version of AE installed and that's working fine too.Is anyone else having this issue? Not sure what I'm doing wrong...Thanks,Rupert