Questions

Hello, I had installed beta version of AE 25.6.0 Build 36 via Creative Cloud, however not even able to launch it. Attaching images here  

After Effects (Beta) v25.6.0.036 (2025-08-18) update bug AE starts updateing, and when everything done successfully 100%, after a few seconds the same update shows up. I experience it on two completely different computers, on Win10 and on MacOS 15.6.1 the very same, so this is independent of computer and/or OS! 

Hi everyone, We are very pleased to announce the addition of a new preference for maintaining your current workspace when opening projects, available in After Effects (Beta) 25.2.0.88. With this new preference enabled, your workspace will no longer be changed when opening a project that was saved with a different workspace.     You'll find this new preference in the General section of the Preferences dialog: What we would love to hear from you Will this be useful in your workflow? When might this not be useful in your workflow? Would you consider this a "set and forget" preference or something you would toggle often? Would you want this preference to be enabled by default?   And, of course, any other feedback you might have is hugely appreciated. Please let us know how this new preference is working for you in the Beta builds!   Thanks again for your feedback.

A performance question:If I have two comps I'm in a hurry to render, is it generally quicker to send one to Media Encoder, and render the other directly in AE simultaneously, or wait for one to finish then start the other? I'm sure the answer would be "it depends", but is there a general guidance? Does AME and AE share the same background task when rendering, and just divvy up its performance between the two apps, or is it more efficient than that? If I have plenty of RAM (128GB), 16 cores on my 4.6GHz processor and 24GB VRAM, does AE+AME use these efficiently(ish) when both rendering? Like many other users, I'm often frustrated when I send something to render, and see that AE or AME is only using a small fraction of my PC's capabilities, so it stands to reason that if I set more than one thing rendering, AE could use 10% of my CPU while AME also used 10% (and I'd still have 80% left over for writing this long post! With AE+AME currently rendering, my CPU usage is around 21%, RAM

A new option for pasting text from one text layer to another text layer is now available in AE Beta 25.2.0.117.   The Paste Text and Match Formatting menu option, available under the Edit menu as well as in the right-click menu when editing a text layer, will paste the copied text into a text layer using the font and style as set in the destination text layer. The existing Paste option will continue to paste text using the copied font and style.   From the Edit menu, choose Paste Text and Match Formatting when editing a text layer.   Right-Click in a text layer while editing and choose Paste Text and Match Formatting.   Please try it out and let us know how it works for you.

Hi everyone, We're excited to announce a new feature in After Effects Beta version 25.4x44 that makes it easier to learn about effects!   With this new update, we've added an information icon next to supported effects in the Effects & Presets panel. Simply click this icon to access information about the effect.     This information will open in your default web browser, making it easy to reference while you work. Our goal is to streamline your workflow by providing quick access to effect information that was previously hidden within the app or required online searching.   Please give this feature a try and let us know what you think. We're looking forward to your feedback!Edit: Aug 19, 2025 — Effect Info Buttons is now officially released in After Effects 25.4

Hello,Can you make the Layer Control effect animatable? I'd like to be able to reference different layers over time in an expression. Since this effect isn't currently animatable, I'm using the Dropdown Menu Control effect using a script to pull all the layers into the list. This is quite laborious, all because there's no stop watch on the effect.Thanks.

If  you routinely work with lots of 3D layers, we’re proud to announce a new feature in AE Beta 25.4.062 that is designed to simplify and speed up your workflows.   In case you haven’t heard the term before, the “gizmo” is the widget that appears on a 3D layer and allows you to move, scale and rotate the element.   THE PROBLEM If you have a large number of 3D layers, and you need to select them all, you may have encountered something like this:     OUR SOLUTION We decided to solve this by only displaying a single gizmo when multiple layers are selected. This reduces visual clutter, and greatly speeds up the UI when working in 3D.     SOME DETAILS The gizmo is displayed on the last selected layer. So if you use a keyboard shortcut for select all, the bottom item in the timeline will feature the gizmo.   If you want to override the layer that displays the gizmo, it’s as simple as deselecting and reselecting the desired target layer. In the comp

Hello i was trying to edit some stuffs and suddenly it crashed. idk how to fix it

Using the AE Beta version on a trial basis. Attempting to go from Pr to Ae in order to remove unwanted copy machine from a video. I rotbrushed the copy machine when on a subsequent pass the freeze button no longer appears. It also repeatedly propagates frames over and over again. Each time the number of frames seems to vary, for example; 2-26, then 1-56, then 2-24 and never seems to stop. I shut down and went to sleep. The next morning the same thing occurs, so re-booting did not help. Thank you for any help you can give   ...   Sam

Greetings After Effects Beta users — Paul here from the AE Quality Engineering Team.We have a bit of a mystery with AE that I'm hoping to get some insight around.Within our crash reporting system we see a significant number of force quits occuring in AE during or just after launch. For most of these, we do not see anything having occurred previously that would have required the user to force quit. We don't see a hang or any error having happend. Everything looks fine.We are concerned there is a problem or failure that we're missing here.Now, a question and a request:1. How frequently are you force-quitting (Mac) / terminating (Win) AE during or just after startup for reasons other than a hang or other problem occuring with AE. Could be for any reason other than something wrong with AE that required you to force-quit it2. If you do encounter an issue requiring a force quit or termination, could you please make a short reply to this post indicating what happned with AE that made it neces

다른 2025에서는 잘 열리던데 집에선 안열려요ㅠ

I've been having a recurring issue in After Effects 2025 on Windows where pressing the spacebar doesn't start playback—instead, it moves the timeline playhead back by one frame. I've ruled out general system issues since the spacebar works fine in other programs, and it functions normally in After Effects right after launch, but breaks mid-session. I’ve reset all keyboard shortcuts, checked that “Play Current Preview” is correctly bound to the spacebar, and confirmed it’s not misassigned to “Previous Frame.” I also verified that no modifier keys are stuck using an external key tester, and I’m not using any third-party input software like AutoHotKey, Razer Synapse, or keyboard macros. I’ve tried resetting preferences, disabling hardware acceleration, checking input methods, and purging cache. Playback works when triggered with other keys, just not the spacebar after a while. This seems like a bug tied to AE 2025’s preview system or a panel focus issue, but I’d love to hear if others are

Please make Refine Soft Matte and Refine Hard Matte effects gpu accelerated. Right now when you apply it on a 4k layer it is really slow, and I work on a 14900k with 128gb ram and a 4070 super...

In After Effects Beta 25.1 Build 36, we are pleased to announce Quick Set Anchor, a more efficient way to change the anchor point on your 2D layers to any of 9-commonly-used-points — all the corners and centers of your layer’s edges. And it's available both from the Properties Panel and anywhere else by keyboard shortcut! Quick Set Anchor can be launched by selecting a layer (or layers!) and clicking the new Anchor Point icon next to the Anchor Point property in the Properties Panel, creating a temporary pop-over Quick Set Anchor Dialog that allows you to click your preferred anchor point location, automatically close the dialog, and be on your way!   Besides the Anchor Point button in the Properties Panel, you can also bring up the Quick Set Anchor Dialog by using the keyboard shortcut Shift + Tab to create the temporary pop-over right below your mouse, ready for you to click your anchor point of choice without taking your eyes away from your comp content. Press the shortcut. Cl

Today we’re excited to announce that the View menu allows Default Camera and Custom View Camera Settings changes as of After Effects 25.4 build 58.   Now, whichever view is currently active (whether you have a Camera in your Composition or the Default Camera is active, or you've selected a specific Camera View), the option to change that Camera Setting is available under View Menu. This option will reflect the name of the camera in your current view to ensure you’re clear about which camera’s settings you’re editing. You can also now access the current camera view settings by right clicking any layer and selecting the Camera sub menu. In addition, when changing the Layer Settings of a Camera, Light, Model, or Solid Layer from the Layer Menu, the name of the selected layer being edited will be shown. Please let us know how this works for you, and we’d also like to know if you find this helpful to your workflow.   Thank you!- Amir After Effects Engineering Team

Version 25.3.0.030 of After Effects Beta introduces support for revealing the location of your project file on your computer’s file system.   We're excited to introduce a new feature that simplifies file management and saves you time. Now, you can instantly reveal the location of your project file directly within the application.  No more hunting through folders or trying to remember where you saved your work. With a single click, After Effects will open your computer's file system (Finder on Mac or File Explorer on Windows) and highlight the exact location of your current project file.  Getting Started  The feature will be available by default on After Effects Beta from version 25.3.0.030 onward. Right-click your mouse on the empty space in the Project Panel  Click on “Reveal Project in Finder” on Mac, or on “Reveal Project in Explorer” on Windows  After Effects opens your file system location where the project is located    Feature

Hue/Saturation is missing items in the Effects control panel and doesn't function properly in the latest Beta (25.5.0 build 43)

I think I would look better visually and and less tight towards the margins if the content of the inbox panels were aligned to the panel title. Is that possible? thanks team. 🙌  This is another example, the Interpret Fotage button is attached to the edge of the panel (and the monitor).  

I have a clip, and select the rotobrush tool. I can draw where I need, but nothing shows up and nothing changes. Why is nothing changing?

In premiere this setting is within the actual Preferences menu and sticks between different projects, but in after effects currently the option is per project (and seems to sometimes revert if I use a feature like Stabalize Motion that swaps to the layer view) and defaults to "On" every single time. As someone who doesn't need or want this feature turned on it's quite a pester to need to turn it off myself every single project file.Could we please move it into the actual Preferences menu like premiere or at least offer a way to turn it off by default?Thank you for your time!

After Effects beta users, welcome to the dark side!   Add realism or a bit of film-noir drama to your scene with realistic shadows in the Advanced 3D render engine.   Getting Started   Version 25.3.56 of After Effects Beta now supports Spotlight and Parallel shadows. Up to eight separate Spot and Parallel light sources can cast shadows, in addition to one Environmental shadow layer, for a total of 9 shadow-casting sources. Note: Point lights do not yet cast shadows. 3D elements in your scene such as imported 3D models—as well as 3D layers, extruded text and extruded shape layers—will all cast and receive realistic shadows, including self-shadowing. Lights can be set to any color, and shadows from colorful light sources will realistically combine to create real-world additive-color shadows. Shadows have currently been tweaked to match the Classic engine as closely as possible for consistency with legacy projects.     Main Features   Environment lights,

Improved UI Language Support in After Effects offers the ability to use Unicode characters in various parts of the application user interface (UI). This means you can: Run After Effects in a language different from your OS display language. Enter any Unicode character in various UI elements, such as text fields, labels, and controls. This includes project and layer names, as well as effect names and their parameters. For example, options in the Dropdown Menu effect. Enter multiple languages within a single text field. For example, you can add Russian, German, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese within a single text field.   Run After Effects in a language different from your OS display language Improved Language Support in After Effects allows you to run the software in a language different from the operating system's display language. This means you have the flexibility to set a different language for After Effects without being restricted to the language your system is configured to

I thought surely this must be covered somewhere, but after a good bit of searching, I still haven't found what I'm looking for...  I have a 3D comp in After effects using the Advanced 3D renderer. I have a .glb model of a desktop computer. Laid carefully onto it, I have a precomp with the contents of that computer screen.  Is there a way to make it look as if there is light emanating from the computer screen itself, instead of having a light in the scene pointed towards the computer and messing with the materials settings on the precomp to try and get the computer screen to look like it is lit decently?  I was reading a bit about EXR files and HDRI lights, but I feel like it's a bit over my head and I'm not sure if you could use that to position a "light" within a 3D composition or if it sort of wraps all the way around the comp...

I build templates. I normally replace logos in a closing animation with a logo and contact info. The logo has a bevel alpha and dropped shadow. I just downloaded the newest AE Beta (25.4.0 Build 13) and when I swapped one logo for another, even though the effects were applied to the layer, neither were visible. Workaround:I added a new (additional) dropped shadow and suddenly the previous two effects "woke up." I deleted the newly added dropped shadow and the effects originally there, remained as expected.