Scene Edit Detection available in After Effects (Beta) build 22.0x88 and later
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 Segmentation markers applied at each scene edit.
- If you choose "Split Layer at Scene Edit", the selected footage layers will be split so that each scene will be on a separate layer in the Timeline. When using this option, you can also choose "Create Pre-comps" to have each resulting layer pre-composed. In the Project panel, these new pre-comps will be placed in a folder matching the footage layer's name, which will be nested inside a "Scene Edit Detection" folder to help keep your project organized.
Click OK after choosing an option to run Scene Edit Detection on the selected layers.
Additional Changes
- Layer Markers now can be assigned a type, either Comment or Segmentation. Each type has a default label color associated with it. The default label color for each type can be customized in Preferences > Labels... Markers created by Scene Edit Detection are created as Segmentation markers.
Limitations
- Scene Edit Detection can only be run on video footage; it cannot be run on pre-comps or other layer types.
- Scene Edit Detection cannot be run on Time-Remapped footage.
Providing Feedback
Any and all feedback is welcome. It would be particularly great to hear your thoughts on the following:
- Please try out as much real-world footage as possible. Are there any clips that we fail to detect cuts on? If so, would you be willing to share the footage with us?
- Are the given options for applying cuts useful? Are there any additional options you would like provided for applying detected cuts?
- Scene Edit Detection also works with Time Stretched/Time-Reversed footage. Is this useful? Are the results what you expect?
Thank you all in advance for any feedback you can provide!

