After Effects (Beta) now on Apple Silicon

Report · Oct 26, 2021

We are very pleased to announce that a version of After Effects which runs natively on Apple silicon is now available for beta testing. Starting today in build 22.1.1.9, After Effects (Beta) will run natively on Macs that use the Apple M1 family of processors. You are invited to test it out and please let us know if anything isn't working as you expect. Please also try it out together with the latest Betas of Premiere Pro and Media Encoder. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback!

This first version of After Effects (Beta) for Apple silicon contains all the core functionality of the app, including nearly all native effects, all layer types, Roto Brush 2, Draft 3D, and, of course, Multi-Frame Rendering. After Effects has greatly benefited from the work done to bring Premiere Pro to Apple silicon, which included our team porting AE's render pipeline to support Motion Graphics Templates. Since After Effects and Premiere Pro share components for many media formats, you can expect to see the same media types available for use in After Effects (Beta) as are available in Premiere Pro on Apple silicon.

There are currently a few limitations and known issues when running After Effects (Beta) natively on Apple silicon which are listed below. We will post updates to this forum as these issues are fixed and new builds become available.

Features Not Yet Available

These features are still in the process of being ported for Apple silicon. All of the listed components should continue to work if After Effects (Beta) is run under Rosetta.

~~Content-Aware Fill for Video~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.2.0.99 and later
~~Importing Animate/Flash files~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.3.0.82 and later
Importing clips using the Cineform codec
~~Keylight~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.2.0.30 and later
~~Mocha AE~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.2.0.30 and later
~~Cineware~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.1.1.50 and later
~~C4D Renderer~~ Available in After Effects (Beta) 22.1.1.50 and later

Third-Party Integrations

With the large number of plug-ins, scripts, and extensions available for After Effects, it is likley that some of them may not work when After Effects (Beta) is running natively on Apple silicon. In these cases, please contact the third-party developer to see if there is a new version available that has been updated for Apple silicon.

All third-party plug-ins must be updated by their developers in order to be compatible with After Effects running natively on Apple silicon. Third-party plug-ins that have already been ported for Apple silicon should show up and behave as expected. Incompatible plug-ins will not be available for use when After Effects (Beta) runs natively on Apple silicon and will appear as "Missing" when opening existing projects that use them. To use installed plug-ins that have not been updated, see the instructions below on how to run After Effects (Beta) under Rosetta 2 emulation.

Any installed plug-ins that aren't compatible with Apple silicon will be listed in a new dialog shown when After Effects (Beta) launches. You can disable this dialog by selecting "Never Again" before dismissing it. To show the dialog again after disabling it, reset the application preferences.

Known Issues

Drivers for Transmit hardware may be currently unsupported and require updates.
Rendering the Detail-preserving Upscale effect for previews and output will be slower than expected. Work to optimize the performance of Detail-preserving Upscale on Apple silicon is ongoing.
Having Blackmagic Desktop Video 12.1 installed can cause a crash when After Effects is launched. Please update Blackmagic Desktop Video to version 12.2 or higher to avoid this crash.

Running After Effects (Beta) under Rosetta 2 Emulation

As it has been up until now, this new version of After Effects (Beta) can still be run using Rosetta 2 emulation. Right-click on the Adobe After Effects (Beta).app, select Get Info, then enable "Open using Rosetta". This should allow you to use all of the features which are not yet available when running natively, but at the cost of some performance.

The non-beta version of After Effects will continue to run under Rosetta 2 on Apple silicon.

Thanks very much for participating in Adobe's Public Beta program. We appreciate your thoughts and feedback!

Report · Feb 18, 2022

@JohnColombo First off, thank you to you and your team for being so responsive and communicating with us here on these posts.

While this request isn't related to After Effects, we can't seem to get a response from the Audition team. Would it be possible to give an update on the ability to have Folders/Bins in Audition like there is in every other Adobe Software? There has been no update from the team in over a year, and being on the inside, if you could pass along that message or even perhaps provide any guidance or update it would be so greatly appreciated!!

Report · Feb 23, 2022

Hi @am2082,

I don't know if there are any updates on folders/bins for project organization in Audition. As an Audition user myself, I agree that it would be a welcome addition to the Audition workflow. It appears that the addition of folders/bins is the highest-voted feature on Audition's UserVoice page: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911314/suggestions/33841873 and Under Review, so the Audition team is certainly aware of it even they have not been responsive recently. I will pass along the message to them as well.

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Feb 24, 2022

After Effects (Beta) on Apple silicon - Feb 24th, 2022 Update

Hi everyone! Happy belated New Year from the After Effects team. We hope your 2022 has gotten off to a great start. As always, thank you all so much for your continued comments and feedback for After Effects (Beta) on Apple silicon.

Starting in Beta builds posted earlier this week, the features available when running AE (Beta) natively on Apple silicon are a near-match to the features available in AE on other platforms. The latest features to be ported are Content-Aware Fill for video and SWF import.

SWF import specifically has been requested by many of you and it is now available as of build 22.3.0.82 and later of After Effects (Beta). Please give it a try and let us know if you encounter any issues. We are continuing to work with the Animate team to bring FLA import to AE (Beta) on Apple silicon as well; it is currently working in some cases, but may not work in others.

Recent changes:

Content-Aware Fill for video is now available when running natively on Apple silicon.
SWF import is now available when running natively on Apple silicon. Work to support FLA import is ongoing.
All of the Mocha plug-ins that ship with After Effects are now Universal.
The "Track in Boris FX Mocha" command is again available in the Animation menu.
Rendering issues with the Lumetri and Invert effects when running in Software Only mode have been fixed.

Known Issues:

The aerender command-line renderer and other background rendering processes always launch as native processes, rather than following the preference for "Open using Rosetta", so Intel-only third-party plug-ins are excluded from resulting renders. This affects AE renders from Media Encoder and AE comps the Premiere Pro sequences.
Rendering the Detail-preserving Upscale effect for previews and output will be slower than expected. Work to optimize the performance of Detail-preserving Upscale on Apple silicon is ongoing.
Having Blackmagic Desktop Video 12.1 installed can cause a crash when After Effects is launched. Please update Blackmagic Desktop Video to version 12.2 or higher to avoid this crash.

Many of you have asked when this porting work will move out of Beta and into the release version. The most honest answer is "when it is ready", as determined by a combination of our internal testing and feedback from Beta users like you. With that in mind, please continue to put the AE (Beta) on Apple silicon through its paces and let us know where it performs well and where it may not.

Thank you for your continued patience in our responses. As you might be able to tell from other recent Beta forum announcements, the team is very busy both improving the core of the AE application as well as improving the user experience overall. Thank you again for all your valuable feedback for AE (Beta) on Apple silcon.

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Feb 24, 2022

Thanks John and AE Engineering Team. AE Beta has been increasingly stable for me and I use it exclusively on my M1 Pro. One of the plugins I use more than any other is video copilot's FX Console. Is there a way that I can install and use this in the beta version of AE?

Report · Feb 24, 2022

Hi @Zach Rowe,

If I remember correctly, the VCP FX Console has both a scripted component and a plug-in component which work together. The scripted side should work fine on M1, but the plug-in will need to updated by VCP themselves to be compatible with AE (Beta) running natively on M1. I would expect FX Console to work fine when AE (Beta) is run under Rosetta emulation, but obviously that sacrifices the performance of running natively.

Cheers,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Feb 26, 2022

Hi,

Thanks for all the hard work on the Beta. I've noticed significantly faster speeds on all of my projects and near real time preview at full resolution.

However, I was wondering if any work was being done to speed up Classic 3D performance? I do a lot of motion comics and parallax scenes in 2.5D and these sequences still lag in anything except quarter resolution.

I have a 16" MacBook Pro M1 Max with 64GB RAM and 32 core GPU. So I have plenty of power to throw at it.

Thanks!

Andy.

Report · Mar 22, 2022

Are there any known significate performance issues with the current (and perhaps previous one or two) beta builds? I've been using the betas with my M1 MBP 16GB since the start and it's been mostly great but for the past few days I've had to quit and reopen multiple times daily as the application eventually just stops caching frames, and renders via ME take an eternity. Restarting the application fixes the issue temporarily. In each instance where this happens, there is still plenty of disk space available and the cache has not even reached the maximum size limit. Very confused, nothing else has changed with my system or AE preferences.

Report · Mar 22, 2022

Unfortunately, I am not finding good results with the Beta under Rosetta. Currently trying beta 22.4.0 build 17, previews are extremely slow even for very simple compositions until all frames are cached. Running the beta in native apple silicon mode seems to work normally, but this is not an option for users who need access to certain industry standard plugins that are not yet optimized for M1. Even on a factory-reset M1 Pro Max macbook pro (shipped with Monterey), and only Creative Cloud and After effects installed (no third party plugins or other software), previews of a 10 second comp with one HD layer of footage can only preview at 3 to 4 fps until all frames are cached, while the same project previews in real time on intel computers running the current release version of After Effects 22 or 21.

Report · Mar 24, 2022

Hi @davidb46026235,

I believe I just responded to a comment from you on UserVoice, but feel free to answer any of the questions I asked there in this thread. The forums are a much better venue for conversation. I had asked:

Do you experience this slowdown with playback that doesn't involve footage?
Does disabling hardware decode in preferences > Import have any effect? Both of the formats you've mentioned are hardware decoded by default.
Is the footage located on a local disk, external hard drive, or network drive?
Are you using an external monitor? If so, is there any difference when using the laptop screen only?
Is playback of the same clips also slow in Premiere when running under Rosetta?

As we haven't been able to reproduce this behavior on any M1/Pro/Max devices in-house, any information you can offer will be a big help in diagnosing what you are seeing.

Thanks again for any further information you can provide,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Mar 24, 2022

Hi John,

Thanks for all of your ongoing work! I think I have tracked down the issue, and it may explain why some users are getting things to work when they delete AE preferences but then sometimes have the issue return after further use of After Effects. It looks like the problem arises when in the timeline there is any footage whose color space differs from the project's working space. If the project working space is set to "none" in color settings, the issue goes away. If the footage is re interpreted (via the interpret footage dialog) to be set to a color space that matches the project space, the issue goes away. Or, if the footage item is set to Preserve RGB / disable color management for that item, the issue goes away. But if for example the project working space is set to sRGB and one puts footage in the timeline that is currently interpreted as Rec.709 Gamma 2.4, the slow previews problem occurs when using AE under Rosetta. (This is a common situation when importing mp4 source footage that is automatically interpreted as Rec.709, but one is authoring for sRGB output, particularly since apple displays are in a P3 space.) This behavior can be reproduced in the current Release version 22.2.1 build 3 or Beta version 22.4 x17 under Rosetta on M1 Max monterey 12.3, but does not occur in the same Release version on Intel under Big Sur. I do not have access to an Intel machine running Monterey to test that combination.

Report · Mar 24, 2022

❤️👍👍👍❤️

Report · Apr 04, 2022

Hi @davidb46026235,

Thank you again for discovering the triggering condition for the slowdown you've been seeing under Rosetta. We are also able to see the same slowdown with the mismatched color spaces. We now have a ticket open to investigate this behavior. Any improvements in performance will appear first in the Beta builds, and I'll post here as any fixes are made.

Thanks again,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Apr 04, 2022

Hey John,

For what it's worth, none of the color management suggestions have worked in my case. Iv'e tried multiple files in various formats including h.264 and pro-res. No matter what I changed, I could not prevent the slow, unusable RAM preview problem on my MBP M1-Max. If I could provide you with any specific info, please let me know.

Thanks.

Report · Apr 04, 2022

Hi @DannyBCreative,

Sorry to hear you're experiencing these slow previews as well. Are you using After Effects (Beta) version 22.4 or the latest release version 22.2.1? And on what version of macOS?

Thanks for any further info,

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Apr 04, 2022

Thanks, John.

I was running AE 22.2.1 on an MBP M1-Max with 32-core GPU, 64GB RAM, running OS 12.2.1(Monterey). I have since been able to download AE beta 22.4.0 (build 28) and run some tests on that. It would seem as though the RAM preview issue no longer present (in the beta), but I'm reluctant to use beta software for my client work. I'm assuming there's no way to know when beta 22.4.0 will be officially released, is there?

Thanks again.

Report · Apr 04, 2022

@DannyBCreative Yes, we aren't able to discuss or promise when any given version will be released. I can understand your apprehension about using Beta builds for client work.

Could you provide a screen recording of the slow playback that you are seeing? It is possible that it's related to a specific project or application preference, like hardware acceleration, but it's difficult to diagnose without seeing first what is happening. Does clearing the preferences allow for better playback temporarily? And do different resolutions all exhibit the same slowdown?

- John, After Effects Engineering Team

Report · Apr 04, 2022

Understood.

I'll try to get a recording ASAP. I have tried resoltions from 1920x1080, 2k and 4k, and in formats: pro res, h.264 and OpenEXR (sequences). All respond the same way. When a clip of any length is dropped into the comp timeline and you process the preview, it appears as though the green progress bar is skipping in even intervals a few frames at a time. When complete, the clip plays back in this stuttered fashion.

Report · Apr 04, 2022

That sounds like you have your preview settings set to skip frames. Make sure the "skip" dropdown is set to 0.

Report · Apr 04, 2022

Nope. Settings are identical on my MBP M1-Max and my PC. PC plays back in real time. MBP does not. Same settings in AE Beta - Works fine there as well. Frustrating.

Report · Apr 04, 2022

I should add... I know what you're saying. I was using the word "skipping" only to describe how the playback looked. For lack of a better word, it's a slow, stuttered playback.

Report · Aug 05, 2022

I'm on M1 PRO 32GB - Mac OS 12.4 and AE (Build 53) and still having the same issue...

Report · Apr 07, 2022

Thanks John!

I'm sure the team has discovered this already, but fwiw, it looks like the issue also affects rendering, not just previews.

all best,

David

Report · Apr 07, 2022

(for clarity - I mean the color space vs slow previews issue)

Report · May 03, 2022

Cross posting this info here from the DVA UserVoice thread, but I have verified the slow preview and rendering bug caused by mismatched color spaces still exists with AE release verson 12.3 when run under Rosetta on M1 Max macbook pro.

Report · Mar 23, 2022

Hi,

I just started studying adobe after effects using m1 max 16in and I'm wondering when can we get the final release of after-effects on the m1 chip? I believe a lot of creative people are waiting for this update, especially since apple releases the new m1 ultra with their new mac studio.

By the way, I've been using Adobe products for more than a decade now. And I believe you guys are doing amazing work. Great job to the adobe team.