AFTER EFFECTS WISHLIST

[Andrew Yoole]

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.

[Arivl]

I think the idea of using an iPad or similar device as an input device in AE is a fantastic idea!  I would just add, that its most important function for me would be for doing multi-touch rotoscoping.  In other words, adjusting the positions of multiple mask points simultaneously and by varying amounts.  An input device like this would save hundreds of hours of roto time.

[Navarro_Parker]

How would this be better than a Wacom tablet?

[Arivl]

In a word: multitouch.  A multitouch rotoscoping (really, masking) interface would save me so much time, and I would happily pay many hundreds of dollars for the ability.  I know there are a lot of people in the VFX industry who would as well.

[Navarro_Parker]

Can you describe how one would multitouch roto?

[Arivl]

Hey Navarro, I imagine the end result would be a bit like sculpting clay, enabling you to push and pull at the mask with whatever fingers were nearby.

More specifically, imagine a closed mask path.  When you touch the control surface, AE registers the position of your finger, as you drag your finger over the control surface, AE monitors whether you've crossed over the mask.  If you have, it pulls the relevant section inwards or outwards along with your motion.  I imagine it would need at least two parameters. 

One of them, let's call it "stiffness", would define how much the mask points move, vs. how much the bezier curve changes.  In other words, set to 0,  the points wouldn't move at all, just the curve would shift to contain (or exclude) the finger.  Set to 100, the points would move rigidly, without changing the bezier curve at all.

The second parameter, let's call it "range", would define how many of the points in the mask are moved by a given modification.  For example, set to 0, only the point or points directly touched by the finger would move.  Set to 100, all points in the mask would move.

[Arivl]

I'm a big fan of the mask feather tool, but it's such a shame that the keyframes for it are folded into the shape keyframes for the mask itself.  I'd love for them to be their own independent set of keyframes so that (A) you could set per-vertex feathers for the entire timeline and, (B) if you prefer to set your main mask shape keyframes first, then you don't end up with a giant mess when going back and setting feathers.  Also as a bonus, if you've done your masking in Mocha and pasted the mask, you'll then have the ability to set per-vertex feathers without them resettng every frame.

[jo_krieger]

Layer Comps like in Photoshop.

For easily solo switching a group of layers. This would speed up the workflow extremely, because the manual selecting and solo switching - and back - is taking so much scrolling in the timeline window, when having render-intensive and complex compositions. I think people often do not take the performance option inbetween the working process with having layers in solo mode...

[TheFosterHouse]

Stretch/Duration & Time Remap to Timewarp converter. Since Stretch and Time remap happen before nearly anything in the layer render order, time stretching precomped composites results in mismatched source, effects and masks. Timewarp eliminates these errors because it puts the duration change after the precomp frame is already rendered. The problem is that this needs to be done manually. To exacerbate the issue, Timewarp has no Time Code/Source Code input, Frames only go up to 5000 (which is a problem with R3Ds and Transcoded RED footage with embedded timecode), and the speed parameter doesn't work the same way that the Layer's stretch parameter does. Copying layers with duration changes from Premiere Pro and pasting them into AE makes the duration change occur in the stretch parameter. I'd love to see a way to circumvent this where a dialoged box could pop up to give the option to auto convert all instances of Duration/Stretch changes to Timewarp.

[TDRonline]

Did you submit this to the feature request? I would love that!

Also to have the option to update PSD files, like you can do in Illustrator or InDesign. That way if I add a new layer in Photoshop and save the PSD file, I can then go into AE:CC and choose to update, which would then noticed the new layer and add it to my projects. Life would go a lot faster.

[ekreidler]

I work with Illustrator artwork in nested comps in 3d space quite a bit.

What I want is some sort of "continuously rasterize" function that is independent of collapse transformations.

I want to be able to zoom in 3D on a nested comp that contains vector artwork, and not have to have the layers inside that comp be 3D layers.

And blowing up the subcomp to 400% or something is not acceptable.

How about a global setting or plugin that ALWAYS rasterizes illustrator or shape layers no matter how they are nested?

This would save me MASSIVE HOURS of time -- every project I get my artwork in and suddenly -- time to push in the camera -- four hours of monkeying around of having 8 million cumbersome 3d layers for no reason other than having to collapse transformations. And of course this screws up motion blur.

I want a 3D card that is a comp whose vector layers stay sharp past 100%.

[IMIGdave]

SWATCHES, and integrate Kuler

[efwells101]

I would love some color correction tools that operate in a similar fashion to the UI in Lightroom - sliders and tool panels. I dislike color wheels. Thanks!

[Bob Currier]

You may want to check out Color Finesse, which is included with After Effects CC as well as versions as far back as AE 7.0.

It has lots (and lots) of sliders to control all aspects of color correction, as well as curves and, yes, color wheels (which you can ignore). There is the "simplified UI" which appears in the regular ECW, but click the "Full UI" button to get full access to all controls.

Bob Currier

Synthetic Aperture

[genvfx]

Hi there,

I would love there to be a way to animate whether motion blur is on or not during a comp, especially when you have a long shot that only requires some frames to be blurred, for example when a fast move occurs in the middle.

It really slows down a comp when the motion blur os on for all frames.

Also, being able to animate the shutter angle and samples too of the comp, that would be good.

[nextseason]

Check out CC Force Motion Blur.  It'll do what you want...  it's layer based though, so you may want to apply it to one layer then copy it to the rest, while linking the various instances up to a main instance so you can make easy adjustments.

[genvfx]

Thanks for that, yes, Force Motion Blur is an option, but as you say, not on a global scale.

I think it shouldn't be a hard thing to implicate as if the variables exist in the composition settings and it should be a very simple API switch to move them over to the main composition and allow them to be keyable.

[donbarrum]

Some things I would like:

1! . I would love to see after effects using multiple cores while you are working not just in rendering. An optimized After Effects for newer machines would be greatly appreciated by many. I think After effects has a ton of great features all ready, IMO its time to put effort into optimization and the use of GPU and all CPU cores of modern systems all across the program.

2. Folders and other things that can make it easier to have an overview of complex large comps. I mean Folders/groups in the comp view and better layer color system.

[Rick Gerard]

On your first point, a frame of video is only as big as the frame. The power of processors and the availability of ram have far exceeded the system requirements for a frame of video. Any codec or 3rd party plug-in that is not fully MP aware will kill the MP process so this inefficiency is not all on Adobe's shoulders.

A 3D app can more easily utilize all system resources because 3D rendering is just math and you can stack up and multi thread math operations as much as you would like. Rendering 3D objects, calculating polygons and light rays is completely different than looking at all of the pixels in an HD frame and running calculations on that frame until the calculations are done so you can move on to the next frame. MP for AE is a good idea, there's just too many pieces of the puzzle that are not created by Adobe to make it work yet...

[donbarrum]

I do not understand the complexity of it all. But as far as I understand, a lot of what AE is doing while you are working, is much similar to what f.example Final Cut does, only you have more freedom and a 2.5D scene. but blurring an image, filters and whatnot is also possible through programs such as Final Cut, and in that program and with an MP you can get extreme performance. Even on my iMac the performance in Final Cut is obviously a lot better than in After Effects, even for the simplest tasks such as playing a movie with no effects (I can even do Keying in realtime in final cut, while in AE it take a lot of time)
AE is slow after a couple of layers of particles or similar things....which feels kinda out-of date. Especially if all but 1 core is still idling on your machine while you are working. So it would make sense to me if adobe would optimize AE to exploit todays machines, put as much as possibled over on the GPU and use multiple cores whenever possible. But that´s coming from someone who doesn´t understand the complex math behind it all - I just see what other softwares do in comparison.

[SebastiaanFP]

Hi Rick,

Adobe bought Behance for 150 million. So I wish they would have used this money to buy some of the smaller third-party app & plugin producers to get me more integrated tools and experience across the Creative Suite. Instead of that I still have to buy all kinds of extra plugins next to my full membership subscription to get some work done. I want Adobe to first spent their money on expanding the technical toolkit possibilities of their apps like AE, PS, PP, SG and the like, instead of giving me again another social platform. They could have used this 150 million to buy some more of these fragmented pieces and give us a more integrated chain of software and hardware experience. I already have enough social platforms, to yet get another social platform is not why I have my CC subscription. I want first class digital content creation tools in a complete, integrated  and coherent environment utilising the latest state of the art computer hardware. Please invest the money in this direction.

Greetz Sebastiaan.

[genvfx]

What do you mean, folders in the comp view.

In the Project area, which is where I thought you meant, you can create folders easily by clicking on the folder icon at the bottom of the Project pane.

From here, you can then organise your footage, stills, audio, 3D elements etc. and have a much cleaner project in the process.

As to the GPU usage, I'm pretty sure Adobe are on the case with this, as it is the most obvious source of optimization available to them.

[donbarrum]

I understand and know that. I mean inside the composition window. Lets say you have 50 layers of images in your comp layout, it would be nice to add them inside a group or folder, so you can organize a comp the same way you organise layers in photoshop...instead of making precomps. Precomps are great, but I would have loved to do both. 

[genvfx]

Do you mean like a thumbnail view?

[donbarrum]

I mean something like this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22885829/ae_folders.jpg

[genvfx]

Oh, right.

Wow, I haven't seen this in a composition since Wavefront's Composer back in the 90's.

Because you can place a Composition in a composition, I can't see why you would need this.

Here's why:

The precomp creates a place where everything is kept so you can work on it separately and to get to it, you simply double click on it in your working comp.

Also, if you have a PSD which you are loading in, that has all of your files in one lovely structure, you can load it in as a Composition which means that you get your organised PSD layers in a nice folder in the project view and a nice precomp you can drop into your working Composition.

If you need to see what's happening in your main comp whilst working on a precomp, then at the top of your viewing pane click on the down arrow of your comp, create a new comp window and, as this new one is locked, call up your top layer comp into it.  As you complete a change in the precomp (in your unlocked window) you will see it update in the new window of the main comp.

I know it's not what you wanted, but it might be a workaround for why I think you want a stacked group in an AE comp.

Hope this helps.