Plugin Development

[Mrigendra Sharma]

On average how much time does it takes for one person to develop a plugin like Advanced Lightning(for eg.) ?

[Mylenium]

And what is the real question here? Sorry, but this just makes no sense. Without any clue about what your actual programming experience is, how well you know AE and its SDK/ APIs and a full description of what you would envision as a plug-in, nobody can answer this. As it is with all programming, seemingly simple things can take forever, if the host API requires workarounds/ hacks to make something work whereas on the other hand seemingly complex things can be chopped together by using stuff from existing libraries.

Mylenium

[Mrigendra Sharma]

I know C and C++ and know pretty much about After Effects and have downloaded its SDK. I also know to use Visual Studio and i envision my plugin as a Lightning Plugin.

[Szalam]

It can take weeks or it can take months or it can take years.

Look at the Saber plugin from Video Copilot. It was supposed to be released on a specific day, but they kept adding features to it and it pushed the release back a week or two. Now, compare that to Element which was years in development.

Also, what do you want your plugin to do that the current Advanced Lightning and the Saber plugins don't already do?

[Mrigendra Sharma]

Thank you Szalam for your reply.

I am making a non commercial  plugin for personal use and it is aimed to be like an advanced lightning plugin and nothing that i want my plugin to do that the current AL plugin and Saber plugin cannot do.

I just wanted to make a plugin so decided to make it like AL for starters.

I am a beginner and hope i will soon learn making proper plugin by practicing.

Anyways thank you for your reply.

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

If you read through the SDK info and visit the right After Effects Sub Space (from the sub space menu) After Effects SDK​ you should be able to whip out a plug-in that does something simple. The more complex you get the more knowledge you'll need and the more time it will take. I'd start here: After Effects Developer Center | Adobe Developer Connection

There is very little in the way of automatic functions in the SDK, but there are a few examples. In my own experience developing an app with Apple's SDK and their brilliantly organized API's is about 1000 times easier than trying to build something from scratch for After Effects.

[Mrigendra Sharma]

Thank you Sir for your reply!