Operation Manual

407
Effects and animation presets
Last updated 12/12/2014
Note: If you open a project that uses an effect for which After Effects has not loaded the plug-in, a warning dialog box
appears, and instances of the effect have Missing: at the beginning of its name in the Timeline panel and Effect Controls
panel. To show all instances of missing effects in the Timeline panel for the active composition, press FF.
Effect plug-ins
All effects are implemented as plug-ins, including the effects that are included with After Effects. Plug-ins are small
software modules—with filename extensions such as .aex, .pbk, and .pbg—that add functionality to an application. Not
all plug-ins are effect plug-ins; for example, some plug-ins provide features for importing and working with certain file
formats. The Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in, for example, provides After Effects with its ability to work with camera
raw files. (See
Plug-ins.)
Many effect plug-ins are written in C/C++; increasingly, many image-manipulation effect plug-ins are written in the
Adobe Pixel Bender language.
Because effects are implemented as plug-ins, you can install and use additional effects that parties other than Adobe
provide, including effects that you create yourself. You can add a single new effect or an entire folder of new effects to
the Plug-ins folder, which is located by default in one of these folders:
• (Windows) Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CC\Support Files
• (Mac OS) Applications/Adobe After Effects CC
When After Effects starts, it searches the Plug-ins folder and its subfolders for all installed effects and adds them to the
Effect menu and to the Effects & Presets panel. After Effects ignores the contents of folders with names that begin and
end in parentheses; for example, the contents of the folder (archived_effects) are not loaded.
After Effects comes with several third-party plug-ins, including Foundry Keylight, Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse,
Digieffects FreeForm, Imagineer mocha shape, fnord ProEXR, and CycoreFX HD plug-ins. These plug-ins are installed
by default with the full version of Adobe After Effects software. Some of these plug-ins are not included with the trial
version of Adobe After Effects. (See
Third-party plug-ins included with After Effects.).
After Effects includes Synthetic Aperture Color Finesse 3.
The installers for some plug-ins install their documentation in the same directory as the plug-ins themselves.
The EXtractoR and IDentifier plug-ins from fnord software are included with After Effects to provide access to multiple
layers and channels of OpenEXR files. See
ProEXR plug-ins, IDentifier and EXtractoR.
Animating effects
You animate effect properties in the same way that you animate any other properties—by adding keyframes or
expressions to them. In most cases, even effects that rely on animation for their normal use require that you set some
keyframes or expressions. For example, animate the Transition Completion property of a Transition effect or the
Evolution setting of the Turbulent Noise effect to turn a static effect into a dynamic effect.
Color depth
Many effects support processing of image color and alpha channel data at a depth of 16 or 32 bits per channel (bpc).
Using an 8-bpc effect in a 16-bpc or 32-bpc project can result in a loss of color detail. If an effect supports only 8 bpc,
and your project is set to 16 bpc or 32 bpc, the Effect Controls panel displays a warning icon
next to the effect name.
You can set the Effects & Presets panel to list only the effects that support the color depth of the current project. (See
Color depth and high dynamic range color.)
Render order