How about a new type of Repeater for shape groups that looks pretty much the same as the existing one, except that values in it's Transform properties are not applied cumulatively, but rather have their expressions evaluated individually for every copy of the shape?

So if I add a random expression to the repeater's Position property, I get a bunch of randomly positioned copies. Ideally we'd get expression access to something like repeaterIndex (like textIndex in text layer expression selectors) but even without any new syntax it would be amazing. I can already imagine making a growing vine which automatically sprouts leaves as it gets longer.

Might save someone jumping over to Cavalry, and could provide some new possibilities to MGRTs too.

Dear Adobe,

Me again.

Please stop everything that you're doing with the development of new bells and whistles and doodads and put all your resources and firepower into resolving the years-old issue of the Slow and Laggy Interface in After Effects. Seriously. It's been YEARS. I kept thinking, "ah, they'll fix it soon.." and hope for the best and I end up feeling like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football every time a new update for After Effects comes out. "Maybe they fixed it!" And it's still not fixed.

When I contact Support I'm told, "the issue that you are facing is a known issue and the same has been highlighted to the designated team who are working on getting the issue fixed in the future releases," but it has yet to be fixed.

Old After Effects was FASTER on OLDER laptops - I have been on modern workstation-build DESKTOPS that are slower in response. Makes me not want to work in After Effects. I feel bad for those starting out in motion graphics in 2020 and this is what they are introduced to.

SpaceX put two astronauts on the space station. Surely we can get a butter smooth interface in After Effects.

Thank you.

https://vimeo.com/441661685/b7aba12cba

Quite often when working with After Effects, especially character animation work, I will need to move a bunch of keyframes further away in the timeline so that I can add in an additional pose for example. This is made incredibly difficult as any new keyframe information that is added will try to move to the animation that has been moved further in the timeline. It would be incredibly useful to be able to select the keyframes and temporarily disable them so that you can focus on the new section of animation required then reenable the keyframes when the additional poses are worked out.

It would be extremely helpful to be able to define our own render tokens somehow. We often have very long and complex filenames that string together common elements like "Project Code," "Client Name," "Project Name," "Deliverable Name," "First/Last Initials," "Version Number", "Language"

It would be helpful to be able to define these somewhere in the AE project, perhaps as metadata, and then allow them to be used as render tokens/properties that can be used in the existing File Name and Location Templates.

Sure, we can manually enter this information ourselves when we go to render. We could also rename our comps this way (though comp readability would become terrible). But it becomes a chore when we have dozens or hundreds of files to render. It would help with quality-of-life and ease-of-use to be able to set up these tokens once per project and reuse them. Filenames and render folder locations would be much more consistent (even when sharing the project with multiple artists on different teams) and would require less constant fiddling to make sure we're putting things in the right place.

Being able to set a "Project Root Folder" for example would also address these other issues, where we want to render to specific folders in a folder structure and we don't want to worry about where in that structure the AE project itself lives:
https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects/suggestions/37543408-a-render-settings-token-that-allows-you-to-climb-u
https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects/suggestions/41679958-render-queue-remember-projectname-token-on-exp

Being able to set a "Version Number" would also address this issue:
https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects/suggestions/41125603-add-project-version-number-as-a-render-token-prope

CC composite is great for compositing its own layer over itself again, the track mattes is good for tracking an alpha/luma of a layer above itself.
However, many times I'd like to composite, say an icon, over a circle shape - then animate each one independently (perhaps the circle scales up and the icon slides down to the centre of the circle), then, have the icon track the circles alpha channel so you only ever see the icon inside the circle.
Set matte doesnt often work as you are manipulating transform properties, and set matte seems to only work when both layers are the same dimensions or their default transform properties otherwise the matte is out of alignment.

The track matte works but you have to duplicate the circle layer and put it above the icon, then alterations to the circle animation would have to be replicated (barring fiddly pick whipping).

So, the feature would be like a track matte for any layer, essentially (could remove the track matte switch).
I think it could be a setting or check box in the "Set matte" effect, simply "track matte" which would track any layers matte/luma etc, as it appears in the composition, like it has been pre-composed but without having to pre-compose.

I hope this makes sense.

On more than a few occasions I've needed to check and see if my workspaces have been contributing to issues that arise in the public beta. The official way to reset all my prefs is to launch the app while holding

• Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows)
• Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS)

This works but it completely obliterates all my prefs custom workspaces forever. I currently go to that folder and make a copy before doing this but that eats up time and is a pain. I'd like to have a temporary option to load the app with default preferences (perhaps by holding z with the above shortcuts) that restores my previous prefs when I launch the app as normal.

ISSUE: As of v18.4, DNx Codecs no longer work properly in AE (as well as Media Encoder and possibly others). For example, a known good (works in other programs, as well as older versions of AE) DNxHR HQ video with Alpha will appear completely black.

REPRODUCTION: Import a DNx video file, for example DNxHR HQ with alpha channel into After Effects.

WORKAROUND: Rolling back to v18.2.1 works as a workaround, but is not viable long-term or with remote teams.

SYSTEM INFO: This issue has occurred on various Windows-based machines of various capabilities. Some of the editors on my team who have reported the issue to me may be working on a Mac, but I am not sure.

SUGGESTED FIX: See what changed in regards to DNx codecs from v18.2 to v18.4, restore DNx codec support in next After Effects update. Look into issues with Media Encoder and other applications as well.