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

so I have a project:
F:\filmmaking\Client Name (587)\Film Name\CODE.2.6.2021.aep

When I use the File Name and Location Template (in AE 2021 only, all other versions work fine)
[projectFolder]\renders\FINALS[compName]_Proof.[fileExtension]

It seemingly randomly saves the file(s) in either:
F:\renders\FINALS* or
F:\filmmaking\renders\FINALS* or
F:\filmmaking\Client Name (587)\renders\FINALS*
never F:\filmmaking\Client Name (587)\Film Name\renders\FINALS* like it is supposed to.

If after I apply the template, I click on the link, it takes me to the dialogue showing exactly where it is supposed to go. Click render and it renders to the correct path.

If I don't click the filename first, it renders to a random parent folder like the above.

I have rebuilt the template, have tried changing the slashes and removing the first slash.

If I choose Custom... rebuild the template and name it the same as the original, overwrite the old then render it works fine. Choose that template again on the next render and it fails.

It's making organizing and finding files a nightmare, especially if the render imports the file after rendering.

I'm tracking footage as I write this. the entire file is just a single 4k video with two trackers. my cache is on an ssd, and I run a 1070 and 6700k intel chip. not the best, I know...
bit it worked fine on 6k anamorphic video in 2016 when I made it. so now I get to say:
what the hell adobe. how did you mess this up so much, the moment you went subscription?

it's simple. after effects has become like 3DS max: buggy, cobbled together, filled with half-functional plugins, all with messy code and badly integrated, with no guide to keep the UI functional or intuitive. All the bulk makes it hard to update, hard to run, hard to work with, and hard to debug.

We're aware Adobe doesn't care about artists. They care about bad managers who think addons are a replacement for actual workflows, or that bells and whistles improve the quality of work above a mastery of the basics. The result of this, is that every update comes with new plugins.

We're going on 500 plugins now... and it's beyond silly at this point, as I use maybe a total of 5 to 10 in all of my workflows combined.

also, the "cross applications workflow tools" suck. they're far less effective than just throwing a pen drive across the office. These aren't small files. syncing them would take hours my dudes. even just from program to program is slow, clunky, and unreliable to the extreme. get it together, adobe.

I tracked 29 frames in that time. now I just minimize and maximize all my windows... and it speeds up 1200%. seriously. if I didn't know the workarounds I would be at breaking down the doors of their offices right now for selling this at absolutely eyebrow-singing prices.

If I copy an effect and paste it to a layer which already has an instance of that effect, instead of resulting in two instances of the effect, my values are pasted into the pre-existing instance.

I get that this can sometimes be a time-saver but I think there are more times when it’s annoying and I think it’s counter-intuitive for newer users.

The behaviour could be that values are pasted if I selected specific properties within the effect when I clicked Copy. That would follow my intention and other behaviours within AE.

Or

The behaviour could be that values are pasted if I select the effect instance when I hit Paste. If I only have the layer selected, I get a second instance.

Or maybe there’s another way. But to me the current behaviour is backwards and always has been.

AE 2022 is unstable and have bugs. It keeps cashing and sometimes just won't opening, I have to force quit and restart.
I also got this error message when opening a specific project :
"Internal verification error, sorry! [no current context]".
I tried to reinstall AE, did not work, then I reinstalled CC desktop and all my app, and I still got this message.
I was hoping today's update was going to fix that, but no, I still got the error.
I had to downgrade AE to the previous version and now everything's fine. I miss the good old times when we bought Adobe on CDs, installed it and it worked. Now I feel like I'm always on a beta version of the Software, experiencing bugs like I'm a tester and not a customer. Plus, I didn't find a way to report a bug. What I'm writing here is not a "feedback", it's a complain.