After Effects
VIZid connects directly to Adobe After Effects. When both applications are running and connected, VIZid delivers rendered frames into an After Effects composition and the two applications can share timeline position and camera data.
Panel access: View ▸ After Effects. If the panel list is greyed out, choose View ▸ Unlock Advanced UI first.
Requires the VIZid plug-in for After Effects (.aex file) to be installed in After Effects. The After Effects bridge is off by default — turn it on in the Connection section of the panel.
Prerequisites
- The VIZid plug-in for After Effects must be installed.
- Both VIZid and After Effects must be running on the same machine.
- The Enable After Effects bridge toggle in the panel must be on (it is off by default).
Connecting
- Open the After Effects panel (View ▸ After Effects).
- Turn on the Enable After Effects bridge toggle in the Connection section.
- In After Effects, choose Window ▸ VIZid Bridge to open the plug-in panel. (The plug-in is not yet installed by the VIZid installer; an installation route has not been published.)
- The status line in the panel updates when After Effects connects.
VIZid listens on TCP port 8766 on the local machine. If that port is busy, it tries 8767–8769 in turn, and the Status line shows the port actually in use (for example Listening on 8767 — After Effects has not connected). If none is free, the Status line reads Enabled, but no port is free. Only one After Effects session can be connected at a time.
Connection settings are machine preferences — they are not saved in the document. Two team members opening the same document on different machines can have different connection states.
After Effects panel
Connection
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Enable After Effects bridge | Turn the connection on or off. Off by default. The setting is per machine, not per document. |
| Port | The first TCP port VIZid tries. Default: 8766. If it is busy, the Status line shows the port actually used. |
| Status line | Displays the current connection state. No label; shown as a muted hint line below the Port field. |
| Project line | Displays the linked After Effects project name, bit depth and colour space when connected. No label; shown as a muted hint line below Status. |
After Effects comps
Lists the compositions available in the connected After Effects project. Select a composition, then choose how to link it:
- Link as overlay — the After Effects composition is composited over the product render; the AE footage appears in front of the 3D scene.
- Link as underlay — the After Effects composition provides the per-frame backplate behind the product render; the AE footage is the background the 3D scene sits in front of.
An overlay is shown only when After Effects overlay is turned on in the Compositor panel (off by default; see Compositor). An underlay is shown only when Environment ▸ Background is set to After Effects (see Environment). Frames returned to After Effects exclude the overlay picture so it can be composited there. Cached playback can still show the baked composite inside VIZid. If an unbaked preview is unavailable, VIZid refuses that preview request instead of returning the baked image; cache the frame again or request final quality. Ordinary VIZid final renders can include the enabled overlay.
Screen textures
A comp can also play on a surface in the scene, such as a phone screen. VIZid's After Effects panel cannot make this link. You make it from After Effects:
- In After Effects, open the VIZid Bridge panel and its Comps view. Select the composition, set the role list to Screen texture, then click Link selected.
- In VIZid, open the material for the surface. In the Textures tab, set a slot's type to Video Map and its Source to After Effects comp.
- In Comp, choose a comp you linked as Screen texture. Colour Space (default Scene-linear) and Alpha (default Straight) describe the comp's pixels. On the emission slot, Strength is also shown.
On the timeline a screen-texture comp shows the overlay mark. The Object panel's After Effects Comp section displays its Screen texture role and preserves it when you edit Enabled or its timing. Create the screen-texture link from After Effects as described above; that role is only available in the Object panel for an existing screen-texture link. An unknown role from another version is shown read-only and preserved by other edits.
Linked comps
Lists the compositions currently linked to this document.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Unlink | Remove the link between the selected composition and this document. |
| Reveal in AE | Asks the connected plug-in to show the linked composition. The status bar first says it is asking After Effects, then reports success only after confirmation. An unsupported plug-in, failure, disconnection or missing confirmation produces an explanation. The Object panel's Reveal in After Effects button does the same. |
| Double-click a row | Same as Reveal in AE for that composition. |
Linked comp data is saved with the VIZid document. The physical connection is re-established when After Effects reconnects.
Sync
| Control | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Follow AE time | Off | VIZid moves its playhead to match the current frame in After Effects. |
| Send my time to AE | Off | VIZid pushes its current playhead position to After Effects as it changes. |
| Let AE move my playhead | On | When After Effects asks for a frame VIZid has not cached, VIZid moves its own playhead to that frame to render it. Turn it off to keep your playhead where it is; uncached frames are then refused and After Effects shows an empty frame. |
| Serve final frames to AE | On | When After Effects renders at final quality, VIZid renders each requested frame at final quality and returns it. Turn it off to refuse final requests; After Effects then reports an error for those frames. Preview frames are served either way. |
| Bake AE comps into cached playback | On | When building the cached playback, VIZid also composites the linked AE comps into each cached frame. Changing this setting clears cached playback. With it on, any edit in After Effects refills the cached frames; with it off, the comp is composited live during playback and After Effects edits cost nothing. |
3D camera
VIZid's primary camera exchange direction is out to After Effects:
| Control | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Send camera + nulls to AE | — | Exports VIZid's active camera and up to 64 parts (selected parts, or all if none are selected) into After Effects as nulls, one keyframe per sample. Cameras with lens shift are refused rather than approximated — After Effects cameras have no shift. |
| Keep AE camera in sync | Off | Automatically re-sends the full camera bake to After Effects after each camera change. Off by default because a bake walks the whole render range; turn it on to keep the AE comp up to date without clicking Send manually. Turning it on sends the camera once immediately. |
| Follow AE camera | Off | VIZid's active camera follows the After Effects 3D camera (After Effects → VIZid direction). No undo entries are made while following; one undo step is recorded when you stop. |
Plate cache
When AE comps are linked, VIZid can cache the footage frames as plates (this applies to every linked comp: overlays, underlays and screen textures). The Plate cache section shows a read-out of cached data and provides:
- Drop plate cache — clears the locally cached plate data.
- Purge AE cache — asks the connected plug-in to purge its caches. VIZid reports completion only after confirmation, and explains unsupported, failed or timed-out requests. You can also open the VIZid Bridge panel in After Effects and choose More ▸ Purge all After Effects caches (also available in the panel's flyout menu).
When the document's linked comps cannot be matched to the After Effects project that is connected (for example, after you open the document on another machine or rename the AE project), the panel shows a note and a Rebind comps to this project button above the Plate cache section. Click it to re-establish the links. Otherwise the row is not shown.
Timeline bars
Linked AE compositions appear as bars in the Animation panel. Select a bar to show that composition's controls in the Object panel. A triangle above a horizontal rule identifies an overlay; a triangle below the rule identifies an underlay. A hatched bar means the composition is disabled and contributes no image.
| Gesture | Result |
|---|---|
| Drag the bar body | Moves the composition's start and end together, preserving its duration and source offset. |
| Drag the left edge | Trims the start and advances the source offset by the same amount, keeping the remaining content in place. |
| Drag the right edge | Trims the end without changing the source offset. |
| Hold Ctrl while dragging | Bypasses snapping. |
| Double-click the bar | Same as Reveal in AE for that composition. |
Edges cannot cross: the composition retains at least one frame. These edge gestures trim the visible range; they do not stretch the composition's playback speed. VIZid updates while you drag; After Effects receives the final placement when you release. Use Undo to restore the previous placement or trim.
Video material maps also appear in this band, labelled by material, slot and file, so you can see when each one plays. In the current build, dragging a video-map row does not change the video map, and double-clicking it does nothing.
Backplates
When a comp is linked in underlay mode, VIZid uses the comp's frame under the playhead as the backplate behind the 3D render. Which comp frame that is depends on where the bar sits on the timeline and how it is trimmed. VIZid requests frames from After Effects as the playhead moves and keeps received frames in the plate cache. With Follow AE time on, moving the time in After Effects moves VIZid's playhead and the backplate with it.
Reconnection
The After Effects plug-in sends a heartbeat and VIZid answers it. If VIZid hears nothing for about 15 seconds, it drops the connection and the Status line updates. When the plug-in reconnects, the link resumes.
Related
- Animation — sync controls affect how VIZid's timeline interacts with After Effects
- Cameras and composition — Follow AE camera imports a 3D camera track from After Effects
- Render a still image — VIZid serves rendered frames to After Effects
- Render Output — configure what VIZid renders before serving to After Effects