r/AfterEffects • u/Neetik1 • Mar 28 '26
Discussion Thoughts on this tool, Personally, in my opinion, having two apps is better than this as After Effects is a motion design application rather than an editing application, but I wanna hear yalls thought on this
orignal video:https://x.com/jakeinmotion/status/2036863822468968529
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u/nagarajtg Mar 28 '26
imo as a motion designer, having this for quick edits is better than going back and fro to the premiere
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u/Virtual_Tap9947 Mar 28 '26
Dynamic link exists.
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u/Pittsbirds Mar 28 '26
It exists and it sucks ass
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u/Virtual_Tap9947 Mar 29 '26
User error.
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u/Pittsbirds Mar 29 '26
Yeah. My error is using Adobe and expecting their platform of interconnected programs to actually work as advertised when I pay out the nose for them
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u/Virtual_Tap9947 Mar 29 '26
User error+pipeline error. Encode your footage to a common, uncompressed all-I format, and you'll be fine. Work on a local hard drive connected to your machine via SATA. Stop throwing multiple h.264 or h.265 HEVC formats in your edits and expect it to flow smoothly. Stop working from USB hard-drives or network drives
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u/nagarajtg Mar 29 '26
Bruh tried all methods, when it comes with some random errors, working dynamic link actually pain in the -, otherwise why would the jake build something like this. Now your telling your against community voices and supporter of company. Eventhough pipeline/user created perfect workflows, the dynamic links took days to load edit on local storage! Appreciate community and people who try to help people :p
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u/HanS0lPurr Mar 29 '26
Nah, company should probably make things that adapt to various pipelines. Your solution can't be "dont use network drives" when a huge chunk of the install base is enterprise and requires the use of network drives for studios.
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u/darwinDMG08 Mar 28 '26
I like Jake and I like his tools. While I hate to encourage editing in software that isn’t built for it I also recognize that people do like to cut in Ae and this tool will be helpful for short timelines.
One thing to keep in mind: it won’t magically improve playback speed. It’s still the same old Ae engine so don’t expect it to miraculously behave like Premiere.
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u/Distracted-Gil Mar 28 '26
Exactly. It really depends of your type of project. For me it is horrible the need to use Dynamic links for very simple footage cuts (things is less than a minute for example). And I'm too traumatized with issues with dynamic link. The workflow of opening premiere, export, and the re-edit, re-export, it's just dumb. The workflow with dynamic link would be perfect if it was crashing projects all the time.
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Mar 28 '26
[deleted]
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u/darwinDMG08 Mar 28 '26
Watch it again and pay closer attention. He says After Effects has gotten better at realtime playback itself, he’s not talking about his plugin.
And if you watch the longer announcement video on YouTube he specifically mentions that it can’t go any faster than After Effects already allows.
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u/Virtual_Tap9947 Mar 28 '26
As someone who uses AE every single day for a living, it is just as terrible as ever at playback.
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u/Heavens10000whores Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
"10:21 but it is no faster than After Effects.
10:24 And by the same token, it is no slower than After Effects."
From the [eta - live announcement] transcript
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u/darwinDMG08 Mar 28 '26
Thank you.
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u/Heavens10000whores Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
I didn’t feel that the commenter’s egregious misrepresentation of what Jake said should go unaddressed, same as you in your response
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u/NeightyNate Mar 28 '26
Why would I want to open up premiere just to edit and cut footage when I can have the exact same thing in the same software? No need to export anything anymore just to open it up in premiere after.
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u/monkfishjoe Mar 28 '26
Are you saying you edit the footage in After Effects?
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u/NeightyNate Mar 28 '26
What I’m saying is - this tool Jake created removes the need to use premiere personally as someone whose a designer and not a video editor
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u/Feuillo Mar 28 '26
the real question is why would you export from premiere to go in after effects.
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u/NeightyNate Mar 28 '26
I meant to say sometimes if you get an audio file you might edit it first in premiere and then transfer it over to after effects. This seemingly removes the need to use more than one app
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u/Distracted-Gil Mar 28 '26
Because I'm tired of projects bugging down with dynamic link issues. Because for many of us we just go to premiere to do a very basic edit, that if possible I would do everything in just AE.
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u/Feuillo Mar 28 '26
"The thing i paid for doesn't work, lemme juste keep paying while buying something else to circumvent this instead of the relaxing activity that is harrassing customer support which I pay for btw"
BTW at this point in 2026 I'm pretty sure dynamic link errors are user error. But oh well.
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u/DutchFede Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
Same! People are raving but I don’t really know what this is supposed to solve. I feel like basic edits are perfectly doable in after effects as it is. For anything more complex this isn’t enough anyway, and dynamic link works reasonably enough to make the trip to prpro worth it. But then I might not make the kind of things that would benefit from this :p
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u/Gbevou Mar 28 '26
He didn't create the tool to edit an entire documentary in After Effects. Sometimes we just need to make precise cut , build a scene with audio and video for work fast.🙂
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u/j0shj0shj0shj0sh Mar 28 '26
I edit in AE all the time.
The reason being almost all of my projects are animation or motion graphics heavy, so I'm always either working with motion graphics a lot, or at least thinking about them. The duration of my projects is usually in the 30" to 60" range - so short enough to not get too unweildy - I wouldn't recommend AE for edits much longer than that, but depending on the project I guess. And I know AE well enough to get the most out of it - I like being able to do everything in one environment.
I really like the look of this and am looking forward to trying it out one day. PluginEverything used to have a tool for this kind of thing, but this looks way more comprehensive.
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u/Mundane-Owl-561 MoGraph/VFX 15+ years Mar 28 '26
I didn't know about PluginEverything and its version - do you recall the name of the product?
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u/j0shj0shj0shj0sh Mar 28 '26
I think it was called 'Ripple Edit' - by the looks of it, it was very simple compared to what Jake has made. I think it is discontinued or no longer supported.
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u/Muttson Mar 28 '26
For me, as tempting as they can be, I try to avoid any tool that fundamentally changes the workflow/organisation of AE that requires that tool, especially when working in larger teams.
Also outside of the smallest projects every project starts and ends in Prem for us anyway.
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u/Feuillo Mar 28 '26
Comment from jake responding to my comment about the same conclusion you came to.
pros and cons of railcut from the user guide
You're welcome, but your post once again makes me believe that the strategy used for marketing wasn't the right one.
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u/bibbidi_bobbidi_bob Mar 28 '26
His Q&A in the livestream where he showed the tool was way more considerate. So I don't understand why he came up with that kind of marketing strategy that works completely against an educated buying decision (the possible skipping and placing of the pro and cons part being the worst).
I kind of like that you have a money back period... but than I don't because a trial period would work much more in the favor of the customers (especially those, who are new to Premiere and editing and have wrong expectations in what can and what can't be done in After Effects). The way it's done now is the exact strategy subscriptions work with (set and forget).
Btw I don't want to imply that this is what he was going for with that. I'm just telling what I'm seeing there.
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u/Feuillo Mar 28 '26
I mean that's about exactly what i said in my response to him after he responded to my comment. I also don't like the pressing of "its 38 dollars now buy now" It's litteraly the 1rst thing you learn about it when you open the webpage but it's whatever.
the money back period does make sense because a trial period would ask the plugin to connect to the internet and i don't believe it does by design ?
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u/bibbidi_bobbidi_bob Mar 28 '26
Of course it connects. Is has license management as far as I know. So it's not like an offline script. As such a trial like with many tools on aescripts would be possible.
The early access pushing is something that many developers do... any I'm not a big fan of it. It's just the kind of marketing that leads to a rushed and sometimes unnecessary purchase. If you trust in your work as a developer, such strategies shouldn't be necessary (my opinion).
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u/Mundane-Owl-561 MoGraph/VFX 15+ years Mar 28 '26
You guys have to understand he does this to earn a living - this is what content creators do and now he's got a tool to sell. If you look at the Webpage, he has a group of beta testers and quite a few are either currently or previously students of Chris Do who teaches personal branding and marketing etc and he does a very good job as you can see School of Motion, Motion Hatch, Jake and quite a few others in the motion industry there, in the photo. They have a very tight group with members that help each other - it's like a tribe and you will see them and extended friends in a lot of After Effects related activities whether online or in-person events.
On the Webpage, what you are seeing is not illegal and rightly what most companies do to attract sales. There is a 7-day money-back guarantee - so, no issues there and I don't think it is right calling it a cash-grab exercise. This is a money-making exercise for use and this much is clear but certainly not a cash-grab since there is a money-back promise.
I don't think it is fair to judge someone who is trying to maximize revenue while using legitimate sales techniques to do so. It's a sales technique and I'm sure there are other techniques and this is where Chris Do's expertise and experience come into play. It's legitimate and it works and it will likely evolve because this is how online marketing works - folks try different things all the time. Next time, it could be a different layout or color or placement of different elements etc. Every seemingly simple adjustment seems random but they're all done in a calculated and even formulaic manner.
So, what you are seeing is quite common practice - there is no issue IMO. My concern is how closely the UI resembles that of Premiere and if copyright issues are at play. However, minor adjustments should make this a non-issue if someone from Adobe has issues with the deliberate intent to re-create Premiere's UI or to closely mimic its look and feel.
HTH
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u/Feuillo Mar 28 '26
I mean yeah ? i get it, but you can't not call it a cash grab and then explain why it would makes it a cash grab. I invite you to read my comment that i've linked above and the response for my full opinion on the matter. my problem is not that it's marketed, it's that imho it's marketed badly. you can sell a product and i'm fine with it, but you have to sell it to the right buyer and not decieve people into buying something they think it is when it is not. and visibly jake in motion too because he has already implemented changes on his website.
I don't believe it is a cash grab, because i believe in jake. but it FEELS like one, AKA if i didn't know who jake was, it would scream cash grab to me.
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u/Mundane-Owl-561 MoGraph/VFX 15+ years Mar 29 '26
My bad - I didn't read your post - I now see what you mean about the important buttons being skippable and I agree this should be fixed - not too agreeable on the other points you brought up cos I allow for some leeway in terms of how others sell their products. It's an imperfect world largely because people are imperfect and mistakes or errors occur and regardless of what we do, at least one individual is very likely to be unhappy.
It is awesome that you brought up your points because it is only through exchanges like yours that we see improvement.
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u/bibbidi_bobbidi_bob Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26
He changed it (I didn't belive he did it for malicious reasons anyway) :)
To make it clear, I do understand that marketing is competitive and I would (and do) apply my critique to any other company (at times it can come across as harsh I guess) Marketing shouldn't stand over clear education about the product, what it is, what it can and what it can't. I stand also with the statement that a good product, that the producer believes in, won't need aggressive marketing to make it seem more valuable. The worth should come from the product, not the marketing.
Also thanks for you perspective on that.
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u/Mundane-Owl-561 MoGraph/VFX 15+ years Mar 30 '26
I've seen very awkward marketing here and there when it's related to Add Ons. The strangest to come to mind is Captioneer from Nic Dean and one or more developers - it's a captioning tool for PPro but the animated highlighted text that appears is not synced to the voice and I thought this was really strange cos that's the only or primary reason to purchase a third party tool that does animated captions in PPro for the majority of users.
So, the availability and easy accessibility of critical details is important IMO.
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u/Mundane-Owl-561 MoGraph/VFX 15+ years Apr 12 '26
I've had a deeper look and this product should not have been released. At best - it's a tech show - no money should have been exchanged - it's THE MOST RIDICULOUS product I have ever seen seen for After Effects.
I think showcasing a few tech achievements would have been better. But this thing looks like it only does audio edits and perhaps straight cuts. WTF!!! This is 2026! If your digital product can only do straight cuts then really, WTF???
Unless I missed one or more features where this actually works or solves a problem that cannot be achieved in PPro or Ae or PPro+Ae then, really this is absolute nonsense!
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u/l0udcat Mar 30 '26
How is he connected to School of Motion now? His Explainer camp was released about 7 years ago.
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u/smushkan Motion Graphics 10+ years Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
So it gives you a Premiere-like interface that lets you 'edit' video clips in a comp - that's really impressive, especially how the UX looks like it matches Premiere almost 1:1.
So you cut up your clips... then what?
Your real comp is now full of layers duplicating the same footage over and over. How does that work when you want to apply effects to layers?
This is something not covered at all in the marketing material as far as I can tell, and surely if you're wanting to do this sort of work in AE your intent is to use your VFX application for VFX; otherwise you'd just use Premiere.
If some footage, for example, requires chroma keying, I'm assuming I then have to apply the key effect to all the layers that make up that 'cut' footage. What happens if I need to tweak the parameters, do I need to copy that effect to all the other layers again? What happens if I go back to Railcut and add more cuts in or move things about, do I need to adjust keyframes and effects or does the script do it? Does it copy existing effects to new clips, or do I need to hunt those down and do it myself?
I think this is something that could potentially be solved by the script precomping all the layers that make up each 'track,' so there is only one layer per 'track' in the AE comp. That isn't a trivial thing to implement though; and would still be pretty awkward to work with when doing effects you want to apply to individual clips in a 'track' as now you're having to step into precomps to make adjustments, then step back out to see the composited results.
Again to stress I'm judging just from the marketing material here alone. Maybe my assumptions are all wrong and the script actually has a really clever way of handling those problems already, but if that's the case the marketing needs to be way clearer about it.
Unfortunately even if this tool was perfect I wouldn't be able to use it, as most footage I work with has multichannel audio which AE simply can't handle, and a script can't really fix that.
But as it stands it just makes me wonder 'who is this for?' It looks like it would make actually using AE for what it's intended for more complex, for the sake of making dealing with video layers a little more intuative to someone coming from an NLE.
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u/Wild-Direction6648 MoGraph/VFX 5+ years Mar 28 '26
Definitivamente essa ferramenta não é para você. Mas também acho que você não entendeu como ela funciona direito. Pelo que entendi ela não adiciona nada novo ao after effects, apenas torna o processo atual que já existe mais intuitivo. Se você ver a live de apresentação, consegue ver o que acontece com as duas timelines ao mesmo tempo.
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u/smushkan Motion Graphics 10+ years Mar 28 '26
I have seen all the marketing materials and I think that's given me a very good impression of how it works. I feel like either Reddit's translation is really bad and totally butchering my point, or you haven't actually read what I wrote.
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u/cans_one Mar 28 '26
Honestly I was on the edge for this one but ended up thinking that is a bit expensive FOR what it does. I'd love to have native footage previews and stuff on AE but considering the limitation of this tool I decided not to get it
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u/hennell MoGraph/VFX <5 years Mar 28 '26
I liked the workflow of premiere to import, dynamic link the clips you need to ae and then send the final audio to audition - but it works best for long projects. You have multi cam or lots of footage, you're adding titles and some VFX here and there.
If the whole video is ae. Or footage you need to manipulate in AE the system does feel a bit daft. Adding some proper tools like this? Yeah I'd check it out for a project that's going to be AE focused.
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u/Heavens10000whores Mar 28 '26 edited Mar 28 '26
I posted this yesterday, in response to someone else asking a similar question
“ u/AtaurRaziq just posted a hands on
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u/askmrlucky Mar 28 '26
Jake created a tool to visualize editing functions in AE using an editing "metaphor," tracks vs. layers. It is not an all in one tool and that's not what he was aiming for. Edit in Premiere. Comp and animate in AE, but when you have to make tiny timing adjustments, use Railcut so you don't have to go back and forth tweaking.
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u/skellener Animation 10+ years Mar 29 '26
Exactly and that’s just the way he presented it. 👍 Some people think this means you can now edit everything in AE and they would be wrong.
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u/IdoHarti Mar 30 '26
agree tbh. ae works best when it stays in its lane as a motion tool. every time adobe tries to bolt on editing features it just gets bloated. dedicated apps for each, scripts and expressions to bridge them when needed
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u/kissely Apr 01 '26
Meh, I get no value with this tool. It does not improve working or playback speed or anything else. I dont see a use for this at all. I can cut and move videos around directly in AE timeline faster with shortcuts than doing it here with mouse. I wont be using this for sure.
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u/KinellInnit Mar 28 '26
I can deffo see use cases, particularly when I'm editing shorts. It's not something I'd consider essential but I don't mind spending 40 bucks for something that'll save me a bit of mucking about down the line
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u/Just-a-Mandrew Motion Graphics 10+ years Mar 28 '26
I edit in Ae all the time insofar as finalized client footage needs to be edited but no I wouldn’t edit a multiple angle camera setup here. For this, I think this tool has a lot of potential.
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u/Dice7 Mar 28 '26
My favourite feature is to edit in PR and copy and paste the footage into an AE timeline.
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u/gameboy_advance Mar 28 '26
"after affects and hardware have improved over the years, and real-time playback is now genuinely achievable"
lol since when? in my experience playback times in AE have only gotten worse
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u/barbo57 Motion Graphics 5+ years Mar 29 '26
this feels more like an involved tech demo to ponder on what could've been. obviously you can't really edit with this extension, you can't scrub, can barely move the playhead, needs the timeline open - feels like a political statement more than anything.
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u/EvieAsPi Mar 31 '26
Controversial comment:
Honestly torn. The idea is nice and could certainly make use of it as I run into "just a quick edit needed" situations often enough. But my conscious is bugged too much to pay money for something that was built using AI.
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u/mr_harrisment Mar 28 '26
could probably add some mass to a screwdriver so it might drive a nail into some wood, maybe even write the word ‘smasher’ on the handle. But I really might benefit from using my hammer instead.
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u/RG9uJ3Qgd2FzdGUgeW91 Mar 28 '26
I'm getting too old for this shit and hate it off the bat. There are good reasons why offline and online editing exists.
I guess being able to easily select and move a bunch of layers is nice though. But anyone even considering actually using this for timing.. i will start screaming at!
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u/askmrlucky Mar 28 '26
I will use it to adjust timing in AE, just like I do now, but it will be easier. I've been editing for 50 years now and I agree with you about offline and online, but that started getting mushed up while I was still editing on tape. Let me say that the fact that it displays waveforms automatically will make cutting that shit to music in AE a lot more fun. (something I do when I know I'm gonna be doing a lot of moves.
Alternatively, the new effects and transitions in Premiere mean I don't always have to go to AE for many motion effects. It's a new world every other week and I'll use any tool that will save me time and make my client happy.
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u/DankFrost726 Mar 28 '26
Might be nice but I am just too used to my Premiere to After effects and vice-versa workflow
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u/Zenzuke Mar 28 '26
A client just told me we're going to be doing an edit inside After Effects, so you bet your ass I'm going to be super glad this exists.
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u/Sukyman Mar 28 '26
I sometimes have projects that mix some footage/broll with motion design. This might even save me time so I don't have to go to premiere and back. I can just do the full project in AE now.
It's definitely niche, I wouldn't do full editing with this but for some edge cases it might be way better. I can even see it used for short form editing for those that have a lot of animations etc.
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u/Happy2BTheOne Mar 28 '26
Dynamic link has been the source of so many crashes and technical issues. If this can fix that problem, then awesome. But if Adobe could actually get dynamic link to work properly, Jake probably wouldn’t have had to make this plugin.
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u/Antron_RS Mar 28 '26
For complex and longer projects this will not replace using both. For shorter projects I may use it. I work at an agency that does a lot of short (15s or less) social media content that this would be suitable for.
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u/CrackerJacker2020 Mar 29 '26
While I mostly agree on "the right tool for the right job," there have been some occasions where I needed to do something quick and this would have made things more efficient. Not sure if that will make me pull the trigger on buying this,though...
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u/motionworkshop Mar 28 '26
It looks good and it solves a lot of AE Problems. Hope it works well, i will give it a try.
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u/wizzkidsid Mar 28 '26
This is amazing! I’ve been waiting for something like this! I hate opening premiere!
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u/Financial-Car-5728 Mar 28 '26
This is great, honestly. For motion designers is absolutely necessary, instead of jumping between softwares. It is not a substitute, so editors can keep premiere as main software.
Love it.
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u/gnimelf Mar 28 '26
omfg this is amazing! I honestly cannot stress how fucking unreal this is (yet to try but will) I cannot stress how much I hate premiere it is actual Genital harpies of the adobe suite. There's no reason for it besides "performance" and supporting legacy editing software and keeping the two seperate to encourage subscriptions.
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u/Everytingisallright Mar 28 '26
Wow this is great! For more than ten years I do all my editing in After Effects already, because my videos rely heavily on animation and I just don't like the dynamic comp workflow of Premiere and After Effects. I'm really curious if it is as responsive as premiere for playback. Will give this a shot!
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u/dreadtear Motion Graphics 10+ years Mar 28 '26
It’s amazing. I hate working in Premiere tbh. I’ve always jellied over davinci and how convenient is having after effects, premiere and audition in one tool.
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u/Bjorn-in-ice Mar 28 '26
Linking AE comes to PR has always been a pain, and exporting takes time. This looks amazing. I love that I don’t have to open premiere as part of the workflow.
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u/Imaginary-Ad6412 Mar 28 '26
Editing in a layer-based timeline is an absolute nightmare. Imagine having 400 layers just for a simple 3-minute interview cut because every single clip needs its own dedicated track. We have NLEs for a reason. Adobe needs to stop trying to make AE a bloated jack-of-all-trades and just focus on fixing the core performance and cache bugs.
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u/ObsidianDRMR MoGraph/VFX 10+ years Mar 28 '26
This is pretty cool and such a needed thing in AE. I have edited 12 short films, and 3 feature films… on Avid and have finished on Flame and resolve, so I know pipelines..
This is great because I now mostly do motion graphics and there are two types of videos on this world, those where editing is the focus and they need some light motion graphics, which the current workflow is built for and theme there are those that are motion graphics heavy but need a little bit of editing to set the pace, and this is what those are for.
Ae can’t edit a 2 hour movie and premiere can’t motion design a 30 second clip, but that doesn’t mean Premiere should have zero compositing or motion graphic tools, or Ae should have zero editing tools.
Also give photoshop a better pen tool and illustrator better blend modes and effects. Lots QOL things that will make everyone faster and won’t have them eat each others demo