after-effects

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

This skill should be used when the user asks anything about Adobe After Effects — to "write an After Effects expression", "make a wiggle / loopOut / inertial bounce", "rig a control with a slider / null", "build a MOGRT / Essential Graphics template", "export AE to Lottie or Media Encoder"; OR to "export from After Effects", "export with transparency / an alpha channel", "fix a black background on export", "choose ProRes vs H.264", "which codec / what bitrate for 1080p / 4K", "stop H.264 disappearing from the Render Queue"; OR when "After Effects is slow / laggy / crashing / froze", "RAM preview won't play in real time", "AE is using all my memory / render takes forever", "how do I speed up After Effects"; OR to "organize my After Effects project", "relink missing footage", "fix broken links after moving files", "set a folder structure / naming conventions", "batch rename layers", or "write an ExtendScript / .jsx script". Covers expressions & rigging, export recipes, performance triage, and project hygiene.

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Sourceiart-ai/motion-design-skills

Added on2026-08-12

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SKILL.md Content

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After Effects

After Effects is GUI software, so this skill delivers knowledge and ready-to-paste assets — expressions, rig setups, export checklists, diagnostic flows, naming schemes, and ExtendScript — rather than a rendered file. It is a hub covering four domains; route to the matching reference for depth and complete recipes.

Routing

If the user wants to…	Go to
Write/debug an expression, rig sliders & nulls, build a MOGRT, export to Lottie	`references/expressions.md` (deep cookbook in `references/expression-library.md` )
Choose a codec/container, export with alpha, fix a black background, set bitrate, recover H.264	`references/export-recipes.md`
Fix slow/laggy previews, slow renders, crashes, freezes, out-of-memory	`references/performance-triage.md`
Organize the project, relink missing footage, set naming/folders, batch-automate with .jsx	`references/project-hygiene.md`

The

.jsx

automation scripts live in

scripts/

.

Expressions & rigging

Expressions are JavaScript evaluated on the property they are pasted on;

value

is that property's value,

time

is comp time in seconds, and

index

,

thisLayer

,

thisComp

are in scope. An expression overrides keyframes unless it incorporates

value

.

js

wiggle(2, 30);            // 2 wiggles/sec, amplitude 30 (property units)
loopOut("cycle");         // repeat keyframed range forever; "pingpong" / "offset" / "continue"
seedRandom(index, true);  // stable-but-unique per layer (timeless) before random()/wiggle()
thisComp.layer("Lead").transform.position.valueAtTime(time - 0.2 * index);  // staggered echo

Inertial bounce (overshoot/settle after the last keyframe) and the full loop/wiggle/rigging set are in

references/expressions.md

.

Rig controllable motion: add a null with Slider / Checkbox / Color / Angle / Point control effects, then reference them and parent transforms to drive many layers from one.

js

ctrl = thisComp.layer("Controls");
amt  = ctrl.effect("Intensity")("Slider");   // Checkbox → 1/0, Color → [r,g,b,a]
value * amt;

Expose those controls via Window → Essential Graphics and Export Motion Graphics Template (.mogrt) for Premiere/AE editors.

Export recipes

Two engines, and choosing wrong is the root of most export confusion:

Render Queue (RQ) — masters/intermediates: ProRes, image sequences, lossless, alpha.
Adobe Media Encoder (AME) — delivery: H.264 MP4, H.265, social presets.

Since AE CC 2014/2015 the native H.264 output module was removed from the RQ — make MP4s in AME, not the RQ. H.264/MP4 cannot store alpha, so a transparent comp exported to H.264 always fills with black; that is the classic "black background" complaint and not a bug. For transparency use ProRes 4444, a PNG/TIFF sequence, or HEVC-alpha (Safari) + VP9/WebM-alpha (Chrome), with Output Module Channels: RGB + Alpha.

Quick targets: editor handoff → ProRes 422 HQ; master/grade or alpha → ProRes 4444; web/social/client → H.264 via AME, VBR 2-pass (~10–16 Mbps 1080p, ~35–45 Mbps 4K). Full matrix, social specs, and step-by-step alpha exports in

references/export-recipes.md

.

Performance triage

Work top-down by symptom, cheapest fix first, and stop when it clears. Most settings are in

Edit > Preferences

(Win) /

After Effects > Settings

(Mac).

Slow previews: Half/Third resolution → enable Multi-Frame Rendering → raise RAM allocation (leave ~6 GB for OS) → Adaptive fast previews → purge cache → Disk Cache on SSD/NVMe → solo heavy layers/effects → HW-accelerated decode → proxy heavy comps.
Slow renders: confirm MFR on → RQ for masters / AME for delivery → HW decode H.264 → pre-render slow precomps → cheaper effects → transcode long-GOP to ProRes.
Crashes/freezes: purge + empty disk cache → update NVIDIA Studio (not Game-Ready) drivers → reset prefs (
```
Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+Shift
```
on launch) → pull third-party plugins → free disk space → disable MFR if MFR-specific → roll back AE after a bad update.

MFR needs several GB RAM per active core. Ordered flows, exact preference paths, and the proxy workflow are in

references/performance-triage.md

.

Project hygiene

Keep projects organized, portable, and automatable.

Folders: numeric-prefixed bins (
```
01_Comps
```
,
```
02_Precomps
```
,
```
03_Footage
```
, …,
```
99_Old
```
) for stable sort order.
Naming:
```
PROJECT_section_descriptor_v01
```
; precomps
```
PRE_
```
; rename solids/nulls to their role (
```
CTRL_master
```
); no spaces/special chars for farm/cross-OS safety.
Broken links: AE references footage by path, so moving files breaks links. Double-click a missing item → Replace Footage > File and AE relinks the whole folder at once; enumerate with
```
File > Dependencies > Find Missing Footage
```
. Always hand off projects via
File > Dependencies > Collect Files
, never a bare
```
.aep
```
.

ExtendScript (.jsx): wrap batches in

app.beginUndoGroup(...) / app.endUndoGroup()

; apply effects by matchName (e.g.

"ADBE Gaussian Blur 2"

), not the display name. Ready scripts:

scripts/batch-rename.jsx

,

scripts/sequential-offset.jsx

,

scripts/apply-effect-to-layers.jsx

.

Full naming scheme, label-color system, relink/Collect-Files/Reduce workflows, and scripting setup in

references/project-hygiene.md

.

Reference files

```
references/expressions.md
```
— expressions, rigging, MOGRT, Lottie/Media Encoder basics.
```
references/expression-library.md
```
— deeper expression cookbook: tuned inertial bounce, all loop variants, advanced wiggle, valueAtTime echoes, seedRandom grids, full rigging + coordinate spaces, MOGRT and Lottie/Bodymovin steps, Media Encoder presets.
```
references/export-recipes.md
```
— full codec/alpha/bitrate matrix, per-platform social specs, step-by-step transparency exports, AME preset cautions.
```
references/performance-triage.md
```
— ordered preview/render/crash flows, preference paths and values, MFR/GPU/disk-cache tuning, pre-render & proxy workflow.
```
references/project-hygiene.md
```
— folder template, naming and label systems, relink/Collect Files/Reduce details, scripting setup.

scripts/batch-rename.jsx

,

scripts/sequential-offset.jsx

,

scripts/apply-effect-to-layers.jsx

— ExtendScript automations. </content>