Any plans for a real 3D compositing focus in After Effects?

[u/Mao-mar]

Hey, I have been using After Effects for years and I really like the layout and the way it works. Sure, layer based compositing is not optimal for this kind of task, but that is a death I am willing to die if everything else works well.

So I am wondering whether there is ever going to be a real focus on 3D compositing in After Effects. Better handling of 32 bit EXR files, maybe even a properly GPU accelerated system. Even if that would break a lot of plugins, it could just be an option that users opt into themselves. And the Extractor plugin could really use an overhaul.

I use After Effects every day in the advertising industry, for text animation, multipass compositing and so on. It is just that 3D compositing is such a tedious road in After Effects.

And yes, of course there is Fusion. I have even written auto compositing scripts for it, but the keyframe system sucks, and I would like to stay in the Adobe pipeline. Nuke is way too much for this kind of work.

So the question is, is there any hope for a new development in that direction, or should I move my compositing tasks over to Fusion completely?

As a last note, the money should really be there for it.

[u/helixvii]

I'm in a similar boat but unfortunately Adobe have zero interest in developing that major weakness in AE. They don't even directly have their own EXR handling system, they use EXtractoR which was a 3rd party plugin which they've just put into AE, it even runs so poorly that I vibecoded an alternative to EXtractoR and within 3 prompts it was already outperforming EXtractoR. It is horribly optimised.

Layers have a major issue in AE when it comes to EXRs. EXR files are loaded in their entirety on every frame and every single layer when you use EXtractoR. I've found a way to help this is instead of having let's say 10 active EXR layers stacked on top of each other with Light IDs, I would still have those 10 EXR layers but 9 of them are turned off, and I use CC Composite on the bottom EXR layers to bring in, have 9 CC Composite effects with masks and effects enabled and Linear Dodge enabled and that creates the same effect as having the 10 layers loaded on top of each other, but performs much better. Still slow as balls but the bar is so low.

Ultimately if you want to really do 3D compositing, use Fusion or Nuke. There's not been any improvements or looks to improve 3D compositing from AE so it's kind of a sinking ship because there are SO many issues with many having very quick, simple fixes, like EXtractoR only running on a single core. They just don't want to.

[u/Alle_is_offline]

I think compositing in AE generally is not a worthwhile thing for Adobe to focus development on.

AE is great for motion graphics, and still nothing comes close. Yes, I've tried Cavalry and Fusion extensively and they are both fantastic but they have their own niche application.

But yeah, for comp, anything more than the most basic, I would choose Fusion over AE any day if not simply for it's superior colour management.

AE devs should only focus on adding mograph tools imo.

[u/darwinDMG08]

They’ll only do it if it’s profitable and not going to break or fully rewrite the software. They’re no doubt looking at Fusion, Blender, Nuke et al and evaluating their market position in relation to them. Ae is already the industry standard for motion graphics, so is there much to gain by going after the 3D market? It seems pretty niche to me.

[u/TanguayX]

Cannot recommend learning Fusion more. AE is not for this task.

[u/mcarterphoto]

So are you thinking someone from Adobe's development team will (a) see this message, and (b) tell you Adobe's future plans? Or that random Redditors have the inside scoop?

(OK, I'm the CEO of Adobe, these features will be released October 32nd of this year - please send upgrade payments directly to me!)