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Dynamic Link and After Effects

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After Effects

After Effects

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  1. After Effects User Guide
  2. Beta releases
    1. Beta Program Overview
    2. After Effects Beta Home
  3. Getting started
    1. Get started with After Effects
    2. What's new in After Effects 
    3. Release Notes | After Effects
    4. After Effects system requirements
    5. Keyboard shortcuts in After Effects
    6. Supported File formats | After Effects
    7. Hardware recommendations
    8. After Effects for Apple silicon
    9. Planning and setup
  4. Workspaces
    1. General user interface items
    2. Get to know After Effects interface
    3. Workflows
    4. Workspaces, panels, and viewers
  5. Projects and compositions
    1. Projects
    2. Composition basics
    3. Precomposing, nesting, and pre-rendering
    4. View detailed performance information with the Composition Profiler
    5. CINEMA 4D Composition Renderer
  6. Importing footage
    1. Preparing and importing still images
    2. Importing from After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro
    3. Importing and interpreting video and audio
    4. Preparing and importing 3D image files
    5. Importing and interpreting footage items
    6. Working with footage items
    7. Detect edit points using Scene Edit Detection
    8. XMP metadata
  7. Text and Graphics
    1. Text
      1. Formatting characters and the Character panel
      2. Text effects
      3. Creating and editing text layers
      4. Formatting paragraphs and the Paragraph panel
      5. Extruding text and shape layers
      6. Animating text
      7. Examples and resources for text animation
      8. Live Text Templates
    2. Motion Graphics
      1. Work with Motion Graphics templates in After Effects
      2. Use expressions to create drop-down lists in Motion Graphics templates
      3. Work with Essential Properties to create Motion Graphics templates
      4. Replace images and videos in Motion Graphics templates and Essential Properties
      5. Animate faster and easier using the Properties panel
  8. Drawing, Painting, and Paths
    1. Overview of shape layers, paths, and vector graphics
    2. Paint tools: Brush, Clone Stamp, and Eraser
    3. Taper shape strokes
    4. Shape attributes, paint operations, and path operations for shape layers
    5. Use Offset Paths shape effect to alter shapes
    6. Creating shapes
    7. Create masks
    8. Remove objects from your videos with the Content-Aware Fill panel
    9. Roto Brush and Refine Matte
  9. Layers, Markers, and Camera
    1. Selecting and arranging layers
    2. Blending modes and layer styles
    3. 3D layers
    4. Layer properties
    5. Creating layers
    6. Managing layers
    7. Layer markers and composition markers
    8. Cameras, lights, and points of interest
  10. Animation, Keyframes, Motion Tracking, and Keying
    1. Animation
      1. Animation basics
      2. Animating with Puppet tools
      3. Managing and animating shape paths and masks
      4. Animating Sketch and Capture shapes using After Effects
      5. Assorted animation tools
      6. Work with Data-driven animation
    2. Keyframe
      1. Keyframe interpolation
      2. Setting, selecting, and deleting keyframes
      3. Editing, moving, and copying keyframes
    3. Motion tracking
      1. Tracking and stabilizing motion
      2. Face Tracking
      3. Mask Tracking
      4. Mask Reference
      5. Speed
      6. Time-stretching and time-remapping
      7. Timecode and time display units
    4. Keying
      1. Keying
      2. Keying effects
  11. Transparency and Compositing
    1. Compositing and transparency overview and resources
    2. Alpha channels and masks
    3. Track Mattes and Traveling Mattes
  12. Adjusting color
    1. Color basics
    2. Color management
    3. Color Correction effects
    4. OpenColorIO and ACES color management
  13. Effects and Animation Presets
    1. Effects and animation presets overview
    2. Effect list
    3. Effect Manager
    4. Simulation effects
    5. Stylize effects
    6. Audio effects
    7. Distort effects
    8. Perspective effects
    9. Channel effects
    10. Generate effects
    11. Time effects
    12. Transition effects
    13. The Rolling Shutter Repair effect
    14. Blur and Sharpen effects
    15. 3D Channel effects
    16. Utility effects
    17. Matte effects
    18. Noise and Grain effects
    19. Detail-preserving Upscale effect
    20. Obsolete effects
  14. Expressions and Automation
    1. Expressions
      1. Expression basics
      2. Understanding the expression language
      3. Using expression controls
      4. Syntax differences between the JavaScript and Legacy ExtendScript expression engines
      5. Editing expressions
      6. Expression errors
      7. Using the Expressions editor
      8. Use expressions to edit and access text properties
      9. Expression language reference
      10. Expression examples
    2. Automation
      1. Automation
      2. Scripts
  15. Immersive video, VR, and 3D
    1. Construct VR environments in After Effects
    2. Apply immersive video effects
    3. Compositing tools for VR/360 videos
    4. Advanced 3D Renderer
    5. Import and add 3D models to your composition
    6. Import 3D models from Creative Cloud Libraries
    7. Image-Based Lighting
    8. Extract and animate lights and cameras from 3D models
    9. Tracking 3D camera movement
    10. Cast and accept shadows
    11. Embedded 3D model animations
    12. Shadow Catcher
    13. 3D depth data extraction
    14. Modify materials properties of a 3D layer
    15. Work in 3D Design Space
    16. 3D Transform Gizmos
    17. Do more with 3D animation
    18. Preview changes to 3D designs real time with the Mercury 3D engine
    19. Add responsive design to your graphics 
  16. Views and Previews
    1. Previewing
    2. Video preview with Mercury Transmit
    3. Modifying and using views
  17. Rendering and Exporting
    1. Basics of rendering and exporting
    2. H.264 Encoding in After Effects
    3. Export an After Effects project as an Adobe Premiere Pro project
    4. Converting movies
    5. Multi-frame rendering
    6. Automated rendering and network rendering
    7. Rendering and exporting still images and still-image sequences
    8. Using the GoPro CineForm codec in After Effects
  18. Working with other applications
    1. Dynamic Link and After Effects
    2. Working with After Effects and other applications
      1. Export After Effects project as Premiere Pro project
    3. Sync Settings in After Effects
    4. Creative Cloud Libraries in After Effects
    5. Plug-ins
    6. Cinema 4D and Cineware
  19. Collaboration: Frame.io, and Team Projects
    1. Collaboration in Premiere Pro and After Effects
    2. Frame.io
      1. Install and activate Frame.io
      2. Use Frame.io with Premiere Pro and After Effects
      3. Frequently asked questions
    3. Team Projects
      1. Get Started with Team Projects
      2. Create a Team Project
      3. Collaborate with Team Projects
  20. Memory, storage, performance
    1. Memory and storage
    2. How After Effects handles low memory issues while previewing    
    3. Improve performance
    4. Preferences
    5. GPU and GPU driver requirements for After Effects
  21. Knowledge Base
    1. Known issues
    2. Fixed issues
    3. Frequently asked questions
    4. After Effects and macOS Ventura
    5. How After Effects handles low memory issues while previewing

In the past, sharing media assets among post-production applications required you to render and export your work from one application before importing it into another. This workflow was inefficient and time-consuming. If you wanted to change the original asset, you rendered and exported the asset again. Multiple rendered and exported versions of an asset consume disk space, and they can lead to file-management challenges.

Dynamic Link offers an alternative to this workflow. You can create dynamic links between After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro. Creating a dynamic link is as simple as importing any other type of asset. Dynamically linked assets appear with unique icons and label colors to help you identify them. Dynamic links are saved in projects generated by these applications.

Alert:

Before creating Dynamic Link, ensure you're using the same After Effects and Premiere Pro versions. Dynamic Link won't work if there is a mismatch in app versions. 

The same principles are valid if you use Dynamic Link with Character Animator.

You can create new After Effects compositions, and dynamically link to them from Adobe Premiere Pro. You can also dynamically link to existing After Effects compositions from Adobe Premiere Pro.

Create a composition from clips in Adobe Premiere Pro

You can replace selected clips in Adobe Premiere Pro with a dynamically linked After Effects composition based on those clips. The new composition inherits the sequence settings from Adobe Premiere Pro.

  1. Open Premiere Pro and select the clips you want to replace.

  2. Right-click any of the selected clips.

  3. Select Replace With After Effects Composition.

    After Effects opens (if it is not already open) and a new linked composition is created.

Create a dynamically linked composition from Adobe Premiere Pro

Creating a new dynamically linked composition from Adobe Premiere Pro launches After Effects. After Effects then creates a project and composition with the dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, and audio sample rate of the originating project. (If After Effects is already running, it creates a composition in the current project.) The new composition name is based on the Adobe Premiere Pro project name, followed by Linked Comp [x].

  1. In Adobe Premiere Pro, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > New After Effects Composition. In the 2014 version of Premiere Pro, you can import compositions using Media Browser. See the following sections in Premiere Pro for more information:

  2. If the After Effects Save As dialog box appears, enter a name and location for the After Effects project, and click Save.

    Note:

    When you create a dynamically linked After Effects composition, the composition duration is set to 30 seconds. To change the duration, select the composition in After Effects, choose Composition > Composition Settings. Click the Basic tab, and specify a new value for Duration.

For best results, match composition settings (such as dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, and frame rate) to the settings in the Adobe Premiere Pro.

  1. Do one of the following:

    • In Adobe Premiere Pro, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import After Effects Composition. Choose an After Effects project file (.aep), and then select one or more compositions.

    • In Adobe Premiere Pro, choose an After Effects project file and select Open. Then choose a composition in the displayed dialog box and select OK.

    • Drag one or more compositions from the After Effects Project panel to the Adobe Premiere Pro Project panel.

    • Drag an After Effects project file into the Premiere Pro Project panel. If the After Effects project file contains multiple compositions, the Import Composition dialog box opens.

Note:

You can link to a single After Effects composition multiple times in a single Adobe Premiere Pro project.

Modify a dynamically linked composition in After Effects

Use the Edit Original command in Adobe Premiere Pro to modify a linked After Effects composition. Once the composition is open in After Effects, you can change the composition without having to use the Edit Original command again.

  1. Select the After Effects composition in Adobe Premiere Pro, or choose a linked clip in the Timeline, and choose Edit > Edit Original.

  2. Change the composition in After Effects. Then, switch back to Adobe Premiere Pro to view your changes.

The changes made in After Effects appear in Adobe Premiere Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro stops using any preview files rendered for the clip before the changes.

Note:

You can change the name of the composition in After Effects after creating a dynamic link to it from Adobe Premiere Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro does not update the linked composition name in the Project panel. Adobe Premiere Pro does retain the dynamic link, however.

Delete a dynamically linked composition or clip

You can delete a linked composition from an Adobe Premiere Pro project at any time, even if the composition is used in a project.

You can delete linked clips from the timeline of an Adobe Premiere Pro sequence or timeline at any time.

  1. In Adobe Premiere Pro, select the linked composition or clip and press the Delete key.

Creating an Adobe Premiere Pro sequence from After Effects launches Adobe Premiere Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro then creates a project and sequence with the dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, and audio sample rate of the originating project. (If Adobe Premiere Pro is already running, it creates a sequence in the current project.)

  1. In After Effects, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > New Premiere Pro Sequence.

For best results, match sequence settings and project settings in Adobe Premiere Pro (such as dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, and frame rate) to those settings in the After Effects project.

Do one of the following:

  • In After Effects, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import Premiere Pro Sequence. Choose an Adobe Premiere Pro project, and then choose one or more sequences.

  • Drag one or more sequences from the Adobe Premiere Pro Project panel to the After Effects Project panel.

A linked clip can refer to a complex source composition. Actions you perform on the source composition require additional processing time depending on the complexity. After Effects applies the actions and make the final data available to Adobe Premiere Pro using the global performance cache and the persistent disk cache features. These features improve the After Effects performance by using the cached frames when Premiere Pro requests the frames.

To reduce playback delays, do one of the following:

  • Take the linked composition offline

  • Disable a linked clip to temporarily stop referencing a composition

  • Replace the dynamically linked composition with the rendered file using the Render and Replace feature in Premiere Pro (Clip > Render And Replace).  

If you commonly work with complex source compositions, increase your RAM or upgrade to a faster processor.

Export to Adobe Media Encoder

To encode After Effects compositions, you must add the item to the encoding queue in Adobe Media Encoder, and then select encoding presets or create your own custom settings for rendering. In After Effects, you can add a composition to Media Encoder queue using one of the following options:

  • File > Export > Add to Media Encoder Queue
  • Composition > Add to Media Encoder Queue

When you add a composition or project to Adobe Media Encoder queue, After Effects launches Adobe Media Encoder with the compositions listed in the queue.

The encoding process is explained in the following articles:

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