Adobe After Effects is a digital motion graphics and compositing software published byAdobe Systems, used in the post-production process of filmmaking and television production. Its main uses are the origination of 2D and 2.5D animation, visual effectscompositing and finishing (image adjustment, color correction etc.). After Effects can also be used as a basic non-linear editor and a media transcoder.
Plug-ins
After Effects has extensive
plug-in support; and a broad range of third party plug-ins are available. A variety of plug-in styles exist, such as particle systems for realistic effects for rain, snow, fire, etc.
With or without third-party plug-ins, After Effects can render 3D effects. Some of these 3D plug-ins use basic 2D layers from After Effects.
In addition to 3D effects, there are plug-ins for making video look like film or cartoons; simulating fire, smoke, or water; particle systems; slow motion; creating animated charts, graphs, and other data visualization; calculating the 3D movement of a camera in a 2D video shot; eliminating flicker, noise, or rigging lines; translating timelines from FCP or Avid; adding high-end color correction; and other workflow improvements and visual effects
Comparable products
Competitors to After Effects include The Foundry's
Nuke;
Autodesk's Combustion, Toxik, and Smoke;
Apple's Motion;
eyeon Fusion;
Sony Vegas Pro; Boris RED; and the entry-level FXHome. As far as
open-source alternatives go, only
CineFX exists as a dedicated package but its feature set suffers in comparison with that of After Effects.
[citation needed] While not dedicated to compositing, the open source software
Blender contains a limited node-based compositing feature capable of basic keying and blurring effects, among other thing
