After Effects 2026 in a 32 bpc project, Levels (Individual Controls) with RGB (0.1, 0.9, gamma 1.5, 0.05, 0.95), Red Gamma 0.8, Green Input White 0.8 and Blue Output Black 0.2 on grey steps 0..255 (case 904 E07): every step matches "each channel's controls, then the RGB controls" with nothing clipped (values below Input Black end below Output Black, above Input White above Output White). EffectCraft ran RGB first and clipped "Off for 32 bpc Color" (it could not see the bit depth): up to 27/255 off on 95 % of the grid; now 0 grid points off, max 1/255, CPU and GPU. EffectEnv gains float_depth (the renderer sets it for 32 bpc projects), so "Off for 32 bpc Color" clips in 8 / 16 bpc projects as before. Unclipped values below 0 take the gamma mirrored through 0. Plain Levels keeps its order (its channel controls were not measured); its clipping follows the same rule. EffectCraft's own projects default to 8 bpc and are unchanged. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Effects parity
Last reviewed: 2026-10-12 · Last updated: 2026-10-12 · Change: minor (effect colour labels; earlier change: parameter count and closed issue references re-audited against
upstream/main470ea7a3and the generated effects.md) · Target: Adobe After Effects 2026
Effects are the deepest single area of After Effects. This page separates the four questions that a single "306 of 306" hides: does each effect exist, does it run fast, does it look like After Effects', and does the preset library exist. The per-effect catalogue is the generated effects.md; the overall numbers are in target-app-parity.md.
Summary
| Question | Value | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Effects present | 306 registered, 3,017 parameters; all of After Effects' effects by name (298 at the M9.11 count) plus Obsolete and our own | Measured: registry, effects.md. After Effects 26.5's Plug-ins/Effects holds 306 .plugin bundles in 231 entries (one bundle can hold several effects, so this is a cross-check, not a match) |
| Parameter names, order, popups, units, defaults | aligned in M9.12 | Agent-checked against After Effects' documentation, not against a live dump |
| On the GPU | 280 (92%) | Measured: registry flags; GPU vs CPU agreement tested per effect |
| 32-bit float, no clamping | 306 | Measured: registry flags |
| Rendered output matches After Effects | unmeasured | Only Tint is checked against After Effects renders (four solids, within 1/255). effectcraft_effects::fidelity::compare_frames exists for the corpus (fidelity/README.md); simulation effects are pinned by golden hashes of our own output (M13.27) |
| Animation presets | 54 original presets (8 text-animator, 23 Transitions, 23 Backgrounds) against After Effects' 621 .ffx presets |
Measured: crates/engine/presets/text_animators.json, crates/engine/presets/transitions.json, crates/engine/presets/backgrounds.json; the After Effects Presets folder |
| 26.x additions | Curl Noise (26.3) present (#463 open); effect colour labels (26.5) present in Effect Controls only, not in the Timeline; the rebuilt Effect Controls (26.5) missing | Release notes |
Breadth ≈ 85% (presets weigh in; the effects themselves are ≈ 100%). Ready ≈ 40%: until a corpus compares renders, each effect is assumed to differ somewhere, and users keep confirming it.
By category (from effects.md)
| Category | Effects | On the GPU | Known differences or bugs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3D Channel | 8 | 8 | Cryptomatte selection can't be set in the UI and the GPU path is slow (#473; quoted names with commas fixed); multi-layer EXR decode shared (#474 open: f16 storage and cache sizing remain) |
| Audio | 13 | 0 | CPU by design (applied in the mixdown) |
| Blur & Sharpen | 16 | 15 | Gaussian Blur interaction and output to be measured first (fidelity/ae-2026-acceptance.md) |
| Channel | 13 | 13 | — |
| Color Correction | 40 | 40 | Tint, Tritone and Black & White (sliders and Tint) match After Effects 2026 renders (Rec. 601 luminance); Levels (Individual Controls) matches After Effects 2026 in 32 bpc (channel controls before RGB, "Off for 32 bpc Color" unclipped; plain Levels' channel order not measured); Tint has Swap Colors (#963); ACES 2.0 / OCIO 2.5 (26.5); Apply Color LUT (#514) and 32-bpc blending (#494) are closed |
| Distort | 39 | 35 | Liquify has no viewer brush; #303 (Mesh Warp drag) and #534 (CC Power Pin Unstretch) are closed |
| Expression Controls | 9 | 9 | — |
| Generate | 26 | 25 | Fractal on the CPU (needs f64); #526 (Reset) and #536 (Write-on marks) are closed |
| Immersive Video | 12 | 12 | — |
| Keying | 12 | 12 | Key Cleaner approximated; #533 (wire-removal Frame Offset) is closed |
| Matte | 6 | 4 | Mocha shape reads our documented JSON, not Mocha's format |
| Noise & Grain | 13 | 12 | Curl Noise (#463); Match Grain on the CPU |
| Obsolete | 9 | 9 | — |
| Paint | 1 | 0 | Tablet pressure not read (hardware-parity.md) |
| Perspective | 10 | 9 | Chromatic Aberrations pan/tilt crash (#580) |
| Simulation | 18 | 18 | Particle Playground lacks Particle Exploder, text particles, ephemeral mapper; CC Particle World camera fixed (#397) |
| Stylize | 25 | 25 | Motion Tile output size (#369) |
| Text | 2 | 2 | — |
| Time | 8 | 8 | #535 (Pixel Motion Blur, Vector Detail) is closed |
| Transition | 17 | 17 | — |
| Utility | 9 | 7 | — |
Third-party bundles in After Effects (Cineware, Mocha AE) are out of scope; Keylight is implemented under a generic name ("Key Light").
Estimate
≈ 70–130 h: a fidelity corpus case per effect at default and one non-default setting, compared with After Effects renders, and the fixes they turn up (40–80 h, most of it parallel, but every reference render needs After Effects on the owner's Mac); an original preset library covering After Effects' preset categories (Behaviors, Shapes, Synthetics, Text, Image effects remain; Backgrounds and Transitions exist) 15–35 h; the open effect bugs 10–20 h. Moving Fractal and the analysis effects to the GPU is performance, not parity.
Revision history
| Date | Change | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-19 | minor | Tritone uses Rec. 601 luminance, measured against After Effects 2026 renders of a red solid and a grey ramp (CPU and GPU) |
| 2026-10-19 | minor | Black & White's Tint keeps the gray's luminosity (Color blend), measured against After Effects 2026 renders (CPU and GPU) |
| 2026-10-19 | minor | Levels: "Off for 32 bpc Color" no longer clips in 32 bpc projects, unclipped values extrapolate below Output Black; Levels (Individual Controls) applies the channel controls before the RGB ones, measured against After Effects 2026 (CPU and GPU) |
| 2026-10-18 | minor | Tint uses Rec. 601 luminance weights, measured against After Effects 2026 renders of red, green, blue and grey solids (CPU and GPU) |
| 2026-10-18 | minor | Exposure converts to linear light with a pure 2.2 power curve, as measured in After Effects (Offset 0.0005 / 0.002 / 0.02 / 0.1 on black: 8 / 15 / 43 / 90), not the piecewise sRGB curve |
| 2026-10-18 | minor | Exposure converts to linear light with a pure 2.2 power curve, as measured in After Effects (Offset 0.0005 / 0.002 / 0.02 / 0.1 on black: 8 / 15 / 43 / 90), not the piecewise sRGB curve; its sliders take After Effects' ranges (Exposure −100..100, slider −4..4; Offset −2..2, slider −0.5..0.5; Gamma Correction 0.1..10) |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | Parameters 3,014 to 3,017 (effects.md); #303, #514, #526, #533–#536 marked closed instead of pending |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | Effect colour labels (26.5) added in Effect Controls |
| 2026-10-12 | minor | Tint's Swap Colors button and agent-drivable command (#963); undo/redo, instance targeting, animated layer-time edits and invalid-input tests |
| 2026-10-10 | major | First effects parity checklist |