effectcraft/docs/effects-parity.md

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/main 470ea7a3 and 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	partly measured	Some colour effects are checked against After Effects 2026 renders of our own test projects: Tint, Tritone, Black & White, Exposure, Levels, Curves, Luma Key, Extract, 4-Color Gradient and Fill within 1–3/255, Brightness & Contrast up to 6.2/255 (Color Correction, Generate and Keying rows below); every other effect is unmeasured. 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); Brightness & Contrast (non-legacy) close to After Effects 2026 ramps, not identical (up to 6.2/255 off; the test allows 7/255) (negative settings invert the positive curves); Curves interpolates a natural cubic spline through its points, as After Effects 2026 (exact on its grey steps); 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	4-Color Gradient's Blend matches After Effects 2026 (weights 1 / (d² + Blend²)); Fill's Opacity is the filled layer's opacity, as After Effects 2026 renders it (with a Fill Mask it still mixes with the original, not measured); Fractal on the CPU (needs f64); #526 (Reset) and #536 (Write-on marks) are closed
Immersive Video	12	12	—
Keying	12	12	Luma Key and Extract key on Rec. 601 luminance, as After Effects 2026; 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	Luma Key matches After Effects 2026 on a grey ramp (hard cut, Tolerance only for Similar / Dissimilar)
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)
2026-10-19	minor	Brightness & Contrast: negative Brightness / Contrast are the inverse curves of the positive ones (Brightness −40: 20/255 → 6/255 off After Effects 2026; still up to 6.2/255 off, not the same pixels), CPU and GPU
2026-10-19	minor	Luma Key: Key Out Brighter / Darker cut hard at Threshold, measured against After Effects 2026 renders of a ramp (CPU and GPU)
2026-10-19	minor	Luma Key and Extract: Rec. 601 luminance (was Rec. 709), measured against After Effects 2026 (CPU and GPU)
2026-10-19	minor	4-Color Gradient: each point weighs 1 / (d² + Blend²), measured against After Effects 2026 at Blend 10 / 50 / 100 / 300 (CPU and GPU)
2026-10-19	minor	Fill without a mask: the layer becomes the fill colour at its alpha × Opacity (was a mix with the original), measured against After Effects 2026 (CPU and GPU)
2026-10-19	minor	Curves: natural cubic spline through the points, clamped to 0..1 (was a monotone spline), measured against After Effects 2026 (CPU and GPU); Lumetri's curves and Glow's Arbitrary Map keep the monotone spline
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; 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