Files
effectcraft/docs/effects-parity.md
T
vangel76andClaude Opus 5.5 e559a7ce9a Review: tie the colour kernels' literals to the CPU constants; visible GPU skip; B&C wording
WGSL cannot read Rust constants, so the Rec. 601 luma (Tint, Tritone, Luma Key /
Extract), Black & White's tint weights and Exposure's 2.2 power stay literals in the
kernels; they now name their Rust source (effects::LUMA_601, BW_TINT_LUMA,
EXPOSURE_LINEAR_GAMMA, newly exported) and the test shader_constants_match_the_cpu
(no GPU needed) fails if a literal drifts. gpu_tint_defaults_match_after_effects_greys
says "skipped: no GPU adapter" when it skips (EFFECTCRAFT_REQUIRE_GPU=1 still makes it
fail). docs/effects-parity.md: Brightness & Contrast is close to, not the same as,
After Effects (up to 6.2/255), and the summary row lists what is measured.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-19 18:38:41 +02:00

82 lines
8.7 KiB
Markdown
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters
This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.
# 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](effects.md); the overall numbers are in [target-app-parity.md](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](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](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](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](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](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 |