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); Radial Blur, Glow, Venetian Blinds, Radial Wipe, Fractal / Turbulent Noise and Transform are checked the same way (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	76 original presets (8 text-animator, 23 Transitions, 23 Backgrounds, 22 Behaviors) against After Effects' 621 .ffx presets	Measured: crates/engine/presets/text_animators.json, crates/engine/presets/transitions.json, crates/engine/presets/backgrounds.json, crates/engine/presets/behaviors.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	Radial Blur keeps the layer edges as After Effects 2026 (713 now pixel-identical); 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	Transform matches After Effects 2026 renders (skew after rotation, drawn outside the layer); 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	Fractal / Turbulent Noise lattice matches After Effects 2026 (Scale 100 = 66.7 px cells); the noise values themselves differ (seeds) and Soft Linear contrast is about 20 % lower than AE's; 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	Glow's halo (coverage of a dim layer's edge) and blur width match After Effects 2026 renders; glows above the threshold match too (each channel 8 × (value − threshold + 0.061), measured at three thresholds and two radii); Composite Original's labels are swapped against After Effects (EffectCraft's On Top adds the glow over the original, which After Effects calls Behind); Motion Tile output size (#369)
Text	2	2	—
Time	8	8	#535 (Pixel Motion Blur, Vector Detail) is closed
Transition	17	17	Venetian Blinds matches After Effects 2026 renders (band phase from the layer centre, Gaussian feather on both edges) except within ~6 px of the layer edge (up to 48/255); Radial Wipe's Feather matches After Effects 2026 (a Gaussian of σ = 0.4 × Feather pixels on both edges of the wedge)
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 (Shapes, Synthetics, Text, Image effects remain; Backgrounds, Behaviors 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	Glow (original colours): bright pass per channel, 8 × (value − threshold + 0.061), measured against After Effects 2026 (CPU and GPU)
2026-10-19	minor	Glow (colour channels): the glow covers the layer's blurred alpha, blur σ = 0.384 × radius, measured against After Effects 2026 renders (CPU and GPU)
2026-10-19	minor	Radial Blur repeats the edge instead of sampling transparency outside the layer, measured against After Effects 2026 renders (CPU; Radial Blur has no GPU path)
2026-10-19	minor	Venetian Blinds: stripes measured from the layer centre, both band edges Gaussian (σ = Feather / 2), measured against After Effects 2026 (CPU and GPU)
2026-10-19	minor	Radial Wipe: Feather is in pixels on both edges of the wiped wedge (was degrees on the moving edge only), measured against After Effects 2026 (CPU and GPU)
2026-10-19	minor	Fractal / Turbulent Noise: lattice cell = Scale × 2/3 px (Block noise every 66.7 px at Scale 100, as After Effects 2026), CPU and GPU
2026-10-19	minor	Transform: After Effects' skew order and output beyond the layer bounds, measured against After Effects 2026 renders of three cases (CPU and GPU)
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