Wishlist: Folders in AE Timeline | The Motion League

Wishlist: Folders in AE Timeline

Posted by in Quickies | 15 comments

A conversation sparked today on Twitter about how After Effects could better handle organization in the timeline. The idea of folders comes up frequently, but seems to consistently be struck down as it would introduce a lot of complexity into the render order. But what if we don’t look at folders in the timeline as additional layers, but simply organizational tools in the UI that don’t affect the render order at all?

How folders in the AE timeline might look.

In this mockup, a folder is just a collapsable element to easily group sets of adjacent layers in the timeline only. They could be hidden, soloed, or locked, but have no transform capabilities, nor can they have effects or transparency modes applied to them. Think of it as a much more granular shy switch.

Now, this might not fit the use case for everyone’s timeline management, but better control over timeline organization seems to be something many are asking for.

What would you like to see change in After Effect’s timeline, or the application as a whole?

Posted on Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

Tagged , , , .

  • http://twitter.com/MDSienzant Matthew Sienzant

    I caught this discussion on Twitter and didn’t have the chance to comment. Until seeing this mock up, I couldn’t visualize how or why the folders might be useful. Maybe there’s a way that Adobe could get the best of both worlds? Keep a nested comp as a comp… but have the ability to twirl it down to be viewable as a folder?

    I think if I could twirl open to see contents when I choose but retain the comp mentality would be perfect for me. Especially when needing to pick-whip from one nested comp to the parent comp. I (personally) would rather see them implemented as a combination of what they are and your mock up above over a straight folder for organization. But to each his own :)

    • http://blog.conigs.com conigs

      Actually, that way would be interesting too. If instead of an entirely new timeline organization, you could simply twirl open precomps to access their layers from within the parent comp. It could use existing render order and by enabling “collapse transformations,” you would essentially have nesting similar to Cinema 4D and other 3D applications.

      I guess there would be the potential for user confusion, and multiple nests might get complicated, but it seems possible. Maybe in CS6?

  • http://twitter.com/SFBurning Dylan Winter

    This is a great idea. Having only one global hide switch to manage upwards of a hundred layers is inefficient, and consolidating layers in a precomp isn’t always feasible.

  • Alex

    I love this idea. It would be awesome to be able to pre comp and easily keep track of all my layers and pre comp layers and what not. Get on this now adobe. Help us be more efficient in our work flows.

  • http://twitter.com/Oddernod Ryan Summers

    Tie this idea into an enhanced and native version of the Zorro The Layer Tagger script and you’re strolling into Cinema 4D territory!

  • http://twitter.com/dan_hin Dan Lucyszyn-Hinton

    This is a great idea. It works perfectly well in Flash (one of the few things that really does, IMO) and I can’t see how it would be costly to implement. A workround I’ve used in the past is to colour code layers and sandwich them with an appropriately named null object… but there shouldn’t be any need to do this.

    • Anonymous

      Could you please explain further this method? What do you mean with “sandwich them with an appropriately named null object” ? How can I use a null to group together other layers?

    • Dan Lucyszyn-Hinton

      @A3user:disqus add a couple of nulls and parent the layers to the top one. Change the colour of all the layers (the colour they are in the actual timeline, not in the comp) and nulls to a single colour and name the nulls something appropriate. You could even shy the layers between the nulls.

  • JonathanWinbush

    I’ve been asking adobe for this for years, even went to the mgla cs3 unveiling to ask some adobe guys in person why it was never added and they said just use precomps. I’m like its not really the same and they kinda shrugged their shoulders.

  • http://zadie.com ZADIE

     Very good idea. They don’t need to be strictly folders. How about “Dynamic Pre-comps”? The ability to reveal the contents of a precomp from within the same timeline would be invaluable. It would help with organization, and save from constantly locking and unlocking panels. 

  • http://twitter.com/WvdKamp Wouter van der Kamp

    A while ago I had a project for a client in After Effects, containing +/- 500 layers where every 100 or so were on a certain position on the X axis. Folders would’ve saved me a lot of scrolling and frustration then =/

  • http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva Todd Kopriva

    I think that your characterization that this idea is “consistently struck down” is mistaken. If there’s a single feature that we most often talk about trying to implement, it’s this. We want to do it right, and not introduce a UI complexity that doesn’t deliver what people expect.

    By the way, posts like this aren’t the best way to get us to see and consider things. I just happened to stumble across this.

    You can submit a feature request here: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish

    How to give feedback on After Effects: http://bit.ly/93d6NF

    • http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva Todd Kopriva

      By the way, this is the best current solution that I know of:

      http://aescripts.com/zorro-the-layer-tagger/

    • http://blog.conigs.com conigs

      Todd,
      Thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate the open dialogue Adobe has with it’s users.

      This post was meant less to be an official feature request, and more as a sketch of an idea that sparked through a Twitter conversation.

      I did notice that Adobe was taking feedback & requests for UI this last week, I just haven’t had the time to follow through.

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  • quinn richardson

    wow… just discovered this page a year late. I have however been sending in the same request for like, 4 years. Great to see others are on the same page as me.