AWS Deadline Cloud for After Effects

AWS Deadline Cloud for After Effects is a package that supports creating and running Adobe After Effects jobs within AWS Deadline Cloud. It provides the implementation of an After Effects plug-in for your workstation that helps you offload the computation for your rendering workloads to AWS Deadline Cloud to free up your workstation's compute for other tasks. The job bundles it creates utilizes the aerender executable that comes with Adobe After Effects.

Compatibility

1. After Effects 2024 - 2025,
2. Python 3.9 or higher; and
3. Windows or macOS operating system.

Versioning

This package's version follows Semantic Versioning 2.0, but is still considered to be in its initial development, thus backwards incompatible versions are denoted by minor version bumps. To help illustrate how versions will increment during this initial development stage, they are described below:

1. The MAJOR version is currently 0, indicating initial development.
2. The MINOR version is currently incremented when backwards incompatible changes are introduced to the public API.
3. The PATCH version is currently incremented when bug fixes or backwards compatible changes are introduced to the public API.

Getting Started

This After Effects integration for AWS Deadline Cloud has a submitter script that you will need to install.

Before submitting any large, complex, or otherwise compute-heavy After Effects render jobs to your farm using the submitter that you setup, we strongly recommend that you construct a simple test scene that can be rendered quickly and submit renders of that scene to your farm to ensure that your setup is correctly functioning.

After Effects Submitter

The After Effects submitter creates a dockable panel in your After Effects application that can be used to submit jobs to AWS Deadline Cloud. Clicking the submit button reveals a UI to create a job submission for AWS Deadline Cloud using AWS Deadline Cloud client library submission UI. It automatically determines the files required based on the loaded scene, allows the user to specify render options, builds an Open Job Description template that defines the workflow, and submits the job to the farm and queue of your choosing.

The submitter includes a folder DeadlineCloudSubmitter_Assets and a file DeadlineCloudSubmitter.jsx.

1. DeadlineCloudSubmitter_Assets folder include default job template json file (image_template.json or video_template.json depending on the output type) with two Python scripts that will be run as tasks of the job.
2. DeadlineCloudSubmitter.jsx is the After Effects script written by ExtendScript.

To install the submitter:

Prerequisites:

• Install Python 3.9+ and verify either python --version or python3 --version or py --version works in your Command Prompt or Powershell window.
• Install Adobe After Effects 24 or 25.
• Set up your Deadline Cloud monitor, farm, fleet, and queue details, following the documentation from here for setup and its subsections.
• If you're doing a manual install without using the submitter installer, you will need to install Deadline CLI by running the following commands in Terminal/Powershell:

  pip install deadline
  pip install "deadline[gui]"
  

• Download the Deadline Cloud Monitor desktop application from the Downloads page on your AWS Deadline Cloud console and log into it, see documentation from here: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/deadline-cloud/latest/userguide/open-deadline-cloud-monitor.html

Submitter Installation Instructions

1. This submitter requires the ability to write files and send communication over the network in order to function properly. By default, After Effects scripts are not allowed to perform these actions. Reference link. To allow scripts to write files or send communication over a network, edit the following settings within After Effects:

   • Windows: Select Edit > Preferences > Scripting & Expressions > select Allow Scripts To Write Files And Access Network
   • macOS: Select After Effects > Settings > Scripting & Expressions > select Allow Scripts To Write Files And Access Network

   Additionally, to disable warnings every time you submit a job with the submitter, edit the following settings within After Effects:

   • Windows Select Edit > Preferences > Scripting & Expressions > deselect Warn User When Executing Files
   • macOS: Select After Effects > Settings > Scripting & Expressions > deselect Warn User When Executing Files

2. Next step is to install the After Effects submitter. We recommend choosing the submitter installer approach to receive both Deadline CLI and your selected integrated submitters. However, if you want to update your submitter with the latest code pushed to this repository, choose the manual installation approach, but ensure you have Deadline CLI already installed via pip or submitter installer beforehand (see instructions above under Prerequisites for info on this).

NOTE: If you install the After Effects submitter as a user install, the submitter will be a standalone submitter window rather than a dockable panel.

• Submitter Installer Approach

  • First, download the Deadline Cloud Submitter installer by following Step 1: Install the Deadline Cloud Submitter.
  • Next, if you are running a System Install on Windows, right-click the installer and choose Run as Admin. Otherwise, run the installer regularly for a User Install.
  • Follow the prompts and select which submitters you would like to install. Here are the following OS-specific default submitters paths depending on your install approach:
    • Windows with System Installation: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects <version>\Support Files\Scripts\Script UI Panels
    • Windows with User Installation: C:\Users\<user>\DeadlineCloudSubmitter\Submitters/AfterEffects\AE<version>
    • macOS with User Installation: /Users/<user>/DeadlineCloudSubmitter\Submitters/AfterEffects\AE<version>
    • • macOS with System Installation: (not yet supported on submitter installer, but the theoretical path would be /Applications/Adobe After Effects <version>/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels)
  • If choosing a User Install and you provide a custom install path, be sure to save that path for later reference.

• Manual Installation Approach

  • Scroll to the top of this repository's Github page, and click on the green Code button. In the drop-down, select Download ZIP.
  • Unzip the .zip file and navigate to the dist folder in the downloaded repository. The submitter files are DeadlineCloudSubmitter.jsx and the DeadlineCloudSubmitter_Assets folder.
  • For System Install that requires Admin permission, you need to move the submitter files to the ScriptUI Panels folder of After Effects. This will require Admin permission.
    • Windows: Move them to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects <version>\Support Files\Scripts\Script UI Panels
    • macOS: Move them to /Applications/Adobe After Effects <version>/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels
  • For a User install that doesn't need Admin permission, copy the submitter files to a folder of your choice. If you've used the submitter installer before, you can put it under the DeadlineCloudSubmitter folder in the paths defined in the Submitter Installer Approach section for user installation. Save the path where you stored the JSX submitter script for easy access later.

1. After installing the Deadline CLI manually or via submitter installer, ensure you log into your user profile by running deadline auth login in the Terminal/Powershell or logging in via the Deadline Cloud Monitor.

2. Next, to install the necessary dependencies used by the AE submitter, run the following in your local Terminal or Command Prompt.

   pip install fonttools
   

3. Finally, restart After Effects if it was open.

To use the submitter:

1. Launch After Effects. If you did a system install of Deadline Cloud Submitter, run After Effects as Admin.
2. Add a composition to your render queue and set up your render settings, output module, and output path.
3. To open the Deadline Cloud Submitter Panel, there is a different approach depending on whether it's a User Install or a System Install.
   • System Install: Open submitter by clicking Window > DeadlineCloudSubmitter.jsx.
   • User Install: Open submitter by clicking File > Scripts > Run Script File and navigate to where the DeadlineCloudSubmitter.jsx file is located and select it to run the submitter. If the submitter is closed, reopen it easily by clicking File > Scripts > Recent Script Files and pick the DeadlineCloudSubmitter.jsx file that was previously run.
4. Select your composition you want to render click Submit to submit a render job. Here are some settings you can set:
   1. (Optional) For image sequences output types you can specify the number of frames per task so that the job created by the After Effects submitter will create the tasks based on the number and then Deadline Cloud will assign the tasks to available workers to delegate the load.
   2. You can also specify multi-frame rendering with your job submission. If you do, you can also specify the max percentage of CPU usage you wish to allocate towards rendering in case you would like to limit it to allow other background applications or processes to run smoothly. For more information about multi-frame rendering, visit Adobe's website here.
   3. You need to set up timeout days, hours and minutes to avoid the task gets stuck forever. The default timeout is 2 days.
5. If you see a warning popup window with "You are about to run the script contained in file", you can suppress the warning by following the instruction in the popup or the instructions above to disable warnings when submitting jobs.
6. Install any python libraries if prompted and press the Login button in the bottom left if you are not logged in.
7. Set the farm and queue you are submitting to with the Settings button, and click Submit.
8. If you're running the submitter and hitting error messages, scroll down to the Troubleshooting section for more guidance.

Note: The After Effects submitter calls the Deadline GUI Submitter to complete job submission. If you hit any issues on the GUI submitter, please refer to deadline-cloud library for help.

Troubleshooting

Error: Couldn't find Python 3 or higher on your PATH. Please ensure that Python 3 or higher is installed correctly and added to your PATH.**

For macOS

1. Open your Terminal and run the following scripts in your command line: where python and where python3. If you're not getting any results, this means you need to install Python for your workstation.
2. If you do not have python3 CLI installed but you have python, run python --version to check if you have Python 3.9 or higher. If not, please install Python 3.9 or higher first and add it to your path.
3. Once you are getting results from the version check and where check, then check which python executable is actively being used. Run which python, which python3. If you're not getting any results, you'll need to add your python CLI to your zsh $PATH.
4. We must also ensure you're adding the Python that was used to install Deadline CLI. Run python -m pip list and/or python3 -m pip list to verify this and add to $PATH$ whichever python applies.
5. Finally, add the bin folder containing Python CLI to your path by editing ~/.zshrc (and ~/.bashrc if applicable) and updating the $PATH. For example, if your Python and Deadline CLI are under /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin, add the following code to your ~/.zshrc file at the end of the file so it gets final priority when the $PATH is evaluated.

export PATH=$PATH:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin

1. Save and exit, then run source ~/.zshrc

In the end, your output should follow a pattern similar to the following example:

user@7cf34df03377 ~ % which python3
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin/python3
user@7cf34df03377 ~ % where deadline
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.13/bin/deadline

1. Now if you run python --version and deadline --version, you should have access to both of the executables and After Effects should do. Retry job submission.

For Windows

1. Open Command Prompt.
2. Run where python, where python3, where py, and where deadline. The Deadline check will tell you which Python executable you should be adding to your $PATH.
3. Press Windows + S and search for "Edit the system environment variables". Note this will require admin access. Click "Environment Variables...". Depending on whether Deadline CLI was a user installation or system installation, open the corresponding $PATH variable.
4. Ensure that the binary folders containing deadline and your python CLI have been added to your PATH. Deadline will either be located in the DeadlineCloudSubmitter folder when installed from the submitter installer or under a python folder if managed by pip. If you're managing Deadline CLI with pip, run python -m pip list and/or python3 -m pip list to ensure you add the Python containing Deadline CLI to your path.

Error: Deadline Not Found

1. First, open your Terminal or Command Prompt and run deadline --version to verify installation.
2. Then follow the troubleshooting steps above for Python for your respective OS and verify that deadline is on your $PATH.
3. If you have multiple Python installations and manage Deadline via Pip, verify that the Python on your $PATH is the Python that managed your Deadline installation. This can be done by running python -m pip list and python3 -m pip list to verify this.

Warning: Unsupported After Effects Version Detected

This means you are using an After Effects version that is not available in the deadline-cloud Conda channel, For example, if you're using After Effects 24.3, but the channel only supports 24.6.

If you continue, the default major version in use locally will be filled in the CondaPackages field, but your job submission may fail unless you have created a custom Conda channel with your specific After Effects version and included this channel in the CondaChannels parameter

To resolve this, you can either:

1. Switch to a supported After Effects version,
2. Acknowledge the warning and proceed (at your own risk), or
3. Create a custom Conda channel with your desired After Effects version

After submission on Windows, a command prompt screen flashes open and close and submitter GUI doesn't pop open

1. Go to the Windows Start menu and searching for "Manage app execution aliases". Then disable the python3.exe and python.exe aliases manually and retry submission.

Font with an unsupported extension was found**

See Font attachment system below.

Font attachment system:

The submitter detects fonts used in the submitted composition and automatically adds them as job attachments on submission. These get installed on the worker before the render starts and get removed again when the job ends. Currently supported font types include: OpenType (.otf), TrueType (.ttf), and Adobe Fonts. Windows bitmap fonts (.fon) are only supported on Windows machines.

If fonts are missing at render time, first check that they're installed (on the system or your user), and then check they're being included in the job attachments tab in the submitter.

Fonts distributed through Adobe Creative Cloud can be made available for all non-Adobe apps on your workstation, or only made available in Adobe apps. Cloud fonts need to be installed for all non-Adobe apps for use with Deadline Cloud. To install fonts for non-Adobe apps in Creative Cloud:

1. Open Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop.
2. Click "Adobe Fonts" on the account sidebar under "Your plan" to show the Adobe Fonts panel.
3. Click "Added fonts" on the "Adobe Fonts" sidebar to show your added fonts.
4. Click "Install family" next to the fonts you would like to make available for non-Adobe apps.

Setting up After Effects with your Deadline Cloud Farm

After Effects 24.6, 25.1, and 25.2 conda packages are available in AWS Deadline Cloud Service Managed Fleet (See this link for more information). If you would like to build a conda channel that contains different After Effects conda package, please follow the instruction. You can also use After Effects conda recipe in deadline-cloud-sample package as a reference when building the package.

Jobs created by this submitter require aerender executable be available on the PATH of the user that will be running your jobs. Or you can set the AERENDER_EXECUTABLE to point to the aerender executable.

Viewing the Job Bundle that will be submitted

To submit a job, the submitter first generates a Job Bundle, and then uses functionality from the Deadline package to submit the Job Bundle to your render farm to run. If you would like to see the job that will be submitted to your farm, then you can use the "Export Bundle" button in the submitter to export the Job Bundle in the job history directory (default: ~/.deadline/job_history). If you want to submit the job from the export, rather than through the submitter then you can use the Deadline Cloud application to submit that bundle to your farm.

Security

We take all security reports seriously. When we receive such reports, we will investigate and subsequently address any potential vulnerabilities as quickly as possible. If you discover a potential security issue in this project, please notify AWS/Amazon Security via our vulnerability reporting page or directly via email to AWS Security. Please do not create a public GitHub issue in this project.

Telemetry

See telemetry for more information.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache-2.0 License.