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:

1. Install the Deadline CLI and Deadline Cloud monitor by running the Deadline Cloud Submitter and Deadline Cloud monitor installers from the downloads section of the Deadline Cloud service in your AWS Console.

2. 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

3. Next step is to install the After Effects submitter. If you're installing on Windows and using the Deadline Cloud submitter installer, you can install the After Effects submitter using the installer. But if you are on macOS or you prefer installing the submitter manually, download this repository zip, unzip it and copy DeadlineCloudSubmitter.jsx and the DeadlineCloudSubmitter_Assets folder in the dist folder to the ScriptUI Panels folder within your After Effects installation. This ScriptUI folder is typically located at the following path:

   • Windows: Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects <version>\Support Files\Scripts\Script UI Panels
   • macOS: Applications/Adobe After Effects <version>/Scripts/Script UI Panels

4. Finally, to install the necessary dependencies used by the submitter, run pip install fonttools in your local Terminal or Command Prompt.

5. Restart After Effects if it was open. If you're running the submitter and hitting error messages, scroll down to the Troubleshooting section to troubleshoot.

To use the submitter:

1. Add a composition to your render queue and set up your render settings, output module, and output path.
2. Open the Deadline Cloud Submitter Panel by clicking Windows > DeadlineCloudSubmitter.jsx.
3. Select your composition from the list and click Submit. You can hit the Refresh button to refresh the list.
4. (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.
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.

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 Deadine 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.

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 and 25.1 conda packages are now 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.