Adobe

Dynamic Link and After Effects


Dynamic Link features of After Effects are available only with Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium edition and Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection edition.

    About Dynamic Link (Production Premium or Master Collection only)

    In the past, sharing media assets among post-production applications has required you to render and export your work from one application before importing it into another. This workflow was inefficient and time-consuming. If you wanted to change the original asset, you rendered and exported the asset again. Multiple rendered and exported versions of an asset consume disk space, and they can lead to file-management challenges.

    Dynamic Link, a feature of Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium and Master Collection, offers an alternative to this workflow. You can create dynamic links between After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Encore. Creating a dynamic link is as simple as importing any other type of asset. Dynamically linked assets appear with unique icons and label colors to help you identify them. Dynamic links are saved in projects generated by these applications.

    In After Effects CS6, Dynamic Link has been improved, including performance enhancements, and removal of the limitation of Dynamic Link to only work within a suite (for example, Dynamic Link will now work between CS6 applications purchased as individual products).

    If you purchase Premiere Pro as a standalone product (which includes Adobe Media Encoder and Adobe Encore), Dynamic Link works betweenPremiere Pro, Adobe Media Encoder and Encore.

    Changes you make in After Effects to a dynamically linked composition appear immediately in the linked clips in Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore. Changes you make to dynamically linked sequences in AdobePremiere Pro appear immediately in After Effects and Encore. You don’t have to render or save changes first.

    Online resources about Dynamic Link

    For a video tutorial introducing Dynamic Link, see the Adobe website.

    John Dickinson provides a video tutorial on the Motionworks website that shows how to use Dynamic Link between After Effects and Premiere Pro and between After Effects and Encore.

    Tim Kolb provides a video tutorial on the Adobe website that demonstrates the creation of an interactive DVD menu with Premiere Pro and Encore, using Dynamic Link.

    Andrew Devis explains how to use Dynamic Link from aPremiere Pro user’s perspective in this video on the Creative Cow website.

    Learn more about Premiere Pro workflow for Dynamic Link in this video by Jason Levine.

    Linking to and from Adobe Premiere Pro

    You can send selected clips from Adobe Premiere Pro into After Effectsas a composition or nested composition, replacing the clips in AdobePremiere Pro with a dynamically linked composition.

    With Dynamic Link, you can also send sequences from Adobe Premiere Pro into Encore for authoring to DVD, Blu-ray Disc, or SWF files.

    In addition to using Dynamic Link, you can share content among applications in any of the following ways:

    • copying and pasting between After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro

    • exporting After Effects projects to Adobe Premiere Pro

    • using the Capture In Adobe Premiere Pro command in After Effects

    • importing Adobe Premiere Pro projects into After Effects

    Linking to and from After Effects

    When you dynamically link to an After Effects composition from Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore, it appears in the host application Project panel. You can use the dynamically linked composition as you would any other asset. When you insert a linked composition into the host application timeline, a linked clip appears in the Timeline panel. A linked clip is simply a reference to the linked composition in the Project panel. After Effects renders the linked composition on a frame-by-frame basis during playback in the host application.

    There are two restrictions on the use of dynamically linked clips betweenAfter Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro. Both of these restrictions also apply in reverse: they remain true if you switch composition and sequence:

    • If a sequence contains a composition, do not include that sequence, or any sequence in which the sequence is nested, in any dynamic link from the project of the included composition.

    • If a sequence contains a composition, do not include links from that composition, or any composition nested in that composition, back to any sequence.

    In Adobe Premiere Pro, you can do any of the following with a dynamically linked After Effectscomposition:

    • preview it in the Source Monitor

    • set In and Out points for it

    • add it to a sequence

    • edit it with Adobe Premiere Pro tools

    When you add a linked composition that contains both video and audio to a sequence, Adobe Premiere Pro inserts linked video and audio clips in the timeline. You can unlink the video from the audio to edit the clips separately.

    In Encore, you can do any of the following with a dynamically linked After Effects composition:

    • create a motion menu with it

    • insert it into a timeline

    • edit it with Encore tools

    You can add a linked After Effects composition that contains both video and audio to an Encore timeline. Encore inserts separate video and audio clips in the timeline.

    You can create After Effects compositions from Encore menus, even without Dynamic Link.

    Linking to and from Encore

    From Encore, you can do any of the following with dynamically linked clips:

    • edit a sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro using the Edit Original command

    • edit an After Effects composition using the Edit Original command

    • update the markers in Encore to match the Encore chapter markers in a sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro

    Color and Dynamic Link

    After Effects works with the RGB (red, green, blue) color model. AdobePremiere Pro, however, works with the YUV color model. When you work with a dynamically linked composition, Adobe Premiere Pro either converts it to YUV or retains the RGB colors, depending on the output format.

    Dynamically linked compositions are rendered in the color depth of the After Effects project (8, 16, or 32 bpc, depending on project settings). Set the After Effects project color depth to 32 bpc if you’re working with HDR (high dynamic range) assets.

    In Adobe Premiere Pro, select a sequence. Then, choose Sequence > Sequence Settings. In the Video Previews pane, select Maximum Bit Depth and Maximum Render Quality to haveAdobe Premiere Pro process at the highest possible quality. However, these options slow processing.

    Saving and Dynamic Link

    Save your After Effects project at least once before creating a dynamic link from AdobePremiere Pro or Encore to a composition within it. After that, you do not have to save changes to the After Effects project to see the changes in a linked composition in Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore.

    Using the Save As command to create a copy of an After Effects project does not change dynamic links made to the original project. AdobePremiere Pro and Encore projects continue to use the original project, not the copy, as the sources for their linked compositions. You can, however, relink a dynamically linked clip to a composition in the copy at any time.

    Increment and save dynamicially linked compositions

    Note: In After Effects, you can choose File > Increment And Save. The newly saved open project continues to serve frames to any client projects containing dynamically linked compositions from the open After Effects project.

    In After Effects CS6, there is a "Dynamic Link with After Effects Uses Project File Name with Highest Number" option in Edit > Preferences > General (Windows), or After Effects > Preferences > General (Mac OS).

    When using the File > Increment and Save menu command in a Dynamic Link workflow in After Effects CS6, you have this option. By default, this option is deselected, so any other Dynamic Link applications (such as Premiere Pro) that are linked to an After Effects composition will continue to use that same project's composition even if the Increment and Save command was used (for example, the project file name was incremented). If you prefer to always use the composition in the highest numbered project, enable this option. However, be aware that if you name projects with numbers at the end similar to Increment and Save behavior, know that it can produce unexpected updating of dynamically linked compositions.

    Create and link to After Effects compositions with Dynamic Link (Production Premium or Master Collection only)

    You can create After Effects compositions, and dynamically link to them, from Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore. You can also dynamically link to existing After Effects compositions from Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore.

    Create a composition from clips in Adobe Premiere Pro

    You can replace selected clips in Adobe Premiere Pro with a dynamically linked After Effects composition based on those clips. The new composition inherits the sequence settings from Adobe Premiere Pro.

    1. In a sequence, select the clips you want in the composition.
    2. Right-click any of the selected clips.
    3. Select Replace With After Effects Composition.

    Create a dynamically linked composition from Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore

    Creating a new dynamically linked composition from Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore launches After Effects.After Effects then creates a project and composition with the dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, and audio sample rate of the originating project. (If After Effects is already running, it creates a composition in the current project.) The new composition name is based on theAdobe Premiere Pro or Encore project name, followed by Linked Comp [x].

    1. In Adobe Premiere Pro or Adobe Encore, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > New After EffectsComposition.
    2. If the After EffectsSave As dialog box appears, enter a name and location for the After Effects project, and click Save.
      When you create a dynamically linked After Effects composition, the composition duration is set to 30 seconds. To change the duration, select the composition in After Effects, choose Composition > Composition Settings. Click the Basic tab, and specify a new value for Duration.

    Link to an existing composition

    For best results, match composition settings (such as dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, and frame rate) to the settings in the Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore project.

     Do one of the following:

    • In Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import After Effects Composition. Choose an After Effects project file (.aep), and then choose one or more compositions.

    • In Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore, choose an After Effects project file and click Open. Then choose a composition in the displayed dialog box and click OK.

    • Drag one or more compositions from the After EffectsProject panel to the Adobe Premiere Pro Project panel or the Encore Project panel.

    • Drag an After Effects project file into the AdobePremiere Pro Project panel. If the After Effects project file contains multiple compositions, the Import Composition dialog box opens.

    Note: You can link to a single After Effects composition multiple times in a single Adobe Premiere Pro project. In an Adobe Encore project, however, you can link to an After Effects composition only once.

    If you create a dynamically linked composition from Encore, turn off subpicture highlight layers in After Effects, so that you can control their display in Encore.

    Dynamically linked After Effects compositions

    Modify a dynamically linked composition in After Effects (Production Premium or Master Collection only)

    Use the Edit Original command in Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore to modify a linked After Effectscomposition. Once the composition is open in After Effects, you can change the composition without having to use the Edit Original command again.

    1. Select the After Effects composition in the AdobePremiere Pro or Encore Project panel, or choose a linked clip in the Timeline, and choose Edit > Edit Original.
    2. Change the composition in After Effects. Then, switch back to Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore to view your changes.

    The changes made in After Effects appear in Adobe Premiere Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro stops using any preview files rendered for the clip before the changes.

    Note: You can change the name of the composition in After Effects after creating a dynamic link to it from Adobe Premiere Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro does not update the linked composition name in the Project panel. Adobe Premiere Pro does retain the dynamic link, however.

    Delete a dynamically linked composition or clip (Production Premium or Master Collection only)

    You can delete a linked composition from an Encore project if the composition isn’t used in the project. You can delete a linked composition from an Adobe Premiere Pro project at any time, even if the composition is used in a project.

    You can delete linked clips from the timeline of an Adobe Premiere Prosequence or from an Encore menu or timeline at any time.

     In Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore, select the linked composition or clip and press the Delete key.

    Create a linked sequence in Adobe Premiere Pro with Dynamic Link (Production Premium or Master Collection only)

      Link to a new sequence

      Creating an Adobe Premiere Pro sequence from After Effects launches Adobe Premiere Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro then creates a project and sequence with the dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, and audio sample rate of the originating project. (If Adobe Premiere Pro is already running, it creates a sequence in the current project.)

       In After Effects, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > New Premiere Pro Sequence.

      Link to an existing sequence

      For best results, match sequence settings and project settings in Adobe Premiere Pro (such as dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, and frame rate) to those settings in the After Effects project.

      Do one of the following:

      • In After Effects, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > Import Premiere Pro Sequence. Choose an Adobe Premiere Proproject, and then choose one or more sequences.

      • Drag one or more sequences from the Adobe Premiere Pro Project panel to the After Effects Project panel.

      Dynamic Link performance (Production Premium or Master Collection only)

      A linked clip can refer to a complex source composition. Actions you perform on the complex source composition require additional processing time. After Effects takes time to apply the actions and make the final data available to Adobe Premiere Pro or Encore. In some cases, the additional processing time delays preview or playback.

      To reduce playback delays, do one of the following:

      • take the linked composition offline

      • disable a linked clip to temporarily stop referencing a composition

      • render the composition and replace the dynamically linked composition with the rendered file

      If you commonly work with complex source compositions, try adding RAM or a faster processor.

      Note: A linked After Effects composition will not support Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing. See Improve performance by optimizing memory, cache, and multiprocessing settings.
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