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
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 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.
Create and link to After Effects compositions with Dynamic Link
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.
- In a sequence, select the clips you want in the composition.
- Right-click any of the selected clips.
- 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].
- 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.
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.
Modify a dynamically linked composition in After Effects
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.
- 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.
- 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.
Delete a dynamically linked composition or clip
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
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
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.
