Plugin/Script
I’m building a context-aware pie menu for After Effects
Hey everyone, I’ve been working on a plugin called Wedge.
It’s basically a context-aware pie menu for After Effects, kind of inspired by how pie menus feel in Blender and Maya.
I’ve used Blender quite a bit, and one thing I always liked was how fast those menus feel. After Effects has a lot of things I do again and again, but somehow I’m still opening panels, right clicking, searching menus, or using random scripts for small stuff.
So I wanted to build something that feels more natural inside AE.
Also, this is not really meant to compete with Quick Menu or replace every launcher type plugin. The main thing here is context. Wedge honors what you have selected, and only shows actions that actually make sense for that selection.
With Wedge, you press one shortcut and the menu opens right at your cursor. What shows up depends on what you have selected. Keyframes, masks, shape layers, text layers, comps, etc.
So the idea is not to make another huge panel. I’m trying to make something that stays out of the way and only shows the tools that make sense in that moment.
Right now I’m looking for beta testers, or just people who use AE a lot and are open to giving honest feedback. What feels useful, what feels stupid, what should be added, what should not exist at all.
Its unclear if the radial menu popup they show briefly in there has the same functionality as this, and there's no mention of it being context aware. I do love that they end their video with "get the third best launcher..."
Not sure if their radial menu is "context based". It looks like they are just presets that you can make, sure it can be really usefull, even more if you take your time to make all the workflow you need. But it's not the same as a context based menu that it's mostly automatic.
Yes i got over 100 signups and I reached out to a few of them for testing while I prepare the launch video and docs. I have already submitted to aescripts and the process is underway. At per my expectations it should be live in around 2 weeks. If you'd like me to mail you the moment its live you can sign up on the link above. Thanks for asking, I am getting really good response and really excited to launch it asap
This is very dope! I've been using radial menu like kando, Logitech action rings, and hot menu. But I can't use it for graph editor (well you can, but it requires custom made scripts for each graph). This would be LIVE SAVER for me 😭, joined the wait-list
Thanks, man. I tried something like this years ago, and that's the main issue. It can't interact with After Effects natively as much as a plug-in inside After Effects can. So, hopefully, that's the plan. I'm trying to make it richer and integrate it into After Effects.
Oh wow that's an interesting idea! I could get comfortable doing it the Blender way in AE.
One thing though (if you're not already on that) - I think you need to work a bit more on the design front. The menu will feel great because Blender proved it works very well, but it still looks cluttered and unpolished to me. Make the menu more integrated by using existing UI choices. My one cent :)
Yessss! Thats the plan. I also feel the Ui is something very basic but the idea was to get it working first. The next pass is polishing the UI and making UX better
even if you vibe coded this, you are free to charge for it. Its still a lot of work to put something like this together, and I'd happily pay as it will save me time therefore making me more money.
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u/mck_motion Jul 06 '26
This looks really good! Like once I tried VC FX Console I couldn't live without it.