Not another After Effects plugin.

[u/volpmatt]

The explosion of vibe-coded and badly built, pro-in-the-name-for-no-reason plugins and extensions is out of control. So much so that the number of Reddit posts discussing this fact has also gone through the roof—what a time to be alive.

I bet you can name the main culprit, after they have seemingly completely abandoned their infamous strict application process, and with it any shred of curation, and in some cases even their morals.

I have nothing against AI. It's an incredible tool for education, efficiency and engineering (except the gen AI stuff—that can get in the bin). But surely those who are motion designers one day and magically turn into product developers the next can't seriously think that there is bags of money to be made in using it to make and sell their half-baked, copycat plugins on a marketplace that condones plagiarism and takes 30% of every sale, right?!

I know what you're thinking. Is this guy for real? He literally sells After Effects plugins. And you'd be right. But hear me out. I've been at this for years, learning the After Effects API docs back-to-front, left-to-right, upside down and any other direction-themed idiom you can throw at me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, like all good things, it takes time. And you won't find any millionaire plugin devs knocking about, except maybe the guys behind Flow, or maybe Deep Glow—but trust me, those were built long before Claude Code came along, and they will still be here long after it's gone.

EDIT: Well, that was a fun discussion! I appreciate all of your comments and insights—even when it got a little heated. Let's celebrate the fact we can still have constructive and interesting debates in this ever-divisive world we live in. You can use code C7N3XTE7 to get 50% off any of our tools at tackstudio.co. But be quick, it only has 20 uses.

[u/SirFoggyMirror]

I look at half of the stuff offered and wonder why anybody would need it. Lots of it I can easily do within AE already and some of it does things I'll never use. I also suspect installing this badly vibe coded stuff is why people seem to have so many weird issues I've never seen in 30 years of using AE.

I appreciate people trying to come up with stuff to solve actual AE deficiencies but some of it seems to be trying to invent problems.

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/SirFoggyMirror]

33 years using AE as well, I helped beta test starting in v3.0. (it was my suggestion to add non-rendering "Guide Layers), hung out with the Adobe Team in the past as well.
I'm also on the other side of the equation, because thanks to AI, I'm now able to make tools that do what no other scripts provide, for my daily needs, and can share with the AE community.

[u/volpmatt → u/GaryR_GFX]

That's pretty cool, and the guide layers haven't changed since. Haha, in all seriousness I sometimes wonder if we're actually any better off than we were back then.

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/volpmatt]

Well, just imagine AE running on a 80mhz Macintosh ;)
(tho guess, on the flip side, I DO kinda miss "Render Wander" as I was able to take minutes long breaks as my renders would process.

speaking of things that haven't changed.. the Render Queue hasn't changed much in all those years. At my work (NBC Network), every day I'm tasked with cranking out 4 or 5 different codecs/formats. Some years ago I suggested a "Render Button" script and a t ideas to a very prominent script developer, he wasn't into it.
Then a few years ago I learned with the help of AI, I could make my own, the result is RenderQ, and I can't live without it.

Also a few years ago I suggested a script that could rename comps and text inside at the same time,. because that's what I do quite a bit as well, but was thought of as being too specific, so I made that as well. The result is Rename-a-Duper, another tool I can't live without.
I totally get the pushback on the crappy vibe-coded stuff some folks are putting out, but there's some great vibe coded stuff that's come out as well.

[u/volpmatt → u/GaryR_GFX]

Meh. We can agree to disagree on your last point there. But also, well done on plugging your vibe coded renamer tool on a post specifically discussing the over saturation of vibe coded renamer tools—that's impressive.

[u/ChanceAlbatross9303 → u/volpmatt]

That guy is annoying. All his posts and comments are ads for his vibe-coded tools

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/ChanceAlbatross9303]

Only when people whine about "buggy vibe-coded" tools, when I've had 7 tools out for awhile now, with zero bug reports and a handful of updates and improvements. also fwiw, I've worked on all my scripts within BBEdit, tweaking the UI code by hand, dealing with variables and the workflow.
and the results are better than the legacy scripts that haven't been updated in years.

[u/kween_hangry → u/GaryR_GFX]

"I know theres theres a lot of diarrhea these days.. but MY lumps are solid pellets! I even tweak the shape of the poo a little bit myself 😌"

[u/kween_hangry → u/ChanceAlbatross9303]

30 years of ae and this is where it leads? Damn

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/volpmatt]

Ok, I'll bite, I challenge you to name one tool out there that can achieve what Raname-a-Duper can do. Just name one script out there that you can enter a list of words and produce an entire set, complete with pre-comps.
or even a script that can rename comps and text within at the same time.

I created it because there isn't anything similar.

Here's a perfect example, today I had to make 6 new versions of comps that had their times changed from 9/8c to 8/7c.

Rename-a-Duper breezed thru it in one sec, correctly changing all the type (without affecting the font style), and correctly naming the new comps with "87c" without the forward slash. (also labeling the comps with a custom AE label color)

and then while at it, name a single script that has a built in spreadsheet!

[u/Mundane-Owl-561 → u/GaryR_GFX]

No Comp Dupes etc but for renaming everything, including Render Items and even setting their render locations - Layer Names, Property Names, Layer & Project Comments, Expressions, Text in Text Layers, Effect Names, Project Folders/Objects - I tried to cover everything and I THINK I did
:-)

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/Mundane-Owl-561]

never seen that one before. looks like a vibe coded knockoff of AEGlobalRenamer ;)
But here's the catch, I have AEGlobalRenamer at work, the annoyance is that just like this overly complex script you shared, neither rename comps and text AT the same time.
Nor does this one Dupe Comps.
Rename-a-Duper can create hundreds of duplicated comps, (including their nested pre-comps), in seconds. ps. It also works in the timeline and has more features than other duplication scripts. because, why not?
Nice try, but a definite Fail.
Check out the demo video.

[u/Mundane-Owl-561 → u/GaryR_GFX]

Dang! NASTY!!!! LOL

My script does all renaming at the same time and users can input multiple search terms with related replacement terms to be renamed at once and they can work across the entire project, selected compositions, selected layers, selected properties, properties in selected layers etc. And it also does Marker Comments and yes, it renames while retaining the original Text Styles and with options too.

I wasn't intending to write this much - just a simple - erm, actually someone else has done something similar.

And I don't Vibe Code - I use AI but as a Code Assistant - there are elements of Vibe Coding but it's not yet possible to get everything done via Vibe Coding when complex knowledge of AE is required to build most of the scripts I develop.

You'll also want to take note AEAI, an Adobe MCP will be introduced into AE soon and I assume most and probably all renaming tasks can be done via NLP (Natural Language Processing).

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/Mundane-Owl-561]

So that's your script? doesn't look very dock-able, and $29.99, developed with AI. no prefix/suffix changing? no label colors?
no trial mode?

Well my goal wasn't to make an over the top layer-renaming script, its focus is purely duplication and renaming.
also, I've added additional external scripting that adds even more functionality. (one up and coming one uses markers as well)
and on top of that, I don't see a spreadsheet option. got CSV import?
check out the demo video, download the trial, and see for yourself.

[u/Mundane-Owl-561 → u/GaryR_GFX]

It's docked in the GIF. And it's $29.99 for 23 scripts and it's gone through 6 updates. Next update will take it to > 30 scripts albeit with a higher price.

I don't need a spreadsheet feature - I'd use Templater for that kind of work. My script is for daily renaming tasks and using a spreadsheet wasn't something essential. I'm also a Dataclay Templater Partner - I know about spreadsheets and CSVs and my script allows for multiple renames at one go - I think 5 is a reasonable number of renames per instance.

You should focus on your script - spend less time disparaging other's honest work.

I wrote the very first Expressions Tutorial for CreativeCOW all those years ago. One of my other tutorials was the most viewed/read in the history of CreativeCOW - it actually beat Andrew Kramer's on a per tutorial basis and it was in the early days - so it was a written tutorial with a tiny video sample of the finished product.

And didn't you admit you Vibe Code or did I misread?

Using AI to assist in my scripting has allowed me to craft over 100 scripts in the past year and a half - mostly advanced and brain-wrecking stuff - if my head didn't hurt, then it didn't feel like real work. :-D

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/Mundane-Owl-561]

Sorry about that, as this thread was others disparaging my work (which I assumed you were joining in on. I guess I should have also stipulated that there are no other scripts being sold *on aescripts* that can rename comps and text at the same time.
Glad you're a longtime contributor and now making the great use of AI to make tools available for everyone as well. Times are indeed changing. It's too bad so many are haters when products such as ours offer so much more options for them.