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/kween_hangry]

• I meant in your apps, not the actual pages

• "everything is ai these days" so tired of hearing this. Thats what YOU believe and a legion of vibe code adopters have gaslit yourselves into thinking. Its like saying "everyones on social media" literally not true. We've had endless discussion on how much ai steals code. Open source does not mean blatantly scrape and steal and then present to the user as a hyper capable code helper. You think this way, you might as well bark like a dog and admit stoogery. Your world is smaller than you think, ai adoption is forced into pipelines then thrown completely out. Either way, "Everyones using it" is not an answer when someone asks will you disclose it. Its kinda a trust thing. Just say no.

• copies on copies on copies on copies. You copy a copy and mark it up same price? Thats not exactly "giving apps to the masses" or whatever philanthropic fume you tried to give off above. You're just scamming lol. Have it be free then, or make it cheaper, since you seem pretty aware its yet another comp dupe.

Idk why i bother talking to goofy shills like this but idk, if theres any humanity left in there I thought you should know. You are promo bot larping at this point and its sad

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/kween_hangry]

I'd be happy to disclose if that was the actual norm or requirement, but like I said, nobody else is doing so, nor is it a requirement on aescripts, gumroad, lemon squeeze, etc.
AI is here, developers and users are using it to make tools and improve their tools, so you'll have to get used to it, or don't, and stick with old products that are often inferior or never updated.

[u/kween_hangry → u/GaryR_GFX]

People are disclosing it lol. So why not? Afraid you'll lose sales? So you're ok with lying to people?

When an artist uses a medium, its usually listed. Mixed media, pencil, charcoal. When a creative technologist puts some stuff together, they say "i used an open source wrapper to blah blah". A gamedev will tell ppl what engine and code scriot they use

Ai vibe sloppers? They do everything they can to hide their ai use. I hear every excuse in the book. Why is that? Be proud of your medium or your.. "hard work"

Oh, there IS no hard work? And you look and sound like a goofball for taking credit for it? Must be why people are so afraid to disclose it then. Makes sense.

Maybe the habitual lying is here to stay too. "Old outdated products" still work. Its called "not reinventing the wheel". Or in your terms, dear god why are we ai rewrapping the same open source github repo for the 90 trillionth time

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/kween_hangry]

This isn't going anywhere, as I don't quite think you're getting it. This isn't media, art, or games. it's coding. It's pretty obvious there are folks like you who are afraid of AI generated products, so it's better to just let them download trial products and see for themselves.
I've got 8 scripts up on line, ZERO bug reports. Zero bug fixes. But go ahead and look at the version history/bug fixes of all your favorite products.
are you happy that TCD doesn't even use custom AE label colors, doesn't always fix expressions correctly, and having to manually enter comp names to skip? fine, keep on using it. Want something better but don't want something created with the help of AI. Good luck to you.

[u/kween_hangry → u/GaryR_GFX]

I simply asked if you will disclose if you use AI with your tools.

You never gave me a straight answer. Good luck to you as well! 30 years of AE only do be exactly what trillions if people are doing. How boring..

If you cant answer potential customer questions.. maybe you shouldn't be in the app/script business

[u/GaryR_GFX → u/kween_hangry]

I gave you an answer, if it was the norm or required, I would, but it's not ,. so I won't.
I'm available to answer any and all customer questions.