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M0.11: README rewrite with headless screenshots (hero, graph editor, effects, 3D, render queue)

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Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
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Brandon ThomasandClaude Opus 5.5 committed 2026-10-01 23:31:40 -04:00
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ATTRIBUTION.md
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@@ -17,6 +17,18 @@ iconography, images or other Adobe assets; open licences only; every asset attri
| `assets/fonts/NotoSerif-Regular.ttf` | The Noto Project Authors | https://github.com/notofonts/latin-greek-cyrillic | OFL-1.1 (`assets/fonts/OFL-NotoSerif.txt`) |
| `assets/fonts/JetBrainsMono-Regular.ttf` | The JetBrains Mono Project Authors | https://github.com/JetBrains/JetBrainsMono | OFL-1.1 (`assets/fonts/OFL-JetBrainsMono.txt`) |
## Screenshots
Screenshots of EffectCraft itself, rendered headlessly, showing only procedurally generated demo content.
| Asset | Author | Source | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| `docs/images/effectcraft-hero.png` | EffectCraft contributors | Original work: screenshot of EffectCraft (EffectCraft main window) | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| `docs/images/effectcraft-3d.png` | EffectCraft contributors | Original work: screenshot of EffectCraft (EffectCraft Classic 3D) | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| `docs/images/effectcraft-graph-editor.png` | EffectCraft contributors | Original work: screenshot of EffectCraft (EffectCraft Graph Editor) | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| `docs/images/effectcraft-effects.png` | EffectCraft contributors | Original work: screenshot of EffectCraft (EffectCraft effects) | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| `docs/images/effectcraft-render-queue.png` | EffectCraft contributors | Original work: screenshot of EffectCraft (EffectCraft Render Queue panel with the demo compositions queued for H.264 and ProRes export) | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
## Code-drawn assets (original work, MIT OR Apache-2.0)
- UI icons drawn in code: `crates/ui-egui/src/icons.rs`.
README.md
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<p align="center">
A free, open-source compositor in the spirit of After Effects: compositions, layers,
keyframes, effects and expressions, native on macOS, Windows and Linux, and in the browser later on.
It is in early development. The engine crates are being written now and there is no app to run yet.
keyframes, 241 effects, expressions, 3D cameras and lights, and a render queue, native on macOS,
Windows and Linux, and in the browser later on. Young, moving fast, and already usable.
</p>
<p align="center">
<img alt="Status: early development" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/status-early%20development-e0368f?style=flat-square">
<img alt="Status: young and moving fast" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/status-young%20and%20moving%20fast-e0368f?style=flat-square">
<img alt="Written in Rust" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/rust-1.95%2B-b0206c?style=flat-square&logo=rust&logoColor=white">
<img alt="License: MIT or Apache-2.0" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT%20%2F%20Apache--2.0-555?style=flat-square">
</p>
@@ -35,6 +35,12 @@
<a href="https://getartcraft.com/apps">All Crafting Apps</a>
</p>
<br>
<p align="center">
<img src="docs/images/effectcraft-hero.png" alt="EffectCraft's main window: the animated demo composition in the Composition panel, the Project panel, a Timeline with text, shape and solid layers, and the Properties panel showing the selected text layer's transform, font and paragraph settings" width="100%">
</p>
> [!NOTE]
> **ArtCraft is a community of artists from all walks of life.** Painters, photographers,
> filmmakers, illustrators, designers, animators, hobbyists, and people who picked up a pencil
@@ -42,9 +48,13 @@
<p align="center">
<a href="#what-effectcraft-is">What it is</a> ·
<a href="#where-it-stands">Where it stands</a> ·
<a href="#the-plan">The plan</a> ·
<a href="#building-from-source">Building</a> ·
<a href="#animate">Animate</a> ·
<a href="#effects">Effects</a> ·
<a href="#3d">3D</a> ·
<a href="#export">Export</a> ·
<a href="#built-for-agents">Agents</a> ·
<a href="#get-started">Get started</a> ·
<a href="#where-it-stands">Status</a> ·
<a href="#how-its-made">How it's made</a> ·
<a href="#the-crafting-apps">The Crafting Apps</a> ·
<a href="#license-and-credits">License</a>
@@ -71,84 +81,104 @@ then to go further in a few places where it matters to us:
- **No FFmpeg.** Video and audio decoding and encoding come from FilmCraft's own pure-Rust
codecs.
## Where it stands
## Animate
> [!IMPORTANT]
> **There is no app to run yet.** EffectCraft is in its first milestone. The planning is done and
> the low-level engine crates are being written. The windowed app, the renderer and the effects
> come next. If you want to follow along or help shape it, the
> [Discord](https://discord.gg/artcraft) is the place.
The panels, menus and shortcuts follow After Effects, so your muscle memory carries over:
Project, Composition, Timeline, Effect Controls, Properties, Effects & Presets, Character,
Paragraph, Align, Info, Preview, Audio and the Render Queue, docked the way you expect.
| | What | State |
|---|---|---|
| **Built** | The plan: an After Effects UI and feature reference, a full effects list, the architecture and a milestone plan (see [`plan/`](plan/)) | Done |
| **In progress** | Engine foundation crates: time, geometry, color and blend modes, keyframes, the project model, raster images, Bezier paths, text | Early code and first tests |
| **Next** | The compositor, a first set of effects, the editing engine and the After Effects style interface rendering an animated demo composition | Not started |
| **Later** | Precomps and preview, shapes and masks, 3D, expressions, text animators, export, GPU rendering, the web build | Planned |
- **Layers of every kind:** solids, shapes, text, footage, nested compositions, nulls,
adjustment layers, cameras and lights; parenting, track mattes, all 38 blend modes, motion blur.
- **Keyframes that behave the same:** linear, Bezier, hold, auto and continuous Bezier, roving
keys, Easy Ease (F9), Keyframe Velocity and Interpolation dialogs, copy and paste at the current
time, and a **Graph Editor** with value and speed graphs and draggable handles.
- **Time:** time remapping, time stretch, time-reverse, freeze frame, work area, markers, exact
frame-accurate timing at every frame rate including 29.97 drop-frame.
- **Shapes and masks:** shape layers with trim paths, repeaters, round corners, offset, zig zag,
twist, wiggle, merge paths and gradient strokes; masks drawn with the pen tool, with modes,
feather, expansion and vertex editing in the viewer.
- **Text:** point and paragraph text with real shaping, the Character and Paragraph panels, and
text animators with range selectors.
- **Expressions:** JavaScript with the After Effects object model (`wiggle`, `loopOut`,
`thisComp.layer("…")`, vector maths on arrays), an inline editor and the pick-whip.
The live checklist is [`plan/STATUS.md`](plan/STATUS.md).
<p align="center">
<img src="docs/images/effectcraft-graph-editor.png" alt="The Graph Editor showing an eased value curve for a text animator's Range Start, with the graph editor's button bar for hold, linear, auto Bezier and Easy Ease" width="100%">
</p>
### The crates so far
## Effects
| Crate | What it does |
|---|---|
| `effectcraft-time` | Exact media time in integer ticks, so 23.976 and 29.97 fps, drop-frame timecode and audio sample rates never drift |
| `effectcraft-geom` | 2D and 3D vectors, matrices and the layer transform (anchor, position, scale, rotation, orientation) |
| `effectcraft-color` | RGBA color, sRGB transfer, HSL and HSV, and the 38 After Effects blend modes |
| `effectcraft-keyframe` | Animated values: linear, hold and Bezier keyframes with speed and influence, and spatial motion paths |
| `effectcraft-project` | The document: project items, compositions, layers and the property tree |
| `effectcraft-raster` | Floating-point premultiplied images with warps, blurs and compositing, parallel across cores |
| `effectcraft-path` | Bezier shapes, path operations (trim, round corners, zig zag, offset and more), stroking and anti-aliased fills |
| `effectcraft-text` | Fonts, shaping, bidirectional text, line breaking and glyph outlines for text layers |
241 effects across After Effects' categories, each with its parameter names, order and
defaults: blur and sharpen, channel, color correction (Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation, Lumetri
Color…), distort (Warp, Bulge, Turbulent Displace, CC Power Pin…), generate (Fractal Noise,
Gradient Ramp, Stroke, Write-on, Audio Spectrum…), keying, matte, noise and grain, perspective,
**simulation** (CC Particle World, CC Rainfall, Shatter, Card Dance, Caustics, Wave World…),
stylize (Glow, CC Glass…), text, transitions, utility and expression controls.
These are moving fast. Expect names and APIs to change.
<p align="center">
<img src="docs/images/effectcraft-effects.png" alt="A CC Particle World burst with Glow, and the Effect Controls panel listing the particle system's parameters" width="100%">
</p>
## The plan
## 3D
EffectCraft is built in milestones. The first one is about getting something you can see on
screen as early as possible, then filling in depth underneath.
Classic 3D the way After Effects does it: 3D layers with orientation and material options,
one- and two-node **cameras** with depth of field, **lights** (parallel, spot, point, ambient)
with soft ray-traced shadows, layers that intersect correctly, orbit, pan and dolly camera
tools, and Front, Top, Left and Custom views.
| | Milestone | What you'll get |
|---|---|---|
| **M0** | Skeleton and visual shell | The full panel layout over a real CPU compositor playing an animated demo composition, about 8 effects, and the control channel and MCP server |
| M1 | Keyframes | Complete temporal and spatial interpolation, Easy Ease, roving keys, velocity |
| M2 | Compositing | All 38 blend modes, track mattes, parenting, 8/16/32 bit per channel behaviour |
| M3 | Project operations | Composition and layer settings, layer commands, save and open `.ecproj`, undo, clipboard |
| M4 | Preview and precomps | Nested compositions, adjustment layers, motion blur, cached RAM preview with audio |
| M5 | Timeline depth | Keyframe editing, the graph editor, markers, trims, time remapping |
| M6 | Shapes, masks and footage | Shape layers and path operations, masks, the pen tool, video and image import |
| M7 | 3D | 3D layers, cameras and lights |
| M8 | Expressions | JavaScript expressions with the After Effects object model (`wiggle`, `loopOut`, `thisComp` and friends) |
| M9 | Text and effects | Text animators, text on a path, layer styles, the first 60 effects |
| M10 | Export | Render queue, image sequences, H.264 and ProRes, GIF, command-line rendering |
| M11 | Animation tools | Motion Sketch, Wiggler, presets, Lottie import and export, audio |
| M12 | Performance | GPU compositing and effects, disk cache, motion tracking |
| M13 to M16 | Beyond | More effects, puppet and paint tools, polish, the web app, a plugin API |
<p align="center">
<img src="docs/images/effectcraft-3d.png" alt="The 3D Showcase demo in Custom View 1: intersecting cards lit by a spot light with soft shadows on a gridded floor, with the camera frustum and light drawn as wireframes" width="100%">
</p>
The details, with an acceptance test for every task, are in
[`plan/execution-plan.md`](plan/execution-plan.md) and [`plan/architecture.md`](plan/architecture.md).
## Export
## Building from source
A Render Queue like After Effects', with Render Settings and Output Modules: **H.264** MP4 and
**ProRes** MOV (Proxy to 4444 XQ with alpha) with audio, PNG, JPEG, TIFF and 32-bit EXR
sequences, and animated GIF. The same queue runs from the command line. Every encoder is
FilmCraft's pure-Rust code; there is no FFmpeg inside.
You need [Rust](https://rustup.rs/) 1.95 or newer. There is nothing to launch yet, but you can
build and test the engine crates:
<p align="center">
<img src="docs/images/effectcraft-render-queue.png" alt="The Render Queue panel with two compositions queued" width="100%">
</p>
## Built for agents
Everything you can do from a menu is a command with an id, and agents can reach every one of
them:
- **MCP server:** `effectcraft-cli mcp` speaks the Model Context Protocol over stdio, headless
or bridged to the running app (`--bridge 9877`). Tools cover commands, the project and property
tree, keyframes and rendered frames. This repository ships a ready [`.mcp.json`](.mcp.json).
- **Command line:** one-shot calls with JSON output, for example
`effectcraft-cli set Main '#1' transform/position '[100,360]' --time 0 main.ecproj --save`
or `effectcraft-cli render --comp Main --out main.mp4`.
- **Control channel:** `effectcraft --control 9877` accepts JSON lines to run commands, inspect
and click any widget by its automation id, and take screenshots.
See [docs/agents.md](docs/agents.md) and [docs/control-protocol.md](docs/control-protocol.md).
## Get started
You need [Rust](https://rustup.rs/) 1.95 or newer.
```sh
git clone https://github.com/storytold/effectcraft
cd effectcraft
cargo build
cargo test
cargo run --release -p effectcraft # the app, with the demo project open
cargo run --release -p effectcraft-cli -- render --out intro.mp4 # render the demo headless
```
To work on one crate:
To work on it: `cargo test --workspace`, and `cargo xtask ci` before every commit (format, lints,
tests, layering, asset attribution and the WebAssembly build). See [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md),
[docs/architecture.md](docs/architecture.md) and [docs/testing.md](docs/testing.md).
```sh
cargo test -p effectcraft-keyframe
```
## Where it stands
The workspace picks up every crate under `crates/`, so while a new crate is half-written the
whole build can break for a while. The `cargo xtask` helpers named in the plan (layer checks,
asset checks, CI) are not written yet.
EffectCraft is young. The core of After Effects is in place and gets deeper every week: what is
done and what comes next is in the [ROADMAP](ROADMAP.md). Not there yet: layer styles, time and
audio effects, audio playback, motion tracking, puppet and paint tools, the web build and GPU
compositing. Projects are saved as `.ecproj`, readable versioned JSON; After Effects `.aep`
files cannot be opened.
## How it's made
@@ -156,10 +186,10 @@ asset checks, CI) are not written yet.
top and nothing underneath depends on it.
- **Clean room.** We work from After Effects' public documentation and how it behaves, never
from Adobe's files, icons, presets or code. No code is copied from GPL projects. The full rules
are in [`plan/README.md`](plan/README.md).
are in [AGENTS.md](AGENTS.md).
- **Private by default.** No telemetry, and no network access unless you ask for it.
- **One family.** EffectCraft shares its time model and text engine design with FilmCraft, and
gets its video and audio codecs from it (see [`plan/adr/`](plan/adr/)).
gets its video and audio codecs from it.
## The Crafting Apps
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asset: effectcraft-3d.png
title: EffectCraft Classic 3D
author: EffectCraft contributors
source: original work (headless render of the EffectCraft UI via crates/ui-egui/examples/snapshot.rs)
license: MIT OR Apache-2.0
license-file:
added: 2026-10-01 by Claude (agent) for Brandon Thomas
notes: Screenshot of EffectCraft only, showing procedurally generated demo content from crates/engine/src/demo.rs and built-in effects. EffectCraft Classic 3D: the demo "3D Showcase" composition in Custom View 1, showing intersecting 3D planes, spot-light shadows, the camera frustum and light wireframes.
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asset: effectcraft-effects.png
title: EffectCraft effects
author: EffectCraft contributors
source: original work (headless render of the EffectCraft UI via crates/ui-egui/examples/snapshot.rs)
license: MIT OR Apache-2.0
license-file:
added: 2026-10-01 by Claude (agent) for Brandon Thomas
notes: Screenshot of EffectCraft only, showing procedurally generated demo content from crates/engine/src/demo.rs and built-in effects. EffectCraft effects: a CC Particle World particle burst with Glow on a black solid, with the Effect Controls panel listing its parameters.
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asset: effectcraft-graph-editor.png
title: EffectCraft Graph Editor
author: EffectCraft contributors
source: original work (headless render of the EffectCraft UI via crates/ui-egui/examples/snapshot.rs)
license: MIT OR Apache-2.0
license-file:
added: 2026-10-01 by Claude (agent) for Brandon Thomas
notes: Screenshot of EffectCraft only, showing procedurally generated demo content from crates/engine/src/demo.rs and built-in effects. EffectCraft Graph Editor: the value graph of the EFFECTCRAFT text animator Range Start keyframes with easing, and the graph editor button bar.
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asset: effectcraft-hero.png
title: EffectCraft main window
author: EffectCraft contributors
source: original work (headless render of the EffectCraft UI via crates/ui-egui/examples/snapshot.rs)
license: MIT OR Apache-2.0
license-file:
added: 2026-10-01 by Claude (agent) for Brandon Thomas
notes: Screenshot of EffectCraft only, showing procedurally generated demo content from crates/engine/src/demo.rs and built-in effects. EffectCraft main window: the demo composition "EffectCraft Intro" at 0:00:03:00 with the EFFECTCRAFT text layer selected, Properties panel (Layer Transform, Text, Paragraph, Text Animation), Project panel and Timeline.
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asset: effectcraft-render-queue.png
title: EffectCraft Render Queue panel with the demo compositions queued for H.264 and ProRes export
author: EffectCraft contributors
source: original work (headless render of the EffectCraft UI via crates/ui-egui/examples/snapshot.rs)
license: MIT OR Apache-2.0
license-file:
added: 2026-10-01 by Claude (agent) for Brandon Thomas
notes: Screenshot of EffectCraft only, showing procedurally generated demo content from crates/engine/src/demo.rs and built-in effects. EffectCraft Render Queue panel with the demo compositions queued for H.264 and ProRes export.