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Brandon ThomasandClaude Opus 5.5
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Progress docs per craftrules standards/progress-docs.md: target-app parity, gaps, roadmap with alpha gate, readiness by audience (full / mainstream / essentials) with Opus 5.5 hours, and feature, format, hardware, UI and localization parity docs. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>
6.6 KiB
6.6 KiB
Roadmap detail
Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-10 · Change: major (new file: milestones moved from ROADMAP.md, current focus and next steps with Opus 5.5 estimates) · Target: Adobe After Effects 2026
Forward-looking detail behind the ROADMAP. The work list itself, one gap at a
time, is gaps.md; the numbers are in target-app-parity.md.
There is no cargo xtask scorecard or cargo xtask parity in this repository yet.
Current focus
In this order (gap numbers from gaps.md):
- Crashes and the CI gate (gaps 3–4, G3): fix the eight open crash reports; run
cargo xtask cion every pull request. 15–30 h. - Fidelity harness (gap 2, G1): extend the AEsync ease oracle to rendered frames; a corpus case for every P0 feature, then P1. 60–100 h; needs After Effects running on the owner's Mac.
- Real-user reliability (gaps 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, G2): the open Linux and Windows interaction, mask, effect and text bugs, each with a scripted test. 60–120 h, parallel.
- Owner decision on
.aep(gap 1, G4): then the importer. 80–160 h after the decision. - Performance (gap 5, G5): benchmarks at 1080p and 4K; real-time cached playback. 40–70 h.
Alpha gate
The core workflows of a motion designer in After Effects, checked on EffectCraft's main platform
(macOS) from the scripted UI tests, the live After Effects ease oracle and the open issues
(standard: craftrules standards/progress-docs.md, "Stages"). All six pass, so EffectCraft is
alpha: each works end to end and the work saves and reopens; what's rough in them is listed, but
none blocks the workflow.
| Workflow | Works end to end? | Evidence | Hours to clear the rough edges |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Set up: new comp, import footage, stills, PSD/AI and audio, arrange and trim layers | yes | file.import and image-sequence tests, ui_drag_drop, ui_project_*; rough: a still imports as a sequence (#431), an MP3 layer can go silent (#324), multi-file drops (#552) |
2–4 |
| 2. Animate: keyframes, easing in the Graph Editor, motion paths, parenting | yes | 168 live samples match After Effects 26.3 (fidelity/); ui_keyframes; rough: Graph Editor jitter and clipped buttons (#456, #457), negative rotation drag (#569) |
3–6 |
| 3. Motion graphics: text layers with animators, shape layers with operators | yes | ui_text_edit, ui_timeline_shapes, text and shape engine tests; rough: paragraph alignment inverted (#316), CJK text in comps (#453) |
3–6 |
| 4. Composite: masks, track mattes, blend modes, keying and effects | yes | Compositor and mask tests, 306 effects with CPU/GPU agreement; rough: mask bugs (#510, #513, #527), 32-bpc blend differences (#494), effect bugs (#580 crash, #514) | 6–12 |
| 5. Preview with audio (RAM preview, cache) | yes | ui_ram_preview, ui_live_preview; rough: stutter on cached frames (#595, #304), late audio (#554, #504) |
10–20 |
6. Save, reopen and deliver: .ecproj, auto-save, Render Queue to H.264 / ProRes / sequences |
yes | Versioned-schema reopen tests, crash recovery, render-queue and encoder tests; rough: the macOS default output folder is /, so a render fails until an output path is chosen (#446), ProRes 4444 colour tag (#340), projects don't relink when moved |
1–3 |
The gate is not beta: beta also needs After Effects' own .aep projects to open (gap 1) and
≈ 75% ready for real work.
Milestones
The original build plan; all but M7 and M12 are done. What is left after them is measured against After Effects in gaps.md, not as milestones.
| Milestone | State | |
|---|---|---|
| M0 | Skeleton: crates, compositor, the After Effects style shell, control channel, cargo xtask |
Done (web build: web.md) |
| M1 | Keyframes: temporal and spatial interpolation, Easy Ease, roving, velocity | Done |
| M2 | Compositing: 38 blend modes, track mattes, parenting, adjustment layers | Done |
| M3 | Project operations: settings dialogs, layer commands, .ecproj, undo, After Effects menu bar |
Done |
| M4 | Preview: precomps, motion blur, cached playback | Done |
| M5 | Timeline depth: graph editor, keyframe clipboard and dialogs, time remapping, pick-whips, expression editor | Done |
| M6 | Shapes, masks and footage: shape operators, masks and the pen tool, video and image import | Done |
| M7 | 3D: 3D layers, cameras, lights, shadows, depth of field, 3D views and camera tools | In review (3D gizmos, FBX/USD, Substance still missing: gaps 12–13) |
| M8 | Expressions with the After Effects object model | Done |
| M9 | Text and effects: text animators, layer styles, 306 effects incl. time and audio effects | Done |
| M10 | Export: render queue, H.264, ProRes, image sequences, GIF, audio | Done |
| M11 | Animation tools: audio, Lottie, presets, Motion Sketch, Wiggler, Smoother | Done (preset library: gap 7) |
| M12 | Performance: layer cache, parallel and GPU compositing, disk cache, motion tracking; GPU versions of the remaining CPU-only effects | Mostly done (benchmarks and hardware video: gaps 5, 15) |
| M13 | Puppet, paint, Roto Brush, tracking, plug-in API, timeline depth, trained models | Done |
| M14 | Built for agents: MCP server, CLI, control channel, Settings, shortcut editor, auto-save, crash recovery | Done |
| M15 | The web app (WebAssembly, WebGPU) | Done |
What's next, with estimates
| Next | Gaps | Opus 5.5 hours | Parallel? | Needs a human |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crash fixes and a PR CI gate | 3, 4 | 15–30 | yes | GPUs for #591 / #613 |
| G1 fidelity harness and P0/P1 corpus | 2 | 60–100 | after the harness | After Effects runs on the owner's Mac |
| Open bug backlog (Linux, Windows, masks, effects, text, 3D) | 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 24 | 100–190 | yes | Linux / Windows testers |
.aep / .aepx import |
1 | 80–160 | partly | Owner decision on clean-room scope |
| Performance benchmarks and real-time preview | 5, 15 | 50–100 | partly | — |
| Localization depth | 16 | 60–110 | yes | Native-speaker review |
| Preset library, 26.x features, Object Matte | 7, 14, 21 | 50–95 | yes | — |
| Formats: VFX stills, MXF, 3D models, templates | 13, 17, 18, 22, 23 | 80–160 | yes | — |
| Plug-in ecosystem, multi-monitor, accessibility | 19, 20, 25 | 65–130 | yes | Owner decision on SDK hosting |
To beta (≈ 75% ready and .aep opening): ≈ 350–620 h. To full parity: ≈ 850–1,500 h.
Revision history
| Date | Change | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-10 | minor | Alpha gate: six core workflows checked; all pass, stage stays alpha |
| 2026-10-10 | major | New file: milestones from ROADMAP.md, current focus, next steps with estimates |