|

A plugin for After Effects and Blender that dynamically syncs precomps from AE into textures in Blender in real time, for Windows and Mac.

Version history:

Uhm… add some pictures maybe??
Uhm… maybe don’t crash when more than 64 synced layers are added?
Support framerate interpolation.
Add the ability for AE’s Render Queue output to automatically link the outputted file to the proper place in Blender.
A rewrite of the frame handling logic could allow for 60 fps playback (not guaranteed).
Other combinations of software besides AE/Blender could be looked into if there’s demand.
Button in AE that makes it easy to sync multiple comps at the same time?
Some size comps display with 4 extra rows of pixels in Blender?

Toggle the “Precomp Sync Activate” buttons in AE (under Composition) and Blender (under Object, or via F3) to begin syncing.
To sync a precomp, add the prefix “sync_” or “sync " to its name in AE.
If the precomp has not been synced before, a plane with the proper aspect ratio will be added to the viewport similar to the Import Textures as Planes option in Blender.
To stop syncing a precomp, simply remove the prefix from its name.
A righthand panel under Tool in Blender (the N key) has information about the plugin’s status (though it’s not very reliable).
The panel also contains a way to globally set the bitmap render resolution to make speeding up playback easier.

Inactive. - The plugin hasn’t been switched on in Object -> Precomp Sync Activate.
Waiting for AE… - AE’s button hasn’t been switched on.
AE connected (PID) - AE and Blender are confirmed to have an ongoing connection.
AE unresponsive (PID) - AE has stopped responding to Blender, most likely because AE stopped calling our function (see Limitations).

The plugin uses shared memory to efficiently copy a buffer from AE into a Blender texture, and both programs frequently call functions we control (i.e. idle hooks) that make sure each are in sync with each other.
The texture it writes to in Blender behaves just as any normal texture does, so you can use it it shader nodes, multiple objects, etc.
The plugin works fine for final renders as well, but beware that AE might randomly stop updating mid-render (see Limitations). The Render Queue output bullet point in the todo is meant to address this.
Note that this plugin handles framerates the same way Blender handles image sequence textures (at the moment), meaning textures will play back slower/faster if the framerate doesn’t match between Blender and the AE precomps.

AE will stop calling its idle hooks in certain circumstances, which causes bitmaps in Blender to stop updating. The two major ones I’ve found are if a popup window is open (like New -> Solid or Composition Settings) or if AE goes into a ‘sleep mode’ from not interacting with it after a few minutes. I’ve actually only observed the second behavior on Mac; on Windows it doesn’t seem to appear. Blender, on the other hand, seems to always call its idle hooks no matter what.
Having a synced texture open in the Image/UV Editor window in Blender will slow down playback by a lot for some reason.
If a new project is opened in Blender, its sync button has to be pressed again.
Blender requires textures to be converted to 32-bit floating point for use, which makes this plugin’s RAM usage a bit more than you’d expect (width * height * 16 bytes for every synced precomp, 32 MB for a 1920x1080 precomp for any bit depth). This could be improved if Blender’s Python API gets a fast bitmap conversion/transfer function.