After Effects

This plugin integrates Prism into Adobe After Effects.

This plugin has been tested with After Effects 2024-2025. Other versions might work as well.

Guides

The guides section covers the Prism-AfterEffects integration.

After Effects

Setup

The plugin can be installed from the Prism Hub.

After the plugin is installed, the Prism integration needs to be added to the After Effects preferences folder.

This can be done in the popup after the plugin installation.

Alternatively you can add the Prism integration to After Effects in the Prism User Settings -> “DCCs apps” -> “After Effects” by clicking the “Add” button.

This is the path, which should be selected for the integration:

%APPDATA%\Adobe\CEP\extensions

Note

The folder might not exist and must be created first. Alternatively the integration can also be installed into C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\CEP\extensions if you have write permissions for that folder.

For Mac please see the extension folders documented here.

Accessing Prism in After Effects

Prism is available inside After Effects from the top menu bar: “Window” -> “Extensions” -> “Prism”. The floating Prism menu window can be docked anywhere in After Effects.

The Prism menu window contains options to:

• save and version up your scene

• save, version up your scene and add a description/thumbnail

• open the Project Browser

• import media from your Prism project

• check if updated media versions are available

• open the Prism Settings

• open the Render Setup

Saving Scenefiles

You can save new scenefile versions using the options in the Prism menu or by opening the Project Browser and selecting “Create new version from current” in the context menu in the “Scenefiles” tab.

Importing Media

To import objects from your Prism project into After Effects you can navigate to a media version in your Project Browser. You can then rightclick the image and select “Import images…” or simply drag&drop it into After Effects.

Rendering Media

To render your After Effects composition and save it to disk you can open the Render Setup from the Prism menu.

In the Render Setup you can change the “Indentifer”, “Comment” and choose which “Composition” should be used.

A render settings template can be selected from the dropdown. Templates can be modified or added in the After Effects Render Queue panel.

To render the composition, click the “Render” button. Alternatively, compositions can be added to the queue by clicking the “Add to Render Queue” button.

The render output can be found in the “Media” tab in the Prism Project Browser:

Troubleshooting

I can open the Prism panel in After Effects, but nothing happens when I click the buttons

This can happen when the Prism installation or After Effects plugin was moved after adding the Prism integration to your After Effects extensions. To fix that you can usually remove Prism AE integration and add it again in the Prism User Settings -> DCC apps -> After Effects.

For further troubleshooting open the %APPDATA%\Adobe\CEP\extensions\prism.cmd file in a text editor and make sure that the paths of the PRISM_ROOT and PRISM_AE_PLUGIN variables are set to the correct paths.

Doubleclicking the prism.cmd file should load Prism with a splashscreen and open the Prism Project Browser in AE if AE is currently running.