If you are not a special effects person or a motion designer using it daily, you’ll need to relearn AE every time. If you aim is to learn motion design, Rive might be better.

thanks, bilgi. motion is such a big part of of digital design - rive has been on my "check out" list. will move it up the list 😅

rive is like ae but with systems if that makes any sense lolol

lollol yes makes too much sense. glad i'm not the only one side eying AE

If your goal is to use it for UI motion design, I would recommend going with a high fidelity prototyping tool such as Origami or Framer instead of AE. No need to wait for rendering, and the things you build will be interactive

thank you matthew! 100% agree. in marketing teams, i am thinking more for marketing videos and promo stuff. but since time and energy are finite, I'm happy to focus on Framer and leave AE on backburner.

I'm not sure if there is a full fledged replacement, but there might be more niche tools for specific workflows (for instance rotato.app/). After Effects is the one tool where anytime I figure out how to do something I completely forget it by the next time I open the app.

rotato.app

thanks, andy! rotato looks great. and that's been my experience with AE as well - i have been trying to "learn it" for years and i feel i just have to do it every day (like any other piece of software). it's at the core of so much (3D, promo video, etc).

Absolutely! For iPad, Alight Motion is a sleeper who is the “ae” for iPad。 And desktop you def need to try Cavalry。 cavalry.scenegroup.co

thank you! i need something that doesn't make me feel like i'm getting punched in the face

you should try jitter.video 🙌