v0.145.4Internal beta docs
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Beta documentation · eXLib v0.145.4. Public release is pending.

Pseudo Effect Authoring

What a pseudo effect is

A pseudo effect bundles a whole set of controls into one custom After Effects effect — a .ffx preset — instead of leaving a scatter of individual Slider, Color, and Checkbox controls sitting loose on a layer. Pseudo Effect Authoring is where you build, edit, and round-trip them.

You reach it from the LIB → Pseudo FX toolbar entry, which takes you straight to the authoring surface rather than a list of saved rigs. Saved rigs themselves live in their own tree — All Pseudo Rigs — inside the Library (see Where rigs live).

The Structure tree and the Inspector

The main authoring surface is a Structure tree of controls, each editable in the Inspector beside it. The available kinds:

  • Slider, Angle, Checkbox, Color
  • Point, 3D Point
  • Dropdown, Layer
  • Label
  • Group — groups nest, so you can build a hierarchy of related controls

Structure supports drag-to-reorder, drag-to-nest, and multiselect. Tab and Shift+Tab walk every editable property field in visual order, including fields inside nested groups — decorative chrome and collapsed fields aren't stops, so keyboard traversal only ever lands on something you can actually edit.

Every verb lives in a single row next to the authoring screen's title, beside the props-layout toggle — nothing is split off into the footer or hidden behind a collapsed rail. Reading right to left: Apply · Import · Pull · Save · Export · New, with hairline dividers marking the group boundaries and one more fencing off the layout toggle.

The footer carries no actions at all. It shows only two things: a library-membership chip and a preflight strip. Before you've saved, the chip reads "Draft — not in library." Once you save, it swaps to the rig's real folder and title. The in-flight rig is kept as hot-exit working state before its first Save (see Work in progress survives a reload below). It becomes a Library item only when Save succeeds; "Draft — not in library" is literal, not another name for an already-saved rig.

The association row

Directly under the header sits a slim row naming which library expression, or expressions, this rig is currently associated with. Click it to open a floating expression picker: rows toggle in a multiselect with a check mark showing what's included, Done commits your selection, and Esc cancels, leaving the association exactly as it was. Associating a rig with an expression is what keeps that expression's controls derived from the rig going forward — see Associating with expressions.

Applying a rig to a layer

A pseudo effect applies to a layer, not a property. Select a layer — or a property, since that just names its layer — and click Apply. No property selection is required. Selecting more than one layer is refused outright, naming how many layers are selected rather than guessing which one you meant.

Starting over with New

There's no separate Revert button. New starts a fresh rig and cuts every tie to the one you were working on — its draft, its saved-library link, its association, its pull provenance, and its place-back baseline — so the next Save creates a new library entry rather than updating the old one.

A pristine session (nothing changed since it was opened or last saved) starts fresh silently. A dirty one shows a dialog naming exactly what will be discarded — its controls, its groups, any associated expressions, and the layer it was pulled from — before it lets you proceed.

Work in progress survives a reload

Like the Author view, an in-flight rig comes back after a panel reload — its structure, its pull provenance, its remap baseline, all of it — labeled "· restored." If you don't want it, New is how you discard it and start clean.

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After Effects lets you rename the pseudo effect instance, but not its internal controls. eXLib's generated expressions address the effect and its controls by stable match names, so changing the effect's display name in After Effects does not break those links. To rename, reorder, or retype an internal control, Pull the applied effect — or Import its .ffx — into Pseudo Effect Authoring and edit it there. For a pulled effect, finish with Confirm & place back so eXLib migrates its existing keyframes and expressions.

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These screenshots were captured in an earlier beta. Toolbar and Library layouts have since changed; the written instructions on this page describe v0.145.4. See A Tour of the Panel for the current controls.

Pseudo Effect Authoring: a Structure tree of controls, an Inspector beside it, every verb in one header row, and a footer that only reports status.
Pseudo Effect Authoring: a Structure tree of controls, an Inspector beside it, every verb in one header row, and a footer that only reports status.