What Happens When AI Builds an Alternative to Adobe After Effects?
Built with Rust, EffectCraft includes keyframe animation, visual effects and 3D compositing. It also has an MCP server that lets compatible AI assistants interact with the software directly.
An open-source motion graphics application built almost entirely with AI coding agents is trying to recreate much of Adobe After Effects. It’s called EffectCraft, and it raises two related questions: how much of a creative application can AI help build, and what changes when AI can operate that application too?
Built with Rust, EffectCraft includes keyframe animation, visual effects and 3D compositing. It also has an MCP server that lets compatible AI assistants interact with the software directly.
EffectCraft: How AI Helped Build an Alternative to Adobe After Effects
EffectCraft is part of the ArtCraft software suite, a collection of free creative applications inspired by established paid software. According to the project’s documentation, approximately 361,000 lines of Rust code were written almost entirely with AI agents, with 2,704 automated tests. These figures are project-reported and can change as development continues. Pasquale Pillitteri’s technical breakdown of EffectCraft provides more detail on how it was built.
EffectCraft offers layer-based compositions, keyframe animation, masks, expressions and 3D cameras and lighting. Version 0.20.0 includes 308 built-in effects and supports several video export formats. Those features make EffectCraft an ambitious project, but feature lists alone don’t tell you how well it fits into a motion designer’s existing workflow.
Beyond Animation Tools: How EffectCraft Lets AI Create Motion Graphics
EffectCraft includes a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that allows compatible AI assistants, such as Claude Code, to interact with the application. An AI agent can create compositions, modify layers, adjust properties and render frames through direct commands. In Shab Noor’s experiment using Claude to control EffectCraft, the agent uses the application’s tools to build motion graphics.
In another demonstration documented by Pasquale Pillitteri, Claude Code created a 1280 × 720 composition with a fading title in about 38 seconds, using 11 tool calls. The agent also made two corrections to get the composition right. That kind of control could help with repetitive production work, such as creating title variations, building lower thirds or applying changes across compositions. The designer still guides the result, while the agent carries out some of the steps.
Can EffectCraft Replace Adobe After Effects?
EffectCraft isn’t ready to replace After Effects in professional workflows. It can’t open After Effects projects, motion graphics templates, or presets, so users would need to recreate existing work and assets. Third-party After Effects plugins also can’t run in EffectCraft, which has its own extension system and no established third-party ecosystem. EffectCraft supports JavaScript expressions and some After Effects-style scripting, but its compatibility with existing scripts hasn’t been established. The application is still in alpha, and stability and rendering limitations are being addressed.
The project estimates that approximately 91% of After Effects’ features are implemented, while its readiness for professional work is around 45%. These are developer estimates, not independently verified benchmarks. For a closer look, see the EffectCraft vs After Effects comparison. For designers working on demanding client projects, the missing project compatibility, plugins, and proven reliability make switching difficult for now.
What EffectCraft Reveals About Motion Design Software and Plugins
EffectCraft shows how AI could help developers build competing creative applications and give users new ways to automate production. It also highlights how much a creative tool depends on the ecosystem around it. Motion designers use plugins, scripts, presets and templates to extend their primary software. These tools can make complex effects quicker to create, automate repetitive steps or provide a starting point for an animation.
Adobe’s directory of third-party After Effects plugins lists tools from developers such as Red Giant, Boris FX and Video Copilot, showing the range of external tools available to After Effects users. This ecosystem has taken years to build. Recreating hundreds of built-in effects is impressive, but EffectCraft will need time to develop a comparable range of specialised tools. For now, After Effects users can keep extending their workflows with the plugins, scripts and templates available for their software. EffectCraft is still building its ecosystem. Until then, find new ways to work in the apps you already use.
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