Prism MCP
AI keyframes in After Effects that stay editable
Ask for motion the way you would brief an animator, and what lands is real keyframes.
| You get | Native keyframes on Position, Scale, Rotation, Opacity, any animatable property |
| You can | Drag them, retime them, re-ease them, copy them to another layer |
| It reads first | Your live comp: real layers, real frame rate, real in and out points — and it can read the keyframes and markers on any layer before it touches them |
| Undo | One step in After Effects history — a whole sequence of changes undoes as a single step |
What you can ask for
| You say | What lands in the timeline |
|---|---|
| "Fade the logo up over half a second" | Opacity keyframes from 0 to 100, at exact frames for your comp's frame rate |
| "Pop it in with a little overshoot" | Scale keyframes that pass 100% and settle back |
| "Stagger these six layers by two frames" | One move offset across the stack |
| "Hold the title until the second beat" | The in point moved to the exact frame of that beat marker (Prism AI, Pro, billed per use from your AI balance) |
| Timing you can give | Seconds, and your AI works out the seconds from whatever you said: half a second, twelve frames, the second beat |
Existing keyframes are left alone — new keys are added at the times you name, not swapped in for what is already on the property.
Easing, weight, and the principles
| Ask for | What it writes |
|---|---|
| A named ease | 50+ easing names resolving to about 40 distinct curves: sine, cubic, quart, quint, expo, circ, back, bounce, elastic, the GSAP power families, and any CSS cubic-bezier you hand it |
| A feel, like "snappy" or "settle softly" | The matching curve, on the keyframes you name |
| A spring | Simulated stiffness, damping and mass, baked to clean keyframes so the timeline stays light |
| A principle by name | Anticipation, follow-through and overlapping action, squash and stretch, secondary action, staging, arcs, slow in and slow out |
| Web-motion shorthand | A fade, slide, pop or staggered list, as native keyframes |
They are what decide whether a move reads as designed rather than merely timed.
Retiming and markers
| Ask | What changes |
|---|---|
| Move, trim or slip a layer | Its timing only. Same source, same effects, same keyframes |
| Fit a sequence to a new length | Every layer's offset, recomputed |
| Set an in or out point | Exact frames, from seconds, frames, or "the comp's last frame" |
| Add a marker | A labelled comp marker on the timeline ruler, or a layer marker on one layer |
Keyframes by default, expressions when the motion is a rule
| You say | What lands | Procedural |
|---|---|---|
| "Keep a little bounce after it lands" | An inertial-bounce expression on Position, reacting to the existing keyframes | Yes |
| "Give the background a slow drift" | A wiggle expression with a gentle amount and frequency | Yes |
| "Loop this spin forever" | A loopOut expression on Rotation | Yes |
| "Make the shadow follow the icon" | An expression linking one property to another | Yes |
| "Move it from A to B and ease out" | Plain keyframes | No |
The expression is written, checked and applied to the property, so there is nothing to paste. Open the property and it reads like one you wrote.
If something does not land
| What you see | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| A named layer cannot be found, and the visible ones are listed | It is not in the active comp. Re-ask with the exact name |
| There is no active composition | Nothing is open to write to. Open the comp, then ask again |
| A timing change does not take | A few operations are intermittent in AE itself. Run it once more |
More in troubleshooting.