llms.txt
# Premation
> Premation is a free, open-source motion editor for macOS and Windows: an After Effects alternative with a graph editor, 2.5D cameras, rigging and a native GPU engine.
Premation is a free, open-source (AGPL-3.0-only) desktop motion-graphics editor for Windows and macOS, modelled on After Effects. Current version: 1.0.1. Source: https://github.com/isroil01/premation
## Start here
- [Download](https://www.premation.com/download): installers for Windows and macOS
- [Features](https://www.premation.com/features): every capability, with the limited and missing ones marked
- [Pricing](https://www.premation.com/pricing): what is free and what the optional cloud costs
- [Premation vs After Effects](https://www.premation.com/vs/after-effects): feature by feature, including where After Effects is ahead
- [Documentation](https://www.premation.com/docs): the full manual
- [Changelog](https://www.premation.com/changelog): every tagged release
## Feature areas
- [Compositions and layers](https://www.premation.com/features/compositions): The stack everything else happens in. Nest one composition inside another, and it renders through its own camera until you tell it not to.
- [Animation](https://www.premation.com/features/animation): Every numeric property takes keyframes, and every keyframe carries its own interpolation.
- [Video](https://www.premation.com/features/video): What a motion tool actually needs to do to footage: follow something in it, retime it, caption it, and recut it for every aspect ratio.
- [Text](https://www.premation.com/features/text): The full After Effects animator model, including the parts most alternatives skip.
- [Vector and shapes](https://www.premation.com/features/shapes): Draw with real tools, then stack operators on the path in any order.
- [3D space](https://www.premation.com/features/space): The Classic 3D model: flat layers standing in a shared space, lit and shot with real cameras — and imported 3D models with PBR materials.
- [Rigging](https://www.premation.com/features/rigging): A real skeleton and a mesh deformer, composing on the same layer. After Effects has neither without a plugin.
- [Effects and looks](https://www.premation.com/features/effects): Fewer than After Effects, parameterised properly. Still the honest gap, and a much smaller one than it was.
- [Audio](https://www.premation.com/features/audio): A mixing panel and the audio effects of After Effects 26.3, on the same keyframes as everything else.
- [The timeline](https://www.premation.com/features/timeline): Where the work actually happens, built to the same anatomy as the tool you already use.
- [The assistant](https://www.premation.com/features/ai): It calls the same operations the interface does, so what it makes is editable — from the in-app assistant, or from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Antigravity connected from outside.
- [The engine](https://www.premation.com/features/engine): Since 0.9.0 everything you see, play and export is drawn by a native C++ process. The editor is its interface.
- [Export](https://www.premation.com/features/export): The same engine that draws the viewport writes the file.
- [Files and privacy](https://www.premation.com/features/files): A project is a directory on your disk that you can read without this application.
- [Templates](https://www.premation.com/features/templates): Turn a composition into something someone else can fill in without opening the timeline.
- [Plugins](https://www.premation.com/features/plugins): Native C++ plugins, modelled on After Effects' plugin APIs, run inside the engine: effects, and since 1.0 commands, panels, importers and export formats, installed from a store.
## Comparisons
- [Premation vs Rive](https://www.premation.com/vs/rive)
- [Premation vs Jitter](https://www.premation.com/vs/jitter)
- [Premation vs LottieFiles Creator](https://www.premation.com/vs/lottiefiles)
- [Premation vs Blender](https://www.premation.com/vs/blender)
- [Premation vs Cavalry](https://www.premation.com/vs/cavalry)
- [Premation vs DaVinci Resolve Fusion](https://www.premation.com/vs/davinci-resolve-fusion)
- [Premation vs Apple Motion](https://www.premation.com/vs/apple-motion)
- [Premation vs Natron](https://www.premation.com/vs/natron)
- [Premation vs Friction](https://www.premation.com/vs/friction)
## Use cases
- [Export video with an alpha channel](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/export-video-with-alpha-channel): Transparent video, three ways
- [Lottie animation editor](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/lottie-animation): Design it as layers, ship it as JSON
- [Kinetic typography software](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/kinetic-typography): Text that moves letter by letter
- [Lower third generator](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/lower-thirds): Lower thirds you make once and fill forty times
- [Logo animation software](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/logo-animation): Animate a logo from its SVG
- [2D character rigging and animation](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/character-rigging): Rig flat artwork and pose it
- [Motion tracking software](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/motion-tracking): Attach a graphic to something that moves
- [Auto-reframe video for vertical and square](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/auto-reframe-video): One edit, every aspect ratio
- [Add captions and subtitles to video](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/captions-and-subtitles): Captions from the audio, styled as text layers
- [Open an After Effects project without After Effects](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/open-after-effects-project): Open an .aep file as an editable project
- [Export an animated GIF from a motion graphic](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/export-animated-gif): A GIF with one palette for the whole animation
- [Speed ramp and slow motion video](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/speed-ramp-slow-motion): Ease into slow motion with two keyframes
- [3D text animation](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/3d-text-animation): Extruded type, lit and shot with a camera
- [2.5D parallax animation](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/parallax-animation): Flat layers, real depth, one camera move
- [Batch render videos from a CSV](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/batch-render-video-from-csv): One template, one file per row
- [Remove a video background](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/remove-video-background): Key a green screen, or cut the subject out
- [Audio-reactive animation](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/audio-reactive-animation): Motion that follows the music
- [Particle effects for motion graphics](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/particle-effects): An emitter you can scrub backwards
- [Export HDR video (HDR10 and HLG)](https://www.premation.com/use-cases/hdr-video-export): HDR10 and HLG, encoded from float frames
## Guides
- [Build your first animation](https://www.premation.com/guides/first-animation): Start from an empty composition and finish with an exported file, using the real panels — toolbar, inspector, timeline, graph editor and the export dialog.
- [Build a native plugin](https://www.premation.com/guides/build-a-plugin): What a Premation plugin is now, how to build the samples, how an effect is put together against the C SDK, how to test it, and how the engine treats it when it crashes.
## About the product
- [Free motion graphics software](https://www.premation.com/free-motion-graphics-software): Free motion graphics software, with nothing held back
- [Open source motion editor](https://www.premation.com/open-source-motion-editor): An open-source motion editor you can read, build and fork
## Glossary
- [Adjustment layer](https://www.premation.com/glossary/adjustment-layer): A layer with no content of its own whose effects apply to everything rendered beneath it in the stack.
- [Anchor point](https://www.premation.com/glossary/anchor-point): The origin a layer rotates and scales around. Moving it changes what a rotation pivots on without moving the layer itself.
- [Blend mode](https://www.premation.com/glossary/blend-mode): How a layer's pixels combine with what is already drawn beneath it: multiply darkens, screen lightens, difference inverts where they overlap.
- [Bone](https://www.premation.com/glossary/bone): One rigid segment of a skeleton. Bones chain into a hierarchy; rotating a parent rotates every child with it.
- [Composition](https://www.premation.com/glossary/composition): A canvas with a size, frame rate, duration and background, plus the stack of layers drawn on it. The unit you animate in and export from.
- [Easing](https://www.premation.com/glossary/easing): The rate at which a value travels between two keyframes. Linear is constant speed; an ease slows into or out of a keyframe, which is what makes motion read as physical.
- [Effect stack](https://www.premation.com/glossary/effect-stack): The ordered list of effects applied to one layer. Order matters: a blur before a glow and a glow before a blur are different pictures.
- [Expression](https://www.premation.com/glossary/expression): Code that computes a property's value every frame instead of reading it from keyframes. Wiggle, loops and links between properties are the classic uses.
- [Frame blending](https://www.premation.com/glossary/frame-blending): Synthesising in-between frames when footage is slowed down or its frame rate does not match the composition, instead of duplicating or dropping frames.
- [Graph editor](https://www.premation.com/glossary/graph-editor): A view of animation as curves: value over time, or speed over time. Dragging the handles reshapes how a property moves between keyframes.
- [Hold keyframe](https://www.premation.com/glossary/hold-keyframe): A keyframe with no interpolation after it: the value stays fixed until the next keyframe, then jumps. Used for cuts, blinks and stepped motion.
- [IK and FK](https://www.premation.com/glossary/ik-fk): Two ways to pose a chain of bones. Forward kinematics rotates each bone and the children follow. Inverse kinematics moves a target and the chain solves to reach it.
- [Keyframe](https://www.premation.com/glossary/keyframe): A recorded value at a point in time. Two keyframes and an interpolation between them are the whole basis of animation.
- [Layer](https://www.premation.com/glossary/layer): One element in a composition: a shape, text, image, video, audio clip, camera, light, null or nested composition, with its own transform and time span.
- [Layer style](https://www.premation.com/glossary/layer-style): A treatment that follows a layer's shape rather than its pixels: drop shadow, inner glow, bevel, satin, stroke. Photoshop's idea, borrowed by every motion tool.
- [Linear blend skinning](https://www.premation.com/glossary/linear-blend-skinning): How a mesh follows a skeleton: every vertex takes a weighted mix of the transforms of the bones near it. The weights decide how smoothly a joint bends.
- [Lottie](https://www.premation.com/glossary/lottie): A JSON animation format (bodymovin) that plays natively on the web, iOS and Android. Vector shapes and transforms travel; raster effects do not.
- [Track matte](https://www.premation.com/glossary/track-matte): Using one layer's luminance or alpha to decide another layer's transparency. A luma matte uses brightness; an alpha matte uses the shape.
- [Mask](https://www.premation.com/glossary/mask): A vector path on a layer that limits what part of it is visible. Feather softens the edge; mask modes add, subtract and intersect several paths.
- [MOGRT](https://www.premation.com/glossary/mogrt): Motion Graphics Template: a composition with a few fields exposed so an editor can change the text or colours without opening the animation.
- [Motion path](https://www.premation.com/glossary/motion-path): The spatial trajectory an animated position follows, drawn as a line through its keyframes. Editing the path's Bézier handles changes the route without touching the timing.
- [Motion tracking](https://www.premation.com/glossary/motion-tracking): Following a feature in footage from frame to frame and writing its position as keyframes, so graphics can be attached to something that moves.
- [Null object](https://www.premation.com/glossary/null-object): An invisible layer with a full transform, used as a parent so a group of layers can be moved, rotated or scaled together.
- [Parenting](https://www.premation.com/glossary/parenting): Linking one layer's transform to another's so the child inherits the parent's position, rotation and scale, on top of its own.
- [Pick-whip](https://www.premation.com/glossary/pick-whip): A drag gesture that links one thing to another: a layer to a parent, or a property to an expression that reads another property.
- [Pre-composition](https://www.premation.com/glossary/pre-comp): A composition nested inside another as a single layer. Its layers render to their own buffer and composite as one unit, which is how complex scenes stay editable.
- [Puppet pin](https://www.premation.com/glossary/puppet-pin): A control point placed on a mesh generated over flat artwork. Dragging the pin deforms the artwork around it, so a drawing can bend without a skeleton.
- [Range selector](https://www.premation.com/glossary/range-selector): The part of a text animator that decides which characters, words or lines an animation applies to. Animating the selector, not the property, is what makes text arrive letter by letter.
- [Render snapshot](https://www.premation.com/glossary/render-snapshot): A flat, immutable description of one frame, produced by sampling every animated value at one time. Everything that draws reads from it, so preview and export cannot disagree.
- [Repeater](https://www.premation.com/glossary/repeater): A shape operator that fans one shape into many copies, each offset by a transform, so a single dot becomes a ring, a grid or a spiral.
- [Shape layer](https://www.premation.com/glossary/shape-layer): A layer made of vector paths with fills and strokes, plus a chain of operators that modify them. Resolution-independent and animatable down to the vertex.
- [Shy and solo](https://www.premation.com/glossary/shy-and-solo): Two timeline switches that people confuse. Shy hides a layer from the timeline list without hiding it in the picture. Solo renders only the soloed layers.
- [Speed ramp](https://www.premation.com/glossary/speed-ramp): A smooth change in a clip's playback speed: slowing into a moment and speeding back out, rather than a hard cut to slow motion.
- [SVG](https://www.premation.com/glossary/svg): Scalable Vector Graphics, the web's vector format. Paths, fills, strokes and groups in XML that any browser draws at any size.
- [Text animator](https://www.premation.com/glossary/text-animator): A set of property offsets applied to a text layer through a selector, so each glyph can move, fade, scale or rotate on its own schedule.
- [Time remapping](https://www.premation.com/glossary/time-remap): Keyframing a clip's internal time: which source frame plays at which composition frame. Freezes, reverses and ramps are all time-remap curves.
- [Trim paths](https://www.premation.com/glossary/trim-paths): A shape operator that reveals only part of a stroke, from a start to an end percentage. Animating End draws a line on; animating Offset chases a dash along it.
- [Two-node camera](https://www.premation.com/glossary/two-node-camera): A camera with a point of interest it always looks at. Move the camera and it keeps aiming at the subject; move the point and the camera turns to follow.
- [Depth of field](https://www.premation.com/glossary/depth-of-field): The range of distances that appear sharp. Everything nearer or farther than the focus distance blurs, more with a wider aperture.
- [WebGPU and Dawn](https://www.premation.com/glossary/webgpu): WebGPU is a modern GPU programming interface with compute shaders, designed for browsers. Dawn is the open-source library, used by Chromium, that implements it on top of Direct3D 12, Metal and Vulkan.
- [Engine](https://www.premation.com/glossary/engine): The program that evaluates a project and draws its frames, as distinct from the interface you click. Some tools run it inside the interface process; others run it as a process of its own.
- [Native plugin](https://www.premation.com/glossary/native-plugin): A plugin written in C or C++ and compiled to a shared library that the host application loads. It is the kind of plugin After Effects effects are.
- [HDR10 and HLG](https://www.premation.com/glossary/hdr): Two ways of encoding high-dynamic-range video. HDR10 uses the PQ transfer curve with static metadata; HLG uses a hybrid curve that also plays acceptably on standard displays.
- [Alpha channel](https://www.premation.com/glossary/alpha-channel): A fourth channel stored beside red, green and blue that records how opaque each pixel is. It is what lets a graphic sit over other footage without a black box around it.
- [Premultiplied alpha](https://www.premation.com/glossary/premultiplied-alpha): A way of storing transparency in which each pixel's colour has already been multiplied by its alpha. The alternative, straight alpha, keeps colour and alpha separate. Reading a file as the wrong one gives dark or bright fringes at the edges.
- [ProRes 4444](https://www.premation.com/glossary/prores-4444): The Apple ProRes profile that keeps full colour resolution and adds an alpha channel. It is the usual format for handing a graphic with transparency to an editor.
- [Codec](https://www.premation.com/glossary/codec): The method used to compress and decompress video or audio: H.264, HEVC, VP9, ProRes. The container, such as MP4 or MOV, is the file that holds the result.
- [Bitrate](https://www.premation.com/glossary/bitrate): The amount of data a video uses per second, usually in megabits. A higher bitrate means a larger file and fewer compression artefacts.
- [Frame rate](https://www.premation.com/glossary/frame-rate): How many frames are shown per second: 24 for film, 25 or 30 for broadcast and the web, 60 for smooth motion. It is set by the composition, not by the footage in it.
- [Timecode](https://www.premation.com/glossary/timecode): A way of naming every frame as hours, minutes, seconds and frames, so that two people or two machines can refer to the same frame.
- [Aspect ratio](https://www.premation.com/glossary/aspect-ratio): The proportion of a frame's width to its height: 16:9 for landscape video, 9:16 for vertical, 1:1 for square.
- [Motion blur](https://www.premation.com/glossary/motion-blur): The streak a moving object leaves within a single frame, because a camera's shutter is open for a span of time. Adding it to animation makes fast movement read as smooth.
- [Shutter angle](https://www.premation.com/glossary/shutter-angle): How long the shutter stays open during each frame, written as an angle. 180 degrees is half the frame's duration and is the film standard; a larger angle gives more motion blur.
- [Bézier curve](https://www.premation.com/glossary/bezier-curve): A curve defined by anchor points and the handles that pull it between them. The same mathematics draws vector paths and shapes the timing between keyframes.
- [Compositing](https://www.premation.com/glossary/compositing): Combining several images into one picture: layers stacked with transparency, blend modes, mattes and effects. A compositor is a tool built around that.
- [Chroma key](https://www.premation.com/glossary/chroma-key): Removing a background of one colour, usually green or blue, so the subject can be placed over something else. Also called green screen or keying.
- [Rotoscoping](https://www.premation.com/glossary/rotoscoping): Cutting a subject out of footage frame by frame, by drawing or painting a matte around it. It is what you do when there is no green screen to key.
- [Planar tracking](https://www.premation.com/glossary/planar-tracking): Tracking a flat surface, such as a screen, a sign or a wall, inste
