Zoom

A script for Adobe After Effects that can smoothly change zoom in your Composition View.

Latest Update: Experimental features

More info in this post.

Reason

After Effects Composition View has only fixed zoom levels: 25%, 33.3%, 50%, 100%, etc., and there is no buttons or shortcuts to change zoom to any other values. This script creates a simple interface that can change zoom level to any value through Extendscript.

Run the script

Open After Effects, go to "File -> Scripts -> Run Script File..." and open Zoom.jsx. A new Script UI window should pop up.

Install as a dockable panel:

Via After Effects

Open After Effects, go to "File -> Scripts -> Install Script UI Panel..." and open Zoom.jsx.

Manually

Copy Zoom.jsx file to:

Win: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects (version)\Support Files\Scripts\ScriptUI Panels

Mac: /Applications/Adobe After Effects (version)/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels

Restart After Effects and you should be able to find the script under the Window menu.

Usage

The script UI has many similarities with the After Effects UI.

Number

• Click once on the blue number to enter the value manually.
• Click and drag the blue number to chage the zoom level.
• Hold shift while dragging to change the value faster.
• Hold ctrl / cmd while dragging to change the value slower.

Slider

• Drag the slider to change zoom.
• Click on the buttons on the sides of the slider to increment or decrement zoom by 1.
• Hold shift and click the buttons to change the zoom by 10.
• Hold ctrl / cmd and click the buttons to change the zoom by 0.1.

Settings

Click on the small 3-dots button (⋮) on the right side of the script window and click "Settings" to display the settings menu.

Key Bindings

Available under Zoom Settings (⋮) -> Key Bindings tab.

Add custom key bindings that can change zoom value. This feature allows you to use all features of Zoom without the user interface. The default key bindings are: [Ctrl + Scroll Up] to increase zoom and [Ctrl + Scroll Down] to decrease zoom.

Key bindings are only available after installing the Zoom Plug-in which comes together with the script.

Experimental settings

Available under Zoom Settings (⋮) -> Experimental tab.

Offers an improved zooming experience that aims to replicate the feel of After Effects' native zoom functionality. Requires Zoom plug-in.

• Maintain view position after zooming: Disables the automatic centering of the composition view after zoom adjustments.
• When using mouse wheel, change zoom relative to (Requires "Maintain view position after zooming" enabled):
  • View Panel Center (AE default): Change zoom relative to the center of the Composition View panel.
  • Cursor Position: Change zoom relative to your mouse cursor.
• Change zoom only when cursor is inside viewport: Key bindings that include mouse events (e.g., key combinations with Scroll Wheel or Mouse Click) will only be triggered when the cursor is positioned within the composition view.

Source Code

This script is open source. See the GitHub repo - https://github.com/QuisPic/ae-zoom