Docs
Getting started
Requirements
- macOS 11.0 or later, Intel or Apple Silicon. Every bundle is universal, so no Rosetta either way.
- Adobe After Effects 2020 or later (2025+ recommended).
Install
- Unzip the download anywhere.
- Quit After Effects.
- In Terminal, from inside the unzipped folder, run
./install.sh. If the plug-ins folder has never been created on this Mac, the script prints two one-timesudocommands. Run them, then re-run./install.sh. - Start After Effects. The effects appear under Effect ▸ DM, or search "DM" in the Effects & Presets panel.
After Effects only scans plug-ins at startup, so always restart AE after installing or
updating. AE 2025 and later may show the Effects Manager dialog on the next launch,
listing the newly installed third-party effects; leave the DM entries enabled. If any
effect doesn't appear, run verify-install.jsx from the download
(File ▸ Scripts ▸ Run Script File…) for a per-effect load report.
Activate
Paid plugins take one perpetual key. Click the License button at the top of any effect, paste your key once, and you're done. The key is verified on your own machine, and it covers every machine you work on. No sign-in is involved; an optional account at dmfx.video/account keeps your keys and downloads together.
The plugin re-checks your key at startup every 45 days or so, on a background thread. If it can't reach us (offline, or a locked-down facility), you keep working. Render farms can get a dedicated offline key; ask us.
Licensing never touches the render path: no watermarks, no blocked or degraded frames, no network waits mid-render. If a check can't happen, it fails open and the render finishes clean.
Suite conventions
Master dials. Every plugin carries the same Master group: macro dials where 100 is neutral (slider 0–200, hard 0–400). A Master dial multiplies the dials folded under it. Set the look with the underlying controls, then ride one Master dial to scale the whole thing. Each plugin's docs page lists exactly which dials its Masters fold.
GPU and CPU. Every effect renders on the GPU (Metal) when After Effects
offers it, and falls back to a CPU path that produces the same image. Nothing to
configure. For support diagnostics only, each plugin honors a force-CPU environment
variable (DMGLOW_FORCE_CPU=1, DMBEAM_FORCE_CPU=1, and so on).
Parameter names. These docs use the exact parameter names from the plugin UI, so what you read here is what you'll see in the Effect Controls panel.
Uninstall
Quit After Effects, then delete the folder
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Plug-ins/7.0/MediaCore/DM.