#3087: keep an effect without a counterpart as a placeholder

Third-party plug-ins and pseudo effects (expression controls) were dropped on
import, so expressions reading them broke. Such an effect now arrives as an
effect group whose effect id is its After Effects match name: it renders
nothing, like a missing plug-in, and is listed by Find Missing Effects. It
holds the effect's parameters flat, named as in After Effects, with their
values, keys and expressions in the units After Effects' expressions read.
It is still reported (once per match name, "kept without rendering") and
counted in imported.placeholderEffects. The parameters and popup items kept
are bounded per import.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

docs/aep-import.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # After Effects project import
 
-> **Last reviewed:** 2026-11-05 · **Last updated:** 2026-11-10 · **Change:** dropped projects and projects picked in File ▸ Import ▸ File… import as projects, several asked about one at a time; `file.import` hands them to `file.importAep`; the menu entries are named Adobe After Effects Project… (#3103); before that: After Effects' Puppet arrives as EffectCraft's Puppet without its meshes and pins, which are reported mesh by mesh (#3093; the storage is not sampled yet, aep-format 3.7); before that: Lumetri Color's master RGB curve, Hue vs Sat curve and colour wheels are imported (1200 presets made by hand); before that: Lumetri Color is imported (1200: every slider, checkbox and popup with a counterpart, by match name, also from records in the default state; switched-off sections, LUTs, looks, undecoded curves and wheels are reported); before that: the report names the After Effects version a file is written for and the one that wrote it (`aeVersion`); copies saved as 25.x and 24.x import like the 2026 save; before that: Curves and Mesh Warp are imported (961-965, 985; FORMAT S of the corpus); before that: a shape item's eye switch is imported (bit 0 of its group flags, 986 / 987: a switched-off Fill under Trim Paths is no longer drawn, render equal to After Effects), and a layer style's (switch group `tdsb` 0, 988); before that: a negative time stretch (Time Reverse Layer) is imported: in and out point in order, the layer plays backwards (981-983: render equal to After Effects at 7 points); before that: After Effects' None on Compound Blur, Displacement Map and Set Matte arrives as an explicit None (`NO_LAYER`), not as the owning layer; before that: layer styles are imported (the nine styles and Blending Options, 951-979; Global Light becomes the composition's); before that: the 27 effects of round 3 are in the table (`effectcraft_aep::effect_map`); before that: a layer of a clip, sequence or sound ends at its source's end (After Effects ends it there when it opens a project, read-back test f1), unless it is remapped or looped or runs less than a frame past; before that: keys of shape colours are read (the reader took their 152-byte spatial records for plain ones: `tdb4` byte 7 is 0 there, 854); before that: the effect table moved to `effectcraft_aep::effect_map`; point defaults in percent and a popup default slot of 0 (After Effects' save of a project it opened, e1 / e2 re-saves) are read; before that: the justification of right-to-left paragraphs is read relative to the direction (t7); before that: 24 more layer blend modes (906, 907); before that: 27 more effects are imported (batch 6: 903-905), with layer parameters; before that: a Rec. 709 working space also sets the output space (After Effects renders in the working space, 902); before that: a mask whose path was never set arrives as the source rectangle (900, 901); before that: Offset Paths' Copy Offset arrives as EffectCraft's (After Effects' value minus 1, 828); before that: project settings, image sequences, conformed clips and effect instance names are imported, next to the mattes, shapes, text settings and animators, effects, markers, time remapping, cameras and lights); before that: parallel and ambient lights (701, 702) and keyed Orientation (703) are imported; before that: masks on text and shape layers (705, 706: AE vs EffectCraft render 12 and 0 of 5184 points, glyph edges) and Merge Paths, Offset Paths, Repeater (707-710, 731; merge renders equal but for edges; Repeater copy opacity and Offset Paths' outline differ in EffectCraft's renderer) are imported; before that: keyframes: the ease of Anchor Point, effect point, effect colour and mask path keys is imported (597-599, 700, 730: within 0.5 px of After Effects' read-backs); before that: effects: Directional Blur, Radial Blur, CC Radial Blur, Venetian Blinds, Channel Blur, Black & White, Tritone, Luma Key, Simple Choker, Matte Choker and Transform are imported (711-723; render checks: CC Radial Blur and Channel Blur equal, Directional Blur within 5/255; Venetian Blinds, Radial Blur, Black & White (8/255), Tritone (19/255), Luma Key, Matte Choker and Transform differ in EffectCraft's renderer, see STATUS); before that: text: character and paragraph settings (stroke, scales, baseline shift, kerning, ligatures, tsume, indents, spacing, justified text, composer, direction, vertical text; 538-578) and text animators with range selectors (579-594, 114) are imported; render checks 594 (keyed range selector at 0 / 0.5 / 1 / 1.5 / 2.5 s), 595, 596 equal but for glyph edges; before that: cameras, spot and point lights, X / Y Rotation and Orientation, Timewarp and expressions on effect parameters are imported (render checks 486, 535-537 equal but for edges; 488 differs by 5.25 %, cause in EffectCraft's renderer not isolated); before that: text: superscript and subscript are imported (526-528); before that: effects: Invert, Fast Box Blur, Gaussian Blur, Drop Shadow, Glow, Fill, Hue/SaturatLine truncated
+> **Last reviewed:** 2026-11-05 · **Last updated:** 2026-11-11 · **Change:** an effect without a counterpart arrives as a placeholder with its parameters, values, keys and expressions; it renders nothing and is still reported (#3087); before that: dropped projects and projects picked in File ▸ Import ▸ File… import as projects, several asked about one at a time; `file.import` hands them to `file.importAep`; the menu entries are named Adobe After Effects Project… (#3103); before that: After Effects' Puppet arrives as EffectCraft's Puppet without its meshes and pins, which are reported mesh by mesh (#3093; the storage is not sampled yet, aep-format 3.7); before that: Lumetri Color's master RGB curve, Hue vs Sat curve and colour wheels are imported (1200 presets made by hand); before that: Lumetri Color is imported (1200: every slider, checkbox and popup with a counterpart, by match name, also from records in the default state; switched-off sections, LUTs, looks, undecoded curves and wheels are reported); before that: the report names the After Effects version a file is written for and the one that wrote it (`aeVersion`); copies saved as 25.x and 24.x import like the 2026 save; before that: Curves and Mesh Warp are imported (961-965, 985; FORMAT S of the corpus); before that: a shape item's eye switch is imported (bit 0 of its group flags, 986 / 987: a switched-off Fill under Trim Paths is no longer drawn, render equal to After Effects), and a layer style's (switch group `tdsb` 0, 988); before that: a negative time stretch (Time Reverse Layer) is imported: in and out point in order, the layer plays backwards (981-983: render equal to After Effects at 7 points); before that: After Effects' None on Compound Blur, Displacement Map and Set Matte arrives as an explicit None (`NO_LAYER`), not as the owning layer; before that: layer styles are imported (the nine styles and Blending Options, 951-979; Global Light becomes the composition's); before that: the 27 effects of round 3 are in the table (`effectcraft_aep::effect_map`); before that: a layer of a clip, sequence or sound ends at its source's end (After Effects ends it there when it opens a project, read-back test f1), unless it is remapped or looped or runs less than a frame past; before that: keys of shape colours are read (the reader took their 152-byte spatial records for plain ones: `tdb4` byte 7 is 0 there, 854); before that: the effect table moved to `effectcraft_aep::effect_map`; point defaults in percent and a popup default slot of 0 (After Effects' save of a project it opened, e1 / e2 re-saves) are read; before that: the justification of right-to-left paragraphs is read relative to the direction (t7); before that: 24 more layer blend modes (906, 907); before that: 27 more effects are imported (batch 6: 903-905), with layer parameters; before that: a Rec. 709 working space also sets the output space (After Effects renders in the working space, 902); before that: a mask whose path was never set arrives as the source rectangle (900, 901); before that: Offset Paths' Copy Offset arrives as EffectCraft's (After Effects' value minus 1, 828); before that: project settings, image sequences, conformed clips and effect instance names are imported, next to the mattes, shapes, text settings and animators, effects, markers, time remapping, cameras and lights); before that: parallel and ambient lights (701, 702) and keyed Orientation (703) are imported; before that: masks on text and shape layers (705, 706: AE vs EffectCraft render 12 and 0 of 5184 points, glyph edges) and Merge Paths, Offset Paths, Repeater (707-710, 731; merge renders equal but for edges; Repeater copy opacity and Offset Paths' outline differ in EffectCraft's renderer) are imported; before that: keyframes: the ease of Anchor Point, effect point, effect colour and mask path keys is imported (597-599, 700, 730: within 0.5 px of After Effects' read-backs); before that: effects: Directional Blur, Radial Blur, CC Radial Blur, Venetian Blinds, Channel Blur, Black & White, Tritone, Luma Key, Simple Choker, Matte Choker and Transform are imported (711-723; render checks: CC Radial Blur and Channel Blur equal, Directional Blur within 5/255; Venetian Blinds, Radial Blur, Black & White (8/255), Tritone (19/255), Luma Key, Matte Choker and Transform differ in EffectCraft's renderer, see STATUS); before that: text: character and paragraph settings (stroke, scales, baseline shift, kerning, ligatures, tsume, indents, spacing, justified text, composer, direction, vertical text; 538-578) and text animators with range selectors (579-594, 114) are imported; render checks 594 (keyed range selector at 0 / 0.5 / 1 / 1.5 / 2.5 s), 595, 596 equal but for glyph edges; before that: cameras, spot and point lights, X / Y Rotation and Orientation, Timewarp and expressions on effect parameters are imported (render checks 486, 535-537 equal but for edges; 488 differs by 5.25 %, cause in EffectCraft's renderer not isolaLine truncated
 
 File ▸ Import ▸ Adobe After Effects Project… (`file.importAep`) reads an `.aep` or its XML form `.aepx`
 and adds its items to the open project, in a folder named after the file (as After Effects does when it imports a project).
@@ -318,6 +318,22 @@ parameter gets the file's value:
   `approximated_keyframes`.
 - **The fx switch** of each instance (the `tdsb` of its value group: 1 on, 0 off; `fx-switch.aep`)
   is imported and exported, and so is an expression on a stored effect parameter (its text and its switch).
+- **Effects without a counterpart** (third-party plug-ins, pseudo effects of expression controls,
+  `Pseudo/…`) arrive as **placeholders** (#3087): an effect group whose effect id is the After
+  Effects match name. Like a missing plug-in it renders nothing and is listed by Find Missing
+  Effects. It holds the effect's parameters flat (without the twirl-down group markers), named as
+  in After Effects, each with its value, keys and expression, in the units After Effects'
+  expressions read (sliders and angles as stored, points in layer pixels, colours, checkboxes,
+  popups over the file's items with separators, read 1-based; layer parameters name their layer,
+  without a record the layer itself as for Layer Control),
+  so expressions that read them (`effect("Settings")("Speed")`) keep working. A parameter's id is
+  its match name (`CC Cylinder-0003`), or `param<index>` when that name is no path segment (a
+  pseudo effect's `Pseudo/0.25-0001`). Paths and arbitrary data are not kept; a popup whose
+  definition is borrowed, or whose default slot holds no item, and that has no value record takes
+  its first item (reported). One import keeps at
+  most 200 000 placeholder parameters and popup items (a popup at most 1024 items); the rest is
+  reported. A placeholder is still reported in `effects` and counted in
+  `imported.placeholderEffects`; .aep export reports it and leaves it out.
 
 ## What is reported
 
@@ -327,7 +343,7 @@ parameter gets the file's value:
 
 | Category | Counted |
 |---|---|
-| `effects` | each effect on an imported layer that is not in the table (by name and match name); for an imported effect: each stored parameter outside the table, a parameter whose type or valid maximum differs from the table, keys or an expression on a layer parameter, an effect without readable parameter definitions |
+| `effects` | each effect on an imported layer that is not in the table (by name and match name; it arrives as a placeholder, "kept without rendering", unless it has no readable parameter definitions); for an imported effect: each stored parameter outside the table, a parameter whose type or valid maximum differs from the table, keys or an expression on a layer parameter, an effect without readable parameter definitions |
 | `masks` | a mask that is not imported because its path cannot be used (a Mask Path entry without shapes, a mask on a text or shape layer whose path was never set (its default is not sampled), unreadable, no vertices, a point count that is not a multiple of three, more than 65 536 vertices, numbers that are not finite), a mask mode code outside the seven known ones (imported as Add) |
 | `layer_styles` | per layer: a style in switch state 3 (not sampled; state 0 is imported as a style switched off, 988), Pattern Overlay, an unknown style or parameter, a gradient (`GCst`, not decoded: EffectCraft's default gradient stays), keys on a popup or checkbox, a value that does not fit, styles on a layer that takes none here (adjustment, camera, light) |
 | `markers` | a marker with an unknown cue type (imported as an event cue) |