About Visual States

Visual States saves and loads named layer visibility states, allowing you to manage multiple versions of the same composition inside After Effects. States are saved in an unlimited number and can be loaded with a single click or double‑click. Multi‑select with Ctrl or Shift lets you delete several states at once, and the Include/Exclude Layers tool toggles layers across specific or all states without reloading.

The Comp Navigator panel lets you browse every composition that contains saved states and switch between them. Duplicate Comp with States copies all states to a new composition, while Copy States from… imports states from another composition and reports matched layers. You can also import states from other projects via Open or Merge. Render All or Render Sel sends selected versions to the Render Queue.

All states are stored in a plain .visualstates.json file placed next to the .aep file, making them shareable on shared drives and team folders. Layer renames, reordering, or composition renames do not break saved states. The plugin runs as a dockable panel on both Windows and macOS.

Features

• Save unlimited states per composition and load them instantly with one click or double-click
• Multi-select states with Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click, and delete several in one step
• Include / Exclude Layers turns selected layers on or off across specific states or all of them without reloading
• Comp Navigator browses every comp with saved states in the project and switches between them
• Duplicate Comp with States and Copy States from… another comp, with a per-state summary of matched layers
• States stored in a plain .visualstates.json file next to the .aep, shareable across shared drives and team folders
• Dockable panel; rename layers, reorder them, or rename comps without breaking saved states

Best for

After Effects artists who need to manage multiple visibility versions of a composition and batch‑render each version efficiently.