AI is a great tool for motion design, graphic design, and animation. If you’re already using AI in your motion work, the annoying part isn’t the results — it’s the constant context switching:

After Effects → browser → prompt → download → import → rename → place → realize it doesn’t quite work → repeat.

Ziframe changes that loop. It adds an AI panel directly inside After Effects so you can generate, edit, and iterate on assets without leaving the timeline. The important part isn’t just convenience — it’s that you’re making decisions in context, with timing, scale, color, and motion already in place.

Why staying inside After Effects actually changes how you work

When AI lives outside AE, you tend to:

• treat AI output as “almost final” assets
• overthink prompts instead of testing visually
• hesitate to iterate because each try costs time

When AI lives inside AE:

• you generate assets on the fly
• you judge them directly in the comp
• you start animating them immediately

The assets Ziframe outputs are automatically saved on your disk next to your project file, imported into your project panel and precomposed, so you can stay in the flow.

Ziframe also lets you use frames or images from your timeline as AI input, which is a good upgrade from traditional workflows. No longer going back and forth between AE and an AI tool.

That’s where the mixed workflow really happens.

---

Generating real assets, in your timeline

This allows you to generate things you actually animate:

• graphic elements
• illustrative scenes
• abstract motion layers
• texture passes
• short video clips meant to live inside a comp

And because everything drops straight into the Project panel, you can:

• precomp it
• mask it
• time-remap it
• layer effects on top
• animate it like any other AE asset

AI becomes another source layer, not a separate phase.

---

Using the timeline as an AI input

This is one of the most practical parts allowing an hybrid workflow.

You can:

1. take a still frame from your comp
2. use an image already in your project
3. feed that into an image or video model

Then generate variations, motion, or style changes based on your design.

Models you can use directly inside After Effects

Ziframe connects to several models, each useful for different parts of a motion workflow (full list at ziframe.com/models).

Image generation & editing

• Nano Banana – fast image generation and editing, great for reworking existing frames or exploring visual variations from a reference.
• Seedream 4 – strong for iterative image generation, especially when you want multiple variations from a consistent base.
• Flux 2 Pro – useful for more controlled image generation with specific formats or framing.
• Z-Image Turbo – quick, lightweight image generation for rapid exploration.

You can also edit frames using Nano Banana — for example, taking a frame from your comp and reworking textures, details, or style before bringing it back into animation.

Video generation & motion

• WAN 2.5 (text-to-video and image-to-video) – turn prompts or still frames into short motion clips that can be looped, masked, or treated as texture layers.
• Seedance 1 Pro – useful when you want more structured motion or camera-aware clips.

Utility models

• Background removal – quick alpha extraction for portraits, illustrations, or objects.
• Image and video upscaling – useful for bringing low-res assets or AI outputs up to comp resolution.

A mixed workflow: AI generates, AE decides

A useful way to think about Ziframe is:

• AI generates raw visual material
• After Effects handles timing, composition, and polish

A typical loop might look like this:

1. Generate an image using Seedream or Nano Banana.
2. Drop it into a comp and color correct it, add a lens flare, etc.
3. Feed it back into Nano Banana to add a variation.
4. Give both images as starting and ending frame to Seedance to generate a video.
5. Tweak the video in AE, add a sound, etc.

Why this fits motion designers specifically

Ziframe works because:

• you see results in motion immediately
• you evaluate assets in the real edit
• you choose the best tool for the job wether it’s ai or an adjustment layer

Example: 

• Rough pass: generate and animate custom assets quickly
• Design phase: feed timeline frames back into AI for variations
• Polish phase: replace only what needs custom animation

AI helps you explore faster.
After Effects is still where decisions happen.

TL;DR

Ziframe isn’t about automating motion design.
It’s about treating AI output as native timeline material you can immediately animate, modify, and iterate on.

If you already mix After Effects with AI tools, keeping that entire loop inside AE makes the process faster, lighter, and more flexible.