ShotLink has two plugins — one for After Effects, one for Unreal. Install both with the aescripts manager, or copy them by hand.
The manager is the quick way. Manual install is there if it doesn't work on your machine.
Install ShotLink from the aescripts + aeplugins manager. It puts the After Effects plugin in place and installs the Unreal plugin for the engine versions it finds — nothing to copy.
Close After Effects and Unreal first. The archive has one plugin for After Effects and a separate Unreal plugin for each engine version:
Copy ShotLink.aex into the After Effects plug‑ins folder. On another version of After Effects, replace 2025 with yours.
Take the ShotLink folder from the version that matches your Unreal Engine version.
Copy it into the Engine\Plugins folder of your Unreal Engine installation. By default, it's here:
Match the versions — the UE 5.7 plugin goes into UE_5.7.
If Unreal is open, restart it, then continue with First launch ↓
Plugins in place? Let's see it live.
Pick a starting point — the steps update to match.
The ShotLink Examples is a ready Unreal project with a matching After Effects project, built for Unreal Engine 5.7.
Download the ShotLink ExamplesOpen Examples.uproject, go to Edit › Plugins, search for ShotLink and tick Enabled. Restart Unreal if prompted.
Keep Unreal full-speed in the background. Unreal slows down when it isn't the focused window — exactly what happens while you work in After Effects. Turn that off:
With Unreal still open, open Examples.aep in After Effects. The comp is already built — on the ShotLink effect, open the Source dropdown and pick the ShotLink Camera.
That's it — the Unreal scene appears in your comp. Move the After Effects camera to verify the connection: the Unreal view should update and follow it.
Open your .uproject, go to Edit › Plugins, search for ShotLink and tick Enabled. Restart Unreal if prompted.
Keep Unreal full-speed in the background. Unreal slows down when it isn't the focused window — exactly what happens while you work in After Effects. Turn that off:
Drop a ShotLink Camera into your scene from the Place Actors panel — it's the Unreal render source After Effects will control.
Open your After Effects project. At minimum the comp needs an AE camera and a layer with the ShotLink effect applied. On that effect, open the Source dropdown and pick your ShotLink Camera.
That's it — the Unreal scene appears in your comp. Move the After Effects camera to verify the connection: the Unreal view should update and follow it.
Brightness doesn't match the Unreal viewport? Most likely the scene uses Eye Adaptation (Auto Exposure), and the ShotLink camera isn't capturing it. Select the camera, type eye into the search field of the Details panel and tick Eye Adaptation under Post Processing Show Flags.
Tune this any time after you're connected — Unreal and After Effects share one machine, so it helps to stop AE claiming every resource.
Reserve RAM for other apps so Unreal keeps enough memory to render:
Turn off idle caching. With ShotLink the image already updates live, so RAM Preview buys little — and while AE caches frames ahead it can nudge the Unreal camera to a later keyframe. Switch it off: