Playback & Navigation

Railcut uses familiar NLE-style playback controls. Most shortcuts pass directly to After Effects, so you’re working with AE’s native playback engine throughout.

Playing your comp

Space — Begin Preview

Press Space to start playback. After Effects caches frames and plays them back as quickly as possible. Press Space again to stop.

Note

Previews in After Effects render as fast as possible. If your comp is heavy with effects, the first play-through might be slow while AE caches frames.

Frame-by-frame navigation

Key	Action
→	Step 1 frame forward
←	Step 1 frame backward
Shift+→	Step 10 frames forward
Shift+←	Step 10 frames backward

Jumping to clip boundaries

Key	Action
↓	Jump to next edit point
↑	Jump to previous edit point

These find the nearest clip in or out point across all tracks and jump the playhead there. Useful for quickly stepping through cuts.

Go to Start / End

Key	Action
Home	Jump to the start of the composition
End	Jump to the end of the composition

Go to In / Out

Key	Action
Shift+I	Jump playhead to the work area In point
Shift+O	Jump playhead to the work area Out point

Scrubbing

Click anywhere on the time ruler (the timecode bar at the top of the track area) and drag left/right to scrub the playhead. AE updates the current frame as you drag.

You can also click directly on the playhead line and drag it.

Selection Follows Playhead

When Selection Follows Playhead is enabled (toggle in the settings menu), clips that touch the playhead automatically become selected when you stop moving. This is handy when navigating by edit point and immediately acting on a clip.

Estimate Playhead Position During Playback

In Settings, you’ll find an Estimate Playhead Position During Playback option. When enabled, Railcut estimates the Ae’s current time during playback, and jumps to the actual current time when playback stops.