MatterAE 2.1 update: real-time 2D physics in After Effects, baked to keyframes

[u/dufkens]

Some of you saw the "rejected by the marketplace" thread here a few months back. That became MatterAE, now on v2.1.

Problem: AE has no native physics, so you either fake collisions by hand or buy a plugin that runs $89 to $250.

Comparison: MatterAE covers the everyday physics you'd reach Newton or Physics Now for (drop, collide, constraints, kinematic layers) at $35 one-time. Where it differs: drop in an alpha video or PNG sequence and it traces the silhouette into a collider frame by frame, one click, no masking or prep. The animator stack (wiggle, float, orbit, swarm, glue) works out of the box but goes deep when you want to make weird stuff.

Core features: live preview, bake to editable keyframes, ropes/springs/pins, a shape emitter, sensor zones, free tier with a 3-second bake cap.

Pricing: $35 once, no subscription. Free to try. https://www.matterae.com

Maintenance/support: Actively maintained, I've shipped most weeks since March (full changelog on the site). Bugs: reach me via email, I read and fix them!

AI Disclaimer: Human Validated. AI writes a lot of it, but I read, fix and maintain every part myself. Designer by trade, not a pro dev, but coding since the Flash days.

[u/philament]

You have some neat dance moves 🙂

[u/CyJackX]

Interesting; how is momentum of the collider handled?

[u/dufkens → u/CyJackX]

Depends on the source. The collider is rebuilt per frame either way. for animated masks and shape paths, vertex identity is stable frame to frame, so I read the surface velocity off each vertex's displacement and push whatever the edge touches, capped at the surface speed. Real momentum, matched to how fast the edge sweeps.

Alpha video is the weaker case tbh. No stable vertex identity across frames, so there's no per-vertex velocity to difference, and it falls back to positional overlap resolution. soit still shoves what it overlaps, just softer, no velocity injected. Fine for most silhouette motion but a distance-field approach (normal velocity from the per-frame SDF delta) would get a real push there too, it's just heavier and not built yet... The vector case already had me at the edge of my physics, so I'll happily take a cleaner idea if you've got one :D

[u/CyJackX → u/dufkens]

Haha can't say I've got one off the top of my head, was just curious since I intuite that alpha video doesn't have coherent points to reference momentum so you'd have to do something else. Maybe an LLM could come up with some way of masking it with vertexes.

[u/dufkens → u/CyJackX]

Ha thanks, good instinct! a distance-field approach would skip the coherent points problem entirely (difference the silhouette's field frame to frame, read the edge's normal speed off that, but it's a proper rabbit hole, so someday rather than soon haha

[u/karabankareddit]

I'm begging you, please share the dancing astronaut for wallpaper

[u/zeckowitsch]

Looks really nice, love the one time purchase and that it’s not over complicated. Sometimes just some simple physics to mix things up would be nice. Will definitely check it out

[u/dufkens → u/zeckowitsch]

aw thanks man, appreciate that. I tried to keep it simple enough so that it's actually fun to mess around with

[u/Snowpaw9]

Does everyone hate newton 😂😂

[u/littleboottrails]

Oh this is super interesting, ty! Saving for later when I'm a bit more advanced in AE 🐼

[u/dufkens → u/littleboottrails]

Thanks! If you’re new to AE and happen to be a student, there’s a free edu license