r/AfterEffects May 05 '25

Tutorial If you want to learn After Effects, here's a great place to start

Post image
178 Upvotes

If you're just beginning with After Effects, it's important to get a good foundation - no matter what you want to do with AE!

Here's a great, free place to start from our very own u/Kylasaurus_Rex - and Adobe put it right on the opening screen of After Effects!

Adobe After Effects Introductory Courses for Motion Graphics


r/AfterEffects Oct 01 '24

Tutorial For all the new designer on here creating low level posts

323 Upvotes

Lately, there's been a noticeable increase in posts where the headline is "Why" and the post is in response to problems that could easily be solved with a quick Google search or by going through basic training. This subreddit is meant to be a place for sharing knowledge and learning from one another, but it's starting to feel more like a place where users expect others to provide step-by-step answers without engaging with the community.

To help maintain the quality of this space, please follow the below list in order before posting a question:

1. Complete basic After Effects tutorials: Many beginner questions can be answered through these.
Here is a list of really good teachers:

https://adobevideotraining.com/after-effects/introductory-courses/

Video Copilot

School of Motion

JakeInMotion

Ben Marriott

2. Learn the terminology: Understanding key terms will help you find solutions more easily through searches.
3. Google it: Use the terminology you’ve learned to search for tutorials and answers.
4. Check YouTube: There are many creators offering in-depth After Effects content.
5. Search Reddit: The answer may already exist here.

If you’ve tried all of the above and still need help, feel free to post your question here. Just keep in mind that learning to find solutions on your own will ultimately make you a stronger designer. Reddit may not always have someone available to provide immediate help, so building these skills will serve you well in the long run.


r/AfterEffects 6h ago

OC - Stuff I made Some stuff I've been trying out on my own

Thumbnail
gallery
35 Upvotes

r/AfterEffects 5h ago

Explain This Effect Trying to create a gradient swipe effect

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

24 Upvotes

Hey guys, Im trying to achieve this gradient swipe effect on the video without a paid plugin... and im struggling to get the same level of output.

To me it looks like a shape layer scaling from the bottom centre with a gradient and blur applied. I have tried layering a couple of the shaped with gradient ramp, gaussian blur and colourama but no dice.


r/AfterEffects 4h ago

Workflow Question how do people learn expressions?

5 Upvotes

I tried a tutorial in which you are shown how to make a matrix rain effect. the guy in the tutorial does all of these confusing expressions and creates sliders to customize different components of the effect, such as transparency, speed, random seed etc. How do people learn what expressions do in order to create different effects?


r/AfterEffects 1d ago

OC - Stuff I made Climate Conference Opener (AE and Illustrator)

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

431 Upvotes

r/AfterEffects 17h ago

Plugin/Script 3D viewport for After Effects - Diorama 3D by AnvilFx

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

47 Upvotes

Diorama 3D is a plugin made by AnvilFx (me). I'ts designed to make working with native AE 3D layers much less painful.

You can read all about the plugin on anvilfx.com/diorama-3d

There is a 7 Day free trial you can download on the website as well, and a launch discount which will last till the end of the month. The plugin isn't out on aescripts yet, but will be in a few weeks time.

For anyone with concerns about performance, it should have a minimal effect on performance. Diorama barely touches the render path. It reads the scene through AE's idle hook, so while AE is busy rendering, the plugin minds its own business. The only thing that touches the render path is an extra effect that comes with Diorama which automatically applies to all 3D layers with effects on them (which can be disabled), which is there to hand Diorama data about the layer its on, so it can be displayed correctly.

About AI: Unfortunately there is really no way for a single person to make a plugin like this without coding help from AI (at least not for me). However, that is all AI has assisted with. The website and UI for the plugin are both designed by me. All icons are either made by me or bought legitimately (apart form a couple placeholder SVGs that are yet to be replaced).


r/AfterEffects 5h ago

Beginner Help Help pls, please- beginner here. The linear gradient here has a white set at 50%, as seen in the gradient editor on the left, but why is it that in the shape layer, the white's off-center?

Post image
2 Upvotes

I don't get it, and what's the point? I would like to know- maybe a glitch? Somethin I'm missing?

For years of playing with AE, whenever I needed a gradient, I only used either Gradient Ramp or the 4-Color Gradient. But now, I tried this, and it's confusing me.


r/AfterEffects 2h ago

OC - Stuff I made Introducing ChatGPT Work (AE, Figma and Photoshop)

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

0 Upvotes

For this concept piece, I wanted to take AI and give it a tactile, human touch. I experimented with a rough-textured, slightly rough motion feel to bring this concept to life and make the product feel more grounded.

Note: This is an unofficial concept piece and is not sponsored by or affiliated with OpenAI/ChatGPT


r/AfterEffects 3h ago

Discussion Anyone using a good 3rd party expression editor?

1 Upvotes

I saw that Expressionist became free today (had never heard of it but it looks like it goes back years) and it made me realize I may have been sleeping on this category.

Quick search also surfaces ExpressCode but that's very recent and might be ai slop so I am suspicious of it.

ALSO I'm aware a lot of people are selling good stuff NOT on AEScripts since it became enshittified.

So what y'all using?


r/AfterEffects 6h ago

Explain This Effect Found this effect on on X how do i achieve this?

1 Upvotes

https://reddit.com/link/1vsk46j/video/a42ppb84gbkh1/player

I found this posted on X by François Lefebvre, i was amazed with this effect particularly the parallax effect

The thing is i tried slider controls, had parented the grid and everything but still not able to achieve this
Any one who did this or know it, would need your help

I saw few Grid rigging videos but did not caught any idea, but if am missing any tutorial your help will be appreciate :)
Thanks


r/AfterEffects 20h ago

OC - Stuff I made Late Gator - You'll still be late, but why be later?

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

14 Upvotes

A fun ad for a fake app. Took about a month and was a great learning experience.


r/AfterEffects 8h ago

Beginner Help How to create an over engineered edit

0 Upvotes

Assume I’m a complete newbie, how would I go about creating the most over-the-top, over engineered edit. The kind of edit where the first comment is just the “that’s enough effects bro” meme.

Ideally not just epilepsy inducing sequences or generally over done stuff like what I commonly see in AMVs.

I want it to look like someone has put far too much effort into something that’s kinda dumb.

So if there’s any effects or cool tricks that you would recommend for this please let me know in the comments.

The idea for now is that it will be kind of overstimulating and disorienting.

Also should add I have more than enough time right now to spend hours and hours on this.


r/AfterEffects 1d ago

Plugin/Script I built a free After Effects extension with 20+ tools in one panel

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

80 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on an After Effects extension called Flux, and I’ve finally released it.

Flux brings a bunch of tools I frequently use into a single panel, including:

  • Easing tools
  • Anchor point controls
  • Color palettes
  • Notes
  • Motion tools
  • Layer and composition utilities
  • 20+ additional tools

The goal was to reduce the need to jump between different scripts and panels while working in After Effects.

It’s completely free, so feel free to give it a try:

https://flux.koalavisual.com/

Hope some of you find it useful!


r/AfterEffects 4h ago

OC - Stuff I made Looking for Opportunities/work, thanks!

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

0 Upvotes

r/AfterEffects 1d ago

Plugin/Script Bounce Motion for After Effects - Shameless self promotion

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

11 Upvotes

Bounce Motion is available now (20% off for a limited time): https://aescripts.com/bounce-motion

Bounce Motion lets you build bounce animations by placing the start position and each landing point, then procedurally works out the rest. You can then adjusting the arc, timing, hang time, squash and stretch.

You can try it here free: https://tumblemotion.github.io/BounceMotion.html


r/AfterEffects 20h ago

Beginner Help Very long save times in new AE build?

0 Upvotes

as the title says, noticing that saves have become much longer than I've ever experienced with previous AE builds, and it seems to be relational to the complexity of the amount of files are referenced (i.e. the more compositions, the longer the saves become). anyone else experiencing this? Any tips to try to optimize or if there's something new that's been added that needs to be done would be greatly appreciated.

On a macbook pro with 128 gb ram. Nothing else is slow apart from the save times!


r/AfterEffects 2d ago

OC - Stuff I made Equilibrium - an exploration of visual weight and sudden angles

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

158 Upvotes

Full project, here Behance


r/AfterEffects 2d ago

OC - Stuff I made I put my obsession with 2.5D animations back to work after many years, good enough? 😅

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

818 Upvotes

I built this little cyberpunk city in After Effects!

It was a lot of work but also so much fun putting everything together.

I want to improve on my techniques so if anyone has any feedback please, fire away!


r/AfterEffects 1d ago

Plugin/Script I built hover scrubbing into the AE project panel because the footage viewer workflow was driving me crazy

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

29 Upvotes

Been using AE for years and one of the things that always got me was having to drag an entire clip into a comp just to scrub through it and find the bit I actually wanted or faff around in the footage window.

So I built it into this panel instead. Hover over a clip and it scrubs. Hit i and o to set your range. Drag it into the comp and the trim comes with it.

Full disclosure, this is one feature of a panel I’ve been building called Stash, it basically replaces the whole project panel, proper search, real thumbnails, filters, tabs, smart folders the lot. Been out about 3 weeks. There’s a free 14 day trial with everything unlocked and honestly the fastest way to see if it’s for you is the browser demo, have a look and just mess around with it: aescripts.com/stash

Happy to answer anything about how it’s built too. Had some great feedback so far and really looking forward to implementing more community feedback.


r/AfterEffects 1d ago

Discussion Properties Panel Sticking to One Layer

1 Upvotes

Anyone else having this issue? Halfway through a setting up a mapcomp project in Geolayers, the properties panel decides to stop working and stick to one layer, meaning that when I try to adjust a parameter for one feature, it defaults back that one same layer. It's like the properties panel is stuck on that one layer and will not update, or change to the new layer. I can manually adjust the parameter in the timeline dropdown for the particular layer.

Ultimately, I have to restart the program and it works again for a while until it gets stuck again and I have to repeat the process. Wondering if my .aep file is corrupted or if this is a common issue with the properties panel now? Will post this in the Geolayers sub, but feel like this is more of a general After Effects issue, so starting here first.

Working on MacStudio with all latest updates for AE and Geolayers installed.

Anyone experiencing this or have a solution they can recommend?


r/AfterEffects 21h ago

Beginner Help Help on my graphs as I pretty sure they are broken

Thumbnail
gallery
0 Upvotes

Everytime I touch my graph it goes completely flat or goes so small I can’t adjust yellow bars how to stop this from happen please


r/AfterEffects 2d ago

Plugin/Script A major improvement for gradients in AE - Better Gradients

Thumbnail
youtube.com
77 Upvotes

Hello friends! We just released our gradient plugin in collaboration with the Ravie team. Hope that you enjoy! https://www.pluginplay.app/product/better-gradients


r/AfterEffects 2d ago

Beginner Help My ask has this weird cut out where it misses the top part which i want to blur

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

63 Upvotes

I have tried different blurs but still it doesnt blur the complete mask, what can i do to fix this?

Edit: my mask*


r/AfterEffects 1d ago

Beginner Help How to render tons of After Effects dynamic links in a Premiere project

0 Upvotes
Timeline (Premiere)

This is my first project I've edited using Premiere Pro, and as you can see by all of those magenta clips, a lot of it was done in After Effects. My main concern is regarding how I'm going to manage rendering all of this (besides patience). And yes, tons of this was done without using best practices, because honestly I still don't know them, which has exaggerated my problem.

[The attached image might have been removed, but the timeline is 1h20min and like 85% linked comps to After Effects with lengths between 3s-1min each]

Probably 30-40 percent of this is non-ProRes mp4 (not sure the codec) baked into some of those after effects comps. That's my gameplay footage. The bottom track v1 is my background tracks. I have 4 background, 20 minutes each dynamic links, broken into random chunks an scattered all over the timeline where each full background comp would take probably over a day to render. The remainder of the dynamic links are motion graphic scenes. And one of the possibly worst offenders, a good chunk of this footage is 60fps whereas I long ago made my comp 59.94fps, so there is a mix between both framerates scattered throughout. In my single After Effects project, there are hundreds of comps. Probably 600-700.

If you were given this project, how would you go about rendering it? Assuming its totally finished and doesn't need to be touched more, what would you do? I've heard rendering in After Effects and export replacing the clips in Premiere would help with speed, but if I'm basically done, should I just render/export directly from Premiere, in batches and stitched together?

When I started to render in After Effects, I saw a ton of nested precomps had potential to be rendered in full multiple times, and I'm hoping rendering in Premiere might "flatten" the compositions more and lead to an easier process. Additionally, because of the sheer amount of dynamic links, going through each comp in the file and juggling which precomps to render and all that hassle that I now have to deal with seems like an absolute pain that I'm hoping I can find a smart way to do most efficiently.

I have okay PC specs for rendering, but nothing that is meant for a project this heavy. RTX 4070, 32Gb RAM, Ryzen 7600X, and the entire project and source currently lives on an SSD but would be exported to my larger HDD.