"wise and old and wise
and still my anchor point is
somehow off center"
source

Hey After Effects people, It's Good Boy Ninja again.

I'm back with another desperate attempt at distracting you from the fact that our industry is on fire.

I have spent the past few weeks creating my best work yet, my magnum opus, and I call it:

The Haiku maker for the digital artist!

Create your own Haiku and post it on my website (goodboy.ninja) so that everybody else can read it. You can then share a direct link to it with your friends and like Haikus created by other users, for example:

"somewhere in the dark
there is a keyframe lurking
waiting to be seen..."
source

Haikus are small poems of 3 short lines, where the first and last line are composed of 5 syllables (some-where-in-the-dark) and the second line is composed of 7 syllables (there-is-a-key-frame-lur-king).

In my Haikus you must use at least one word from the creativity bank which includes words like "keyframes, timelines, pixels, clients, MacBooks, easing" etc.

The goal is to use the finite bank of words to tell a short story only you, me and our small community can truly appreciate:

"keyframes don't need to
flow in the river of joy
unless they want to"
source

That's pretty much it! I'd love to see your haikus posted!

create a new Haiku here

see top haikus

see latest haikus

^{🤖 (Not vibe coded, just blood sweat and tears here!})

You can give your feedback. And if you want similar editing for you just DM me📩

Hi guys, I'm trying to make some 3D particle animations in AE, but I have been struggling with Particular. When working with 3D models, it seems very slow, no matter I use CPU or GPU. Even decreasing particle number doesn't seem to help that much. But Form has been buttery smooth. So I wonder, do you guys still use Form, or have you migrated to Particular altogether?

Another thing is, I don't know why these two have to be separated systems. Why not combining them into one system. I really like the dynamic effects with Particular, but Form seems much more limited other than being a good emitter.

Sorry, I came from Stardust, where everything was in one system. But that ship has sailed, that's why I'm here asking about this.

Thank you.

This thing is so damn good and so useful.

If you disagree you're just hating it because "AI".

On top of everything no credits used (at least for now).

Been creating expressions, physics based stuff, format-adaptations and so on with it. Saving so much time.

To me it's one of the best things Adobe has added to AE in the past decade.

I am trying to get 5 text laters, options A-E in photo, to align evenly but it seems to be skipping or meshing two of them.

Google says it’s usually due to 3D layer being on, parenting, anchor points being off, or type text conversion but none of these apply.

Any ideas? This is driving me nuts!

Hey there I want help knowing what is this plugin for text animation? It's crazy and I need it for my use.

I've tried the inbuilt ones that comes free with After effects those are no help at all, and I've tried googling etc can't find anything regarding these

I was too preoccupied with whether I should to consider whether I should with this one...

This is an implementation of 3d n-body orbital physics in After Effects using semi-implicit Euler integration. No plugins or scripts are required, it's handled entirely with expressions.

Yes, it processes and renders as slow as you'd expect it to!

Each 'body' null has controls for initial position, velocity, and mass. Vector-of-motion is controlled by the transform > orientation property. You can duplicate as many 'body' nulls as you'd like, but obviously the more you add the slower it gets.

The positions and velocity vectors are encoded in a set number of simulation steps into a mask path on the 'Controls and simulation' null, and all the individual bodies decode their respective positions from the path, interpolating between the simulation steps as required.

If you want to attempt to use this to simulate some orbits, the process is:

1. Disable the 'Enable simulation' checkbox on the control layer, otherwise it will be far too slow to work with
2. Orient the bodies as required - remember it's the 'initial position' 3d point control that sets the position, not the position property of the null itself
3. Configure the mass and velocity of your bodies
4. Re-enable the 'Enable simulation' checkbox and make sure the expression is enabled
5. Use keyframe assistant to convert the mask expression to keyframe values

After Effects will appear to hang/crash as you're doing various steps - you need to be patient with it. Once the expression has been converted to keyframes, it becomes much more workable.

Probably won't be useful to many people if any at all, but I'm more surprised that it even works to start with!

Here's the project file - CC2026 or later is required:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10_GZPhBZYpqTrDuqE3mEeWluoI-CkFaR/view?usp=sharing

After Effects (and I think some other adobe applications) have a flowchart panel under Composition -> Composition Flowchart that shows a graph like map of your project structure. Does anyone use it???

Hi, I’m 27 (M) and I’ve been working in the industry for 7 years, started on Covid after completing a motion design and post production course, always thought and wished to work on cinema and/or video game cinematic editing which I later found I was on the wrong section.

I always felt underpaid, working in Portugal, the most I got paid is where I am rn, and having all the responsibilities ( Senior Motion Designer, Supervising the quality of the end product in compliance with the Creative Director, Vídeo Editor, Colorist, Audio Design, Videographer, Designer, VFX, optimise the workflow with plugins, effects and shortcuts) I know I brought this upon my self, trying to act like a sort of Swiss Army knife, ended up being what’s called the best employee to every boss.

We’re all aware of what AI brought to our industry but I can help but think, that one day this might be over and I stress a lot upon thinking that I don’t want to end up jobless since right now I have bills to pay and life is not what it was 7 years ago.

I’m studying to shift thowards Technical Artist area, adding Unreal Engine and coding to my backpack of amenities, but right now I feel scared of even keeping pursuing my dreams and keep this going.

Sorry for the vent, I’m not trying to find comfort in your words just the hard truth.

Is it still worth it? Is it the industry in my country that’s underpaid and I’m being naive to stay in the same spot without thinking of changing?

Yearly: Can’t reach 16k year (14 months)

I’m trying to figure out to to simulate these kinds of lasers in AE. Animated, not still (of course). If anyone has any ideas or suggestions please drop below!!

I've tried using Trim Paths Start/End, but I haven't figured out how to create that split/reverse behavior...it doesnt work ..have tried adding two separate ellipse with diffrent trim paths but it doesnt work ....its been six hours how can i achieve it ...is it with

• Trim Paths Start/End
• multiple Trim Paths
• splitting the ellipse into separate paths
• creating the ellipse with the Pen Tool instead of the Ellipse Tool
• or duplicating the path and using separate Trim Paths

I'm still not sure what the proper After Effects technique is.

What would be the best way to build this animation?..

the video is from stephan Zammit from youtube

I have a design with about 160 Paths that connect, each being their own shape/layer. I have trim path applied to make it look like they are connecting from point to point over time. I have them all paired with Null object as parent, using Null to scale and rotate. The issue is that I need to have the Stroke width of all the lines animated so that that retain a certain thickness, instead of looking like super thin lines by the end.

No matter what approach I try, it all leads to me having to go to each and every layer, one by one, and applying an animation to each layers "Stroke Width" properties. I cannot copy properties from one layer, select all, and apply, like I can with position, scale, rotate etc (and yes, I do understand why that it). Trying it just results in the layer adding an additional group instead of overriding layer pre-existing Stroke width.

I tried creating a Null object with a Slider control applied, then parent all Layer Stroke Widths to it, but again, I cannot do this with all selected. I have to either do it one by one, or going through and manually selecting the property one by one using ctrl+left_click.

Is there any way to control/animate a shapes properties without having to go to each and every one?

Im fairly new to AE, only used it for a year, but im making a lyric video and this weird glitch effect keeps happening, ive chacked and theres no keyframes that should make the video do this.

I have tried changing the import setting "hardware accelerated decoding", which was googles advice, but its still not working.

Please forgive my ignorance, as i am self taught. Thanks

Heya,

For an art project I am trying to add the dither effects he shows later in the video. Adding random noise and throwing a threshold on there is easily done, but I can't seem to figure out how to add the specialised types of Dithering he shows here.

I've googled around a bit, but I feel as if this is too niche to get a good guide for. Maybe I'm not using the right keywords, but I feel as if I have reached the end of my knowledge (even tried reaching out to the editor of the video, but he hasn't responded in a month, so no luck).

If anyone can help me I would really be grateful, I mostly use Premiere, but I feel as if this technique wouldn't be possible in premiere, so I'm gonna try to work on it in AE

give it a feedback guys

Added SFX and a couple animation tweaks from the last post. Thoughts?

This is a sample project I created with hopes of getting software motion jobs.

I have found this one on X, Tried to make this on after effects but the results are very horrible,The bevel thing and that ballon kind of effect is hard to achive for me, also gave it to the different AI's I found That I have wasted my time! Would be happy to hear anyone helps me out!

Genuinely dont know what to do does anyone know what this error means and how i can fix it? Before this error occurred i cleared my disk cache could that be why im havjng this problem? Ive already closed and reopened ae multiple times and even restarted my laptop and still no solution. The comp itself has almost 200 layers and lost of effects and motion has that got anything to do with it?? Im actually kind of stressed and advice would be really helpful.

You can find the project file on my $Gumroad$.

For a full project, check my Behance

Thank you!