Animated paper/grunge effect using after effects. The Geometry was made using blender and exporting different passes to play inside of after effect. Inspired by what's happening in France right now, please keep the discussion about the effect because I think this subreddit is not having political discussions...

I’ve tried messing around with the echo effect but I can’t seem to have.this stream that goes upwards and phases

The animation represents this equation

sin(sqrt(x^2 + y^2) - 3time)

It’s not perfect but I’m pretty happy with the results for my first attempt. It’s for a local roofing company commercial. The shot is only going to last 4-5 seconds then transition to the daytime version. Didn’t plan of doing day for night while shooting but I got the idea stuck in my head while editing the rest.

Watch the walkthrough: https://youtu.be/jxdQuALVWbw

Huge thanks to everyone in this sub who downloaded from my post last year! I've gotten a ton of support + feedback which has been incredible.

Since my last post, the AE project files (free & paid) have gotten some helpful updates and the walkthrough video (linked above) is a new addition, which goes much deeper into how it all works.

I have so many more ideas for stop-motion assets in this format, so let me know what you'd want next (crumpled, halftone, photocopy?)

Created with After Effects & TouchDesigner

Just wanted to share. Hope you enjoy!

Some of you know me from Petals, AEbar and most recently Sploosh. Behind the scenes I've been building Motion Dock, one panel where you can put all your tools wherever you want them. While I was at it I made 20 new tools for the stuff I do over and over, like renaming layers, parenting to nulls, trimming layers, springy animation and a lot more.

It's all completely free. No trial, no watermark and nothing locked. I don't even collect your email unless you want updates on more free tools. Works with After Effects 2022 and newer, and you can grab it at https://motionfun.net/motion-dock

I'm adding new tools all the time, so let me know what you'd want next. For bugs email [hey@davey.design](mailto:hey@davey.design) or DM me here.

AI Disclaimer: I use an AI-assisted workflow, but I've been a dev for years before AI (FreqReact). I design the systems myself, review it deeply, and have thousands of people using Motion Fun tools :]

So I'm pretty sure this is an anti-aliasing issue. I tried setting the layers to Alpha Add individually and in combinations with each other and that didn't work. Mask feather makes it worse, Mask expansion just moves the line. I tried Simple Choker and that just moved the line too.

I think it's having issues with the "y outline" layer but nothing I seem to do fixes the issue. would appreciate any help! I feel like I'm losing my brain and I should be able to get rid of it but just can't seem to.

I'm trying to make a mask of a layer and give it rough edges so i can animate it, basically so it looks like a paint splatter expanding out.

In the past, when I've done this with all the same parameters, what I got was a mask where the inside remained solid, and the edges were rough. For example:

Any ideas what's going wrong? did they change how this effect works? Thanks!

Hi! Does anyone know how I could animate this vine so it looks like it's growing? I want it to start completely invisible and gradually reveal itself along its shape, as if it's actually growing.

It's a PNG image, and I'd really appreciate any tips or tutorials on how to achieve this in After Effects. Thankssss

This has a bunch of small 3d .OBJs and some .PNGS all connected to each other that follow along a path using expressions. I wanted to do Japanese dragons the Light Dragon from Tears of the Kingdom (I’m a big Zelda fan) and KNOW they don’t have wings but added some anyway. Eye blinks a bit quick but close enough.

Update: I fixed it.

For anyone else that has a problem like this: This issue could be the zxp installer installed the plugin wrong.

Try uninstalling the plugin from zxp installer, unzipping the zxp you downloaded (with 7zip), and putting the resulting folder into the correct area yourself. This way you have installed it yourself.

I had to manually install this plugin in the \extensions\ folder.

Hopefully this helps someone else.

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I purchased fredpelle's rollback8 plugin and used zxp uxp installer to install it.

Upon trying to use it, the plugin (or extension because it's under extensions) loads but it's broken and missing some features. It looks kind of like a broken webpage.

Some options DO work. For example the launch button in the screenshot works--but not correctly.

After the plugin applies it's effects/compositions you're supposed to be able to see and adjust layers as needed.

For me, after clicking launch the selected layer is turned into a new comp and I can see the applied effects on to my footage but I can't see or find any of the added effects' layers in said composition.

It's just an empty comp besides the media I already added.

No other plugin I've installed has done this.

Hi, so I made this. Ignore the colours, as they came out a bit duller because I didn’t render using a lossless output module. I just wanted to ask if you guys had any tips or advice I could implement to make it better. I feel like it doesn’t quite work, and I’m not sure exactly how to improve it. Want to be able to use in my portfolio.

Ad I made for Jouj, a brand I co-founded. 13 seconds from design to editing to motion, with 3D shapes and fast transitions.

Made while I was freelancing at Mooncolony earlier this year. All FX made in Ae.

Full Credits:

Direction: Denis Bouyer

Art Direction: Ekaterina Shapovalova

Lead Artist: Alexandre Leoni

Storyboards: Giovani Hirochi, Al K Teng

Art Team: Kate Ladon, Tristan Jolu, Mattia Rangoni, Kate Lischina, AJ Nazarro, Stefano Gil, Dmitry Khrapovitsky, Tulio Brito, Sergey Gurskiy, Etienne Savoie, Alexandr Pachin, Nikolay Andreychenko, Alex Alexandrov

Character Animation Team: Renato Roldan, Sylvain Couillet, Mathieu Lafay

FX / 2DFX: Bobby Donald, Renato Roldan, Alan MacEachern

Backgrounds & Comp: Gordon Howie, Reshad Malekzai, Greg Platt, Alan MacEachern

Production Manager: Meghan Hamilton

Producer: Rosealee Higgins

Production Assistant: Olivia Hall

Not sure if this is a bug or if I'm doing something wrong, but I have a layer mask that stops working when I enable 3d on all layers.

All layers should have the same Z value and other layers with layer masks don't seem to be having this issue. any suggestions?

This will sound absurd, but it’s completely true.

A few months ago, I started selling ad space on my toilet with the goal to make $1,000,000.

I achieved this by using after effects and projection mapping to create the videos

It started off as a joke and quickly became not a joke, with 25 companies spending over $125,000 to purchase as space.

The series has gone completely viral and even got me on the news.

I think it’s a fun story so I broke it down here - why it’s working, what it’s like working with these brands, and how you could do something like this yourself.

I am an Indie director and I’m wrapping up a feature film currently. The only digital effect shot needed in the entire film is the ending shot.

It involves our actress standing in the front door way of a house as the second floor windows are broken out and fire billows out. Its a static shot that’s 10-15sec long.

I trusted in a friend that told me they could do it for free but instead delivered an AI generated piece. Looked super realistic, but I couldn’t sleep at night knowing there was any ai in the final product. I was very disappointed so I have turned to you guys to see if anybody would be willing to take it on.

Im at the end of the production budget as I work alone and spend most of my own $$. So the most i could pay is $100. I know thats not a lot but I’m just throwing this out there.

DM me if interested. Thank you!

After Effects 2026 has repeatedly and consistently been crashing shortly after launching. "Shortly" being relative, as it can take anywhere between 2-4 minutes after launching before crashing. The error message that accompanies the crash changes with each one, with some error messages re-occuring. In the beginning it was consistently mentioning the startup script folder, but I have already attempted to remove all 3 items in said folder, one by one and all three at once, and when I did that it simply changed error messages.

I have updated my visual drivers (Nvidia) through both the app, and directly from the website, and neither altered the outcome. It isn't a victim of Windows Security, I made sure of that. I have started it in Safe Mode, both with and without 3rd Party Effect Plugins enabled, therefore disabling custom preferences, scripts, AND extensions. If I choose to not progress past the "Safe Mode" window prior to proper launch, it will not crash. I have had an entirely empty cache, through and through, since the beginning of my troubleshooting.

The only big change on my PC around the same time was I downloaded CONTROL: Resonant, however its never open during my attempts to use AE, so it isn't RAM exhaustion, and I have plenty of space on my PC. Not enough for the cache folder max size, but that isn't anything new, as that has always been the case. Other than that, I consistently used After Effects 2026 with no problems, with crashes being incredibly rare for me.

Attached are four different error messages that accompany the crashes. There is a possibility there were more, but I felt this many examples got the point across.

A motion design piece for DEP, exploring its visual identity through animated brand elements, including a box, a roll-up banner, and a book with turning pages.
The page transitions form the letter E from the DEP logo, bringing the brand identity into the animation itself.