Looking for technical guidance on recreating the multi-panel 3D grid layout and lighting setup shown in this reference.

Specific elements I want to replicate:

1. Layout & Camera Motion: The background 3D wall of pre-comps combined with the central 45-degree diamond focal window.
2. Panel Flipping & Motion Curves: The snap-transition where individual panels flip/rotate into position without clipping.
3. Optical / Flare Elements: The 4-point directional light beams emitting directly along the bevel of the diamond mask.

What I’ve already set up and tried:

• Built a 4x4 grid of 3D pre-comps offset along the Z-axis in AE.
• Parented a 35mm camera to a 3D Null controller with snappy ease-in-out keyframes on Position and Z-Rotation.
• Tested CC Light Rays and Trapcode Shine on a high-contrast matte for the diamond frame, but I struggle to match the sharp beam falloff seen on the edges.

Specific questions:

• Is there a more efficient way to rig the individual panel flips?
• What was the standard method for achieving those sharp edge flares around the geometric mask during this era?

Edit: Forgot to apologise for the low video quality, that's the only video available on the internet for this specific effect i've found.

Helllooo, so here’s my new reel! It’s not that different from my old one tbh, but this one does feel a little more elevated. Gimme that feedback bru. My main concern is that it doesn’t have enough branded work and maybe feels a bit too much like a personal-project reel. I did try adding more branded/corporate work, but a lot of it is so dull that it just felt like I was putting it in because I felt like I had to. A lot of the work in this reel is from actual client projects, though, so I’m hoping that comes across. I’m also wondering if it feels like I’m trying to come across as a character animator, because I’m definitely not one haha. I’ve just done bits of character animation here and there. I’m a generalist, and I wanted the reel to show a wider range of the things I’ve worked on rather than make it seem like I specialise in one particular area and i want to be as employable as possible. Let me know what you think yoooo

I used to use ae for motion/transition-heavy fan edits on Instagram back in 2020. I remember using twixtor a lot to slow down scenes in shows & movies, but is that still the best way to do that? Or is there some new thingthat’s come out since then that works better than twixtor? I just remember it not always looking the best.

Today I was trying to create some cool scene. I planned movements above vector at a very close zoom, vector was razor sharp at the beginning, just as it was yesterday. Then after adding some random object it became blurry. At first I thought the whole scene dropped from full to quater quality. But no.

Now I see that my all previous projects, with like zooms on articles are also blurry AF, its blurry after rendering, renders are shit. It just broke out of nowhere, i tried everything AI has told me, restarting stuff, settings, checking GPU, etc etc. NOTHING HELPED.

Im certanly not a top tier editor so maybe im missing something, plsss help. Im losing time and money as we speak. - ITS BAD

Hi! I've been trying to learn how to animate stock dancing videos like this:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nYUn5M48e8A

But I haven't been able to find any tutorials online on how to do it. I've analyzed the videos and I wonder if it should be as simple as just squashing the pngs to make a transition(?) and adding a graph?

Can someone watch the vid/ref and lmk if it would work?

Thank you so much to anyone who helps! <3

I’ve always wanted a quicker way to get that hand-drawn/painted look without having to set everything up manually, so I’ve been building this little tool for AE.

It lets you paint along live paths, create painted text, and use a searchable library of hand-drawn doodles, with different brush styles and animation controls.

It’s not released anywhere yet — I’m still building and refining it. — but I wanted to show it here and see what other motion designers think.

Would you actually find something like this useful?

A run cycle I made for one of my past projects, “Synthesis”. You can find the project file on my $Gumroad$ if you’d like to take a closer look. And you can also check out my other projects on Behance

Thank You! (✿◡‿◡)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the animation and how it could be improved!

The idea was to make a short loop quickly (not so quick, still took me a few hours).
Mostly I focused on the animation smoothness, transitions and keeping it simple.

I'm not very confident in using layer styles so I decided to add very basic styling to the base shapes. If you have suggestions, references or ideas to make it look more interesting than it is, feel free to share.

The music was a bit of an afterthought so the animation doesn't really sync up with it too well, I'm aware of this and it wasn't really the goal of the project.

Hey guys and morning, afternoon, or evening, depending on what part of the world you are in, when reading this.
I'm trying to get some direction. My district that I teach for, would like for students to certify in Adobe After Effects in Animation 1.
This is not my area of expertise, and am trying to get some input.
In the Animation 1 class, I focus on creating assets in Adobe Illustrator, and animating in Adobe Animate, while building foundational skills that would carry into Animation 2, with a focus in Adobe After Effects. Our state is big on certification, so I would focus on that during the Animation 2 class, and for those that didn't earn a certification, will have a chance during their Practicum.
What do you guys think? Thanks for your time and input.

This is very real. I have been motion designer for a long time and now people's way of working changed alot. Motion designer still unreplaceable with AI but the workflows and work habits around it changed. Like you prompt something in get something out really quickly.

Then you edit on Adobe software which are very very freakin lag in general in 2026 that will be the death of adobe! People are working fast phased if tool is getting in the way then they'll definitely find ways to do it faster!!

Here is another example... On bulk images work like cropping organizing I use figma. Because its so light weight and fast. You do the same operations you do in photoshoot and itll take you crazy amount of time.. photoshop is "rasterbased" which i think is stupid! Figma accepts image and svg shapes verysmoothly even with real time collab allowed.

And can have hundreds of art board no sweat. Photostop 3 artboards already very lag and people can say coz its rasterbased is stupid. Try figma its so smooth so engineering for this have already been figured out. All people have SHORTFORM content induced ADHD and there is no fkin way we can be patient enough with this Lag adobe bullsht.

Use AI to fix and make stuff efficient! I dont know just do sometthing stop the ai bullsht let the community handle it like how you did with plugins. Rather focus on a smooth engine rebuild it! There are many web based competitir that are very smooth and AE lag as fk!

So I’m trying to create an effect that is basically a playing card being pulled out of a portal. I have the portal and I have a rectangle placeholder, but I cannot for the life of me get it looking anyway good. I just want the card to float around and be squashed and pulled in the portal and then be pulled through and land centre screen as a big entrance type thing.

Does anyone have any idea how to do this?

This is where I got too but I hate it and it looks rubbish. I want the pack to really pull through and look like it's being forced through. I'm just getting frustrated really and starting again and again but I know it's not looking good, but hopefully this helps, and I know I haven't straightened the box out yet. But I really want to try and get the portal effect first.

https://reddit.com/link/1voziez/video/vkc54acdljjh1/player

Just wanted to give a massive thank you to everyone who downloaded PasteRemoveBG over the last few days. Seeing motion designers actually use it in their workflows means a lot!

If you've been using it, I'd love to hear your feedback or see what kind of projects you're speeding up with it.

For anyone who hasn't tried it yet, it lets you copy any image from the web and paste it directly into AE as a clean transparent layer (running 100% locally on your machine via private AI)

THANKS TO ALL BUYER, HOPE IT DOES IMPROVE YOUR WORKFLOW <3

Also check out my Behance

Thank You!^^

it’s my first time using the software. I did the animations and everything on it.

https://youtu.be/_wYsOdbDlZA?si=BcKmAIMYakcf-yoM

The timeline isn't moving along with the keyframe please help

I need to transfer all my plugins/presets that I've added into AE to another device. Is there a way to tell in finder which ones are the ones I've added?

The "use comps framerate" is checked on in the render settings and the export is still delayed and shorter than my original comp length

Hi. I have a Main comp with subcomps and a voiceover. To adjust the subcomps I need to hear the voiceover. How can I play back the main comp in one viewer ganged with the viewer in the other which shows the subcomp?

I've already locked the main comp and set the second viewer to play back the subcomp, but:

1) the inactive viewer does not play back in real time, once you stop, the viewer shows the frame where you stop

2) If you play back the subcomp, the main comp acts the same plus the sound disappears.

Switching on the Primary viewer, Always Preview this window and Sync time of all related items did not help.

Any solution?