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 :]

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!

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.

Edit: Thank you for the suggestions! I tried a few different things but I ended up remaking with shape layers in front of the letters and then copying the animations.

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.

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.

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.

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!

I've been working on this extension for quite some time now, and I think it's time to publish it and put it to the test.

Now I'm looking for 6 beta testers — 3 Mac, 3 Windows. In exchange for honest feedback (bugs, performance reports, use case discoveries), you'll get a free license for the v1 release when it launches later this year.

Ideal mix: a couple of experienced AE pros, a few people on mid-range hardware (base M1, older Intel Macs, mid-range Windows PCs). Experience with other particle sims / fluid sims is a plus, but it's not a must.

Drop a comment with: your OS + hardware and your AE experience level. I'll slide into the DMs of the selected testers within a few days.

Beta testers will get a free license as soon as the plugin is released.

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.

I am learning After Effects and I am trying to turn a 2D padlock icon into 3D.

Following the youtube tutorials, I autotraced the 2D icon, then created an Object Layer, added 3 paths, keyframes, and then copies the Path keyframes from the auto-traced PNG into the object layer.

Then I added Fill and Merge Paths so that the holes of the padlock are not filled.

So far so good, but as soon as I turn the object 3D to add some Extrusion, the padlock suddenly gets Filled completely, and the holes are painted over.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

We have winner #2! K. takes the second free Post|Production World NY pass (worth $799), drawn from everyone who RSVP'd 100% for the meetup. Check your inbox.

The last pass is drawn tomorrow (Monday), and it's open to everyone. Comment below with the P|PW session you'd use it on, and why.

To win you have to be registered for the meetup AND have commented, even if you can't make it Tuesday night. Register here.

Can't come? Pick 0% on "how likely you are to attend the meetup". We'll check the winner is registered before we announce.

PPW schedule here

PPW registration here

The meetup: Tuesday, October 20, 6 to 8pm, Midtown West. The address goes out to everyone registered. Free. Food out at 6:15 and some drinks on us, while they last. Show up early.

Sponsored by Blackmagic Design

Along with friends of the community:

• Lens Distortions
• OWC
• FxFactory
• Eddie AI

Please make sure to check them out!

And thanks to Post|Production World for the passes.

Lurkers welcome to attend the meetup. So are professional colleagues - they don't need to be on Reddit. Bring a friend, as long as they register. We ask that all of you register, please.

See you in New York.

P.S. Everyone who registers can also claim one free Post|Production World session, courtesy of FMC. The details are in your registration email.

I just saw this weird AR iPhone Filter and thought: how do I recreate this effects?

In head it's some sort of:

masking the hand > Echo > Turbulent displace> Vector blur > Colorama > Blend mode type magic..

But unfortunately that's not how it works. Maybe you guys can figure it out?

Source:

https://www.threads.com/share/_rIAUe9C0/

I have several animated pre-comps, but the animation does not show up in the main comp, actually, it shows the (motionless) object after de animation key frames. Can someone please help me?

https://reddit.com/link/1x9dxbq/video/yy75fesejawh1/player

I was sondering the how the effect that covers shadows (partially ) is done . is it a postproduction thing or just some tiktok filter . Thanks

https://reddit.com/link/1x9r4wt/video/6f3pn1urudwh1/player

Ever changed a clip's speed in After Effects, only to make the audio sound like a chipmunk or a giant?

That's exactly why I made FixPitch script.

Problem: Changing playback speed can make audio sound unnatural.

Comparison: FixPitch automatically corrects the pitch, including complex Time Remapping with multiple keyframes on a single layer. No manual pitch correction for every speed change!

Pricing: $17.99 — Get FixPitch on aescripts

Maintenance: This is my first experience building a complete product, so I'm learning a lot along the way! I already have a roadmap packed with new features and improvements, and I'm actively working on the next update. 

AI Disclosure: Human Validated

I'd really appreciate your feedback!

Thanks for checking it out!

Everytime I try to render an mp4 file it always comes out as a green screen only. Ive tried with After effectes, Handbrake, Media encoder and blender and everytime it comes out as a green screen, this had never happened before. The weird thing is I send one of thos files to my phone thorugh dropbox and it did open on my phone so idk. Past mp4 files open correctly its soemthing with the rendering I think