Enhance Your Motion Graphics Skills with MotionIsland’s After Effects Templates & Tutorials. Perfect for both beginners and experts, our library of resources will boost your animation workflow. Explore our most popular blog posts, including text animation presets, transition presets, and After Effects expressions. Upgrade your skills today and take your motion graphics to the next level with MotionIsland.
New Adobe Express Presets From After Effects
This month, Adobe has introduced a brand-new collection of animation presets for After Effects called Adobe Express. You can easily access them through the Effects & Presets window (see screenshot on the right). The Adobe Express presets are designed to streamline three key types of animation movements: In, Looping, and Out. These are the kinds of movements commonly used by motion designers across various projects. With this preset collection, Adobe aims to make these [...]
Free After Effects Templates
Who doesn't like free After Effects files? With an increasing demand for video content, there is a need for motion graphics and visual effects at a lower cost. Time is also a big factor. Sometimes you don't have the luxury of time to create personalized After Effects animations with the time allocated for each project you're working on. So, to facilitate the motion graphic designer's task, I have regrouped a lots of free After [...]
How to make money as a motion graphic designer
As a motion graphic designer myself working in After Effects and other software for years, I found several ways to make money. Here are some of the best ways I found: Freelancing Freelancing is a popular option for motion graphic designers. You can offer your services to clients on a project-by-project basis, either independently or through freelancing platforms like Upwork or Fiverr. Freelancing gives you flexibility in terms of [...]
40 Best Shortcuts to Boost Your Efficiency in After Effects
After Effects is a powerful tool for motion graphics and visual effects, but it can also be overwhelming. With so many features and functions, it's easy to get lost in the software. However, there is a way to streamline your workflow and work more efficiently - by using keyboard shortcuts. In this article, I will cover 40 most essential After Effects shortcuts in 2023, helping you to work faster and smarter. I will also [...]
Elevate Your Video Editing Skills with After Effects Color Correction
Color correction is a process that is used to adjust and enhance the color of a video or an image. In Adobe After Effects, color correction can be used to correct color imbalances or to change the overall color of a shot. Some common techniques used in color correction include adjusting the brightness, contrast, and saturation of the footage, as well as adjusting the white balance to match the lighting conditions of the shot. [...]
How to Glow in After Effects
There is so many ways to create a glow effects in After Effects, in this post I will share what I have learned over the years, I will go over how to create multiple glow effects in After Effects using different methods. Whether you are a newbie or advanced in motion graphics these info should help you move your composition to a another level. My objective here to show you how to make amazing radiant [...]
The Best Ways To Save A Screenshot In After Effects
After Effects snapshot was very confusing to me at first, I thought a simple click on the camera button would make a screen grab/ screenshot that I could paste and use in Photoshop but nope, Adobe made it work a different way. On this After Effects tutorial I will show exactly what a snapshot does, how to use it and also how to make a "real" screenshot from your AE composition. So what is [...]
After Effects Blending Mode Preview
Like Photoshop, After Effects include the blending mode drop down options, this is a must know feature to become a good motion designer. When used appropriately the AE blending mode options can be very powerful and improve your video, motion graphics to the next level. My objective here is to save you time and to show you a comprehensive preview of each blend mode in After Effects with clear and simple definition so you [...]
Quick Tips – Switch Time to Frame count in After Effects
In After Effects you can quickly change from a regular time count to frame count, to swap quickly move your cursor to the preview time area then press and hold CTRL and then Click. Animated demo screenshot below. Looking for another After Effects tips? Please drop a comment in the area below.
Learn How to Create and Modify After Effects Mask
At some point in any motion graphic project, you will need to use one or multiple After Effects mask in your composition and I have to say even after 10 years of motion graphic experience I am still learning new tips and tricks to work with masks. I'll show on this tutorial the basic and advanced techniques to use After Effects mask, so by the end of this article you will know how to [...]
After Effects Stylize Presets Preview
Ever wonder what the stylize effects look like in After Effects? Well you landed in the right place I was able to create a stylize preview gallery to see an overview of each presets so you can have a overall idea of how your layers and videos will look like after you apply the stylize presets. What are the After effects stylize effects? The stylize Effects allows you the modified your image or video [...]
How to Import Adobe Illustrator Layers into After Effects
You just receive an illustrator file to animate and you are not sure how to import it correctly in After Effects? Well you landed on the right place, my goal here is to teach you the best workflow to import an illustrator file into After Effects and show you some tips and tricks to import vector files easily in After Effects. I will share some plug-ins you can use to get your illustrator file [...]
Discover and master the After Effects Trim Paths
The trim path is a feature in After Effects that I used the most to create animated stroke, hand drawn animated text, animated loading bar and a lot more... The After Effects trim path allow you to customize and animate a vector path. In this tutorial I will demonstrate how to create a trim path, animate it and customize the trim path to your need. Finally I also give you some goodies like the [...]
5 Free After Effects Chart Animations
I have created 5 different After Effects chart animation that are commonly used on video infographic, from bar graph to pie chart... I hope it will be a good use to you and that it will help you to improve your motion graphic skills. After Effects Bar Chart This is an animated After Effects bar chart with multi-colored bars increasing and simultaneously revealing the legend for each bar. This source [...]
How to work with the After Effects Repeater
Shape layers by themselves look a bit boring how ever when you start using the After Effects repeater it is like opening a Pandora door it allows you to create a much more dynamic and engaging shape animation, it is an After Effects feature that every motion designer should know about. I have created a series of repeater example below and also provided the After effects template so you can use it or see [...]
How To Split a Layer In After Effects
In this short tutorial I will show how you can efficiently split a layer in After Effects so you can easily divide your layer in 2 or multiple layers. Let’s get straight to it! Create a new composition Import your video or audio file in your project window Drag and drop your video or your audio into your composition timeline Select your video in the timeline, move the vertical time indicator where the cut [...]
Top 13 Alternatives to Adobe After Effects in 2023 for Professional Video Editing
Unless you have been living under a pre-digital rock, it is no surprise that After Effects has been the mainstream app for motion graphics and visual effects for multiple decades. They have been a sort of omnipotent figure in the creative digital realm. From newbies to pros, anyone can easily learn some aspect of the program, especially with so many tutorials available for this staple app. But it might surprise you can find really [...]
Happy Birthday After Effects Templates and Greenscreen Videos
In this post you will find a total 10 After effects Birthday Templates that you can use on your next project. I have animated 5 After Effects birthday templates you can use them for your next birthday celebration. I have tried to create a variation of birthday event animations from birthday intro opener, birthday background, birthday invitation. I hope you will find my work useful and share it with your friends and family. [...]
After Effects Expression Code List and Example
Programing an After Effects expression from scratch can be very tricky on time consuming specially if you just started on After Effects so I have regrouped a bunch of After Effects scripts and providing the syntax, project files and demo example. This After Effects expression gallery should help you understand how to use codes and adapt it to your own animation. Disclaimer: Most of those AE expression reference are programing code syntax that I [...]
After Effects Generate Effects Preview Gallery
In Adobe After Effects the Generate effects presets allows you create an abstract shape form on a layer, for example with the Generate effects you can create audio waveform, grid, stroke, lightning, lens flare... All of these should help you create effects in one click instead of figuring out how to make the actual effects. If this still seems vague to you it will make more sense when you see the preview gallery down [...]
Free Instagram Logo Animation – AE Project with Video
Here is a free Instagram logo reveal animation made in After Effects, starting with scattered multi colored particles exploding and coming back together to form the Instagram logo brand identity, The After Effects template is provided so you can replace it with your logo if you need.Below the preview video4 Version are Available in the download link here is the list:- Instagram Logo animation White background- Instagram Logo animation Black background- Instagram Logo animation Gradient [...]
After Effects Synthetics Presets
After Effects provide a bunch of synthetics effects presets but do you know how each one look like ? No worries I have created a preview gallery so you can quickly decide which preset might work best for your after effects project. Where are the After Effects Synthetics Presets located? Open the Effects & Presets window panel. Expand *Animation Presets Expand the Synthetics folder Click on any of them Drag and Drop to your composition. [...]
After effects Shapes Animation Presets Preview Gallery
After Effects come with a good free collection of shapes presets that you may not know about it allows to quickly create shapes without the need of creating it in Illustrator. So on this article I have created a shapes presets preview gallery where you will be able to preview one without the need to trying them in After Effects, sweet right 🙂 Where are the After Effects Shapes Presets located? In the Effects [...]
15 Rendering Tips To Render Faster In After Effects
Over the years I have worked on many motion graphics projects and some of them were painful to render, I actually wish I knew some of these tips I will share with you on this blog, hope you find them useful and let me know in the comment area if you have other rendering issue. Below I have created a list of 15 tips to improve your rendering speed in After Effects, check it [...]
How to render in After Effects ?
In this After Effects tutorial I'll show you how to render and export from After Effects to different video format, obviously there is a lot of ways to render for specific medium so I am going to keep me straight forward and show you the render settings that are the most used.Below are the are multiple render options you might be interested in, just click on the one you need.How to render a high resolution [...]
50 FREE GREEN SCREEN TRANSITIONS MATTE
Here we 50 green screen matte transition I worked on during my free time you can use anywhere in your video. The green screen transition are completely free and have no copyright what so ever. Download the 50 Free Green Screen transition matte here
Discover the Top 17 After Effects Plugin for Professional Results in 2024
In this article let's unleash the power of Adobe After Effects with our top 17 must-have plugins for 2024. A guide for video editors & motion designers to skyrocket their workflow, spark their creativity, and expand their skills. Get your hands on the best plugins for particle effects, character rigging, color correction, glitch effects, lens effects, and more. no need for complicated programming or extra software. First, let's go over the pros and cons [...]
How to Work with the Expression Controls Presets in After Effects
If you ever wanted to make your life easier on After Effects or improve your workflow I would consider using the expression controls effects. Whether you need to access and quickly edit one or multiple property of a layer/effect, or setup your project so someone else can edit without digging in thousand of layers, the expression controls should be your friend. In this post I will show how to use each expression controls effects [...]
Top 10 After Effects Shadows Effects You Must Know
Shadows in After Effects are keys to show depth and dimension your layers, text and videos. Hopefully you have used already the common drop shadow effect but you might not be aware all the shadow style you can create in After Effects. My objective in this tutorial is show multiple ways on how to create shadows directly into After Effects with simple steps. I will also provide free After Effects project source files so [...]
Preview the After Effects Simulation Effects & Presets Quickly
Have you ever wonder what you could do with the simulation effects in Adobe After Effects? Well today I have created on MotionIsland a preview gallery that will help you see how cool those simulation effects presets looks. So before you buy any after effects plug-in to make particle effects I strongly suggest to see what you can do with the default simulation effects. The main question is what can you do with the [...]
Master the Top After Effects Shortcuts to Boost Your Efficiency Today
After Effects is a powerful video editing software used by motion graphics professionals and visual effects artists. To work efficiently, it's essential to know the keyboard shortcuts that can speed up your workflow. In this article, we'll provide you with advanced keyboard shortcuts in After Effects that can save you a lot of time. As a experienced motion designer myself my objective here is to share with you the top After Effects shortcuts you [...]
Preview the After Effects Image Effects
Adobe After Effects has a lot of awesome image effects presets and tools from artistic effects to special effects. It is often hard to remember how the heck each one look like or does; some effects are easy to figure out but other you have to tried them out to see if it is the image effects fit your project design brand and style. The purpose of this tutorial is to effectively preview the [...]
Learn How After Effects Shapes Work
Shapes layers some of the key features you can't miss from After Effects it allows you to modified and animate vector art form. In this tutorial I will show how useful After Effects Shapes can be, and what you can do with them. Below the different subjects I will go over. What are After Effects shapes? Multiple ways to create a shape layer in After Effects? After Effects shapes properties Preview the add shape [...]
Learn How Keyframe work in After Effects
After Effects keyframes are the most important features you need to know about when you are animating layers, there are so many keyframe variation and types that it might be a bit confusing when you start learning how to animate. I believe that mastering the After Effects keyframes in combination with graph editor is what define a professional motion designer artist vs amateur animator. After going through this article you should able to understand [...]
After Effects Sound & Audio Effects Presets Preview
In case you haven't noticed yet Adobe After Effects come with a set of commonly used sound effects and audio effects, yes there is not a lot to choose from but it is still very handy when you don't have time to research or switch to an audio editor to add an audio effects. In this article I am going to show what each sound and audio effects do with a preview sample. After [...]
How to create a glitch effect in after effects
If had to choose the one effect that is the most used nowadays in video I would pick the glitch effect, here I will cover the fundamental on what, how to create glitch effects in your art or videos project, whether you are a newbie or a professional you should be able to learn with the provided free digital distortion After Effects project template and use them for your own need. To make it [...]
Learn the Wiggle Expressions in After Effects
If you have worked with After Effects for a while you'll notice that creating random animation movements with key frames can be a real pain and a challenging task, luckily there is a better solution thanks to the wiggle expressions you can achieve random movement fairly quickly without spending hours tweaking key frames right and left. In this blog post I'll show multiple examples and methods of wiggle expressions from wiggle text to camera shake, [...]
After Effects Templates – The Things You Should Know
As video footage becomes increasingly popular, it would not surprise me if one day websites such as YouTube surpass Google in regards to searching for information. Anyone working with video footage constantly needs new visual material such as After Effects, Premiere templates, animation and footage to speed up their process and improve their video quality. Nowadays, there are so many After Effects templates online -some expensive, some less, some even free. But inside this [...]
After Effects Blur Effects and Presets Overview
Have you noticed how many blurs effects and presets options are available After Effects and Premiere 🙂 intimidating right ? You might be wondering what blur you should be using for your motion graphic project and what each after effects blur does... My objectives on this blog is to show and explain in easy term what are the difference between all the After Effects blurs effects and presets. Of course you can visit the [...]
After Effects Behavior Presets Resource and Preview Gallery
For many years I have over looked the After Effects Behaviors Presets, mostly because I was busy and didn't have time to figure out what each presets was doing, If I knew how useful the behaviors presets were I would have use them much earlier! 🙂 So you don't fall in the same trap I have created a little reference here that will help you know how each behaviors presets animate and look like. [...]
4 Ways to Reverse a video clip in After Effects
There are multiple ways to reverse videos clip in After Effects, in order to choose best method that work for your project, I have created here 4 tutorials techniques that motion designers use to play backward their videos,layers or compositions in After Effects. Expand below to read each tutorial The fastest and easiest way to reverse a video clip or a composition in After Effects is to use Time -Reverse layer tool. Follow the [...]
4 Ways to Create an After Effects Audio Spectrum Visualizer
In a lot of motion graphics projects at some point you will need to know how create and animate the beat of a sound and more specifically how to create an audio spectrum in After Effects for your music, dialogue, sound effects... In this After Effects tutorial post I'll demonstrate a couple of methods on how to make an audio spectrum in After Effects with different waveform style, I will share with you the After Effects [...]
How to change the marker label color in After Effects ?
After effects 2018 has some cool new feature that adobe just shared, you can now change your marker colors.Here is how you can change them- Once you have your markers place on your composition - On your AE timeline panel Doubleclick on the marker to open the marker properties window - Find the label drop down and choose the color of your markerAlso see the demo below
How to center your anchor point and layer in an after effects composition
Adobe just shared a quick tips how to quickly center your content in a composition. Here are the steps - Create a shape layer anywhere in your composition - Click the layer menu - Select transform - Click on Center Anchor Point In Layer Content The steps above will center the anchor point to your layer Now to center the layer on the center of your composition - Click the layer menu - Select [...]
How to show specific properties in After Effects
Adobe is sharing awesome tips and tricks on facebook, I just wanted to share it on this blog so it can be useful to the community. Layers in After Effects can have a huge amounts of properties, instead of scrolling down and find the properties you need, adobe gave a us a shortcut tips that can improve considerably your workflow. Here are the steps to show specific properties / isolate the properties you need [...]
Make an After Effects Transparent Background
In any projects at some point you will need to create a simple video clip or a motion graphics animation with a transparent background so I figured it would be useful to share with a tutorial my best tips on How do I make the background transparent in after effects. First in order to make a transparent background on your After Effects project or any video you need to have an alpha channel. [...]
AE Editing – How To Cut Clips In After Effects
By landing on this After Effects tutorial page you are probably wondering how video editing works in After Effects, well on this article I'll demonstrate the essential methods to edit a video in after effects such as, cut video clip, trim a video, split video and more... Honestly video editing with after Effects is not as simple as Adobe Premiere but the good news is that you can pretty much do everything Premiere does [...]
Make A Typewriter Effect in After Effects
At some point in any video and motion graphic project, you will probably need to figure out how to make a typewriter text animation with cursor. And it may surprise you to know that it is not as easy as it seems. For that reason, I have decided to write this blog so no one has to spend hours making a typing text animation in After Effects. In this post, I will show you [...]
10 Free After Effects text animation presets
The After Effects Text Animation presets are super handy and quick to use when the time is limited. But sometime none of the text animation presets are working for your project or you'd like to have something unique and different, during my spare time I have built on After Effects CC 2017, 10 After Effects Text Animation Presets which you can download at the end of this article. Super easy, follow these steps Copy [...]
How to export GIF in After Effects
Gif Animations have been around for a long time now (probably since the beginning of the web as we know it, from what I can remember!) Animated gifs are getting even more popular now that everybody is on social media and we are getting use to funny animated content. But how do you export an animated gif? Well, there are multiple ways to make a gif! I will show the professional way, for those [...]
After Effects Distort Effects Preview Gallery
For a while I have been wanting to do an After Effects Distort Effects gallery. The question that comes every time in my head is "what does this distort effect do again?" I kind of get lazy to try the effects I don't remember and often just use the one I am used to. This time, I figured it is not only helping me, but most likely will help newbies or even seasoned motion designers to know [...]
After Effects Counter and Countdown – Free Templates
As a motion designer, there is one thing I am always looking for on the web it is how to animate Numbers Counting Up in After Effects. Whether is to show a number of likes, counting down until a launch or specific time, or an infographic, counters are very popular. I can never seem to remember the exact codes by heart, so I always have to go look through my past projects or on [...]
How to Move the Anchor Point in After Effects?
So you want to know how to move the anchor point in After Effects? Below I will demonstrate first what is an anchor point is and different ways to move the anchor point. By the end of this article, you'll have a better understanding of how the anchor point works in After Effects. What is an anchor point in After Effects ? An anchor point in After Effects is a one pixel area that determines [...]
Adobe Premiere Pro Video Transitions Preview
Adobe Premiere Pro has a vast range of transitions, in this article I will demonstrate what are Premiere pro video transitions and what they do by showing preview of the Premiere transitions and show how to apply them to your footage. What are Premiere Pro Video Transitions? My quick definition is that Premiere Pro transitions presets help you to connect two pieces and multiple of footage, images and audio clips in order to have [...]
Trapcode Form Presets Preview
Just a little background for the newbie Trapcode Form is an awesome plug-in made for After Effects which allows you to create amazing visual effects with particles and 3D objects, in addition to that you get very precise controls to optimize your animation. So now have you ever wanted to see a preview of the Trapcode Form presets you get you have the plug-in installed? Well on my side I haven't found much reliable content online so I have [...]
Trapcode Particular Presets in After Effects
Trapcode Particular is one of the most popular and my favorite plug-in in After Effects, since I am super amazed with redgiant product I wanted to show other how cool it is. For those who don't know what trapcode particular does, it allows motion designer and video editors to make amazing particles animations, the plug in give you tons of options to get different results and most importantly a professional animation style. I have rendered around 10 seconds of [...]
How to loop a composition in After Effects
In the past when I wanted to loop an After effects Composition I always do duplicate the composition multiple times, until this day where I had a this tiny composition to duplicate a hundred time!! After a few research online I wanted to share to simplest way to loop an after effects composition / precomp, so here it is. Shot 1 - Place the composition you would like to loop in the new composition Shot2 - [...]
After Effects Transition Presets Preview Gallery
Adobe After Effects provides multiple amount of beautiful motion graphics transitions, the only concern I have is that you can't preview all of them at once. So I have decided to make it easier for everyone and create this transition preview gallery to gain quick visual preview of all the default After Effects transitions presets. This transition preview gallery page will come in handy when you're on a deadline and looking for a specific [...]
How to make a perfect cube in after effects
3D Cube can be a difficult to build in After Effects if the basic steps are not followed, in the past I tried to create a few 3D cubes in after effects by using different methods, some completely fail because of my approach of creating inaccurate shape size. So I have decided to share what I have learned and show one quick way to build a good looking 3D cube that you can use for your futur ae projects. At the end [...]
The Best 10 After Effects Expressions
Really quick for those who are new to After Effects so what is an after effects expression ? An After Effect expression is a programming Javascript language code that you insert in any "Time-Vary stop watch" by pressing Alt-Click. See below Over the years I have learn that after effects expressions can be very handy and powerful to make great motion graphics. It is amazing that with a few programming codes it can help make your animation moving organically. For [...]
After Effects Text Animation Presets Preview Gallery
I have always used the Adobe Bridge previewer to check the Adobe after effects text animation presets, however browsing on different motion graphic forums I found out that a lot of people online are having trouble to preview the default After Effects text presets or that the after effects animation presets are not working. Thinking about it for a while I have decided to help and make a thumbnails animation preview gallery of each After Effects text [...]
After Effects Backgrounds Presets Gallery
What is an After Affects background? An After Effects background is a looping animation that plays behind your text, images or videos. These animated backgrounds allow you to define an ambience a style or a mood for your motion graphics videos. Moreover, these backgrounds can easily be modified with little tweaks to change the appearance of the animation and the settings can be customized to your own liking. Where are the Background Presets in [...]
Stroke a Composition in After effects
A couple week ago, I was trying to find the best way to try to stroke an animation on a composition, my first guess was to use after effect plug-in which didn't work so well. After a while I found out there is a much simpler way just in front on my eyes. On After Effect CC 2015 - On your After Effect Timeline, Select the composition you would like to stroke - Click on the [...]
