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Build up your post production library with the the best free plugins and filters for AE!
Fast Bokeh Pro v2 is a plug-in for After Effects that creates a smooth Depth of Field bokeh blur using a Depth Map. It's very fast, handles edges properly and easy to use.
Take your After Effects work to the next level with these free plugins and filters. From color presets to advanced lighting and 3D tracking, these free AE effects can enhance your projects and save you time. Let’s dig in…
As great as After Effects is, it can sometimes kill you with long render times. The more complicated the project the longer the render times. The biggest problem other than deadlines to long render times is that you typically can’t work on anything else in the project while you are rendering because it slows your computer down and requires a ton of processing power. By default the Blur Width is the main Blur control that will increase the effect of the blur effect on the image. Unchecking the Proportional checkbox activates the Blur Height control, allowing you adjust the blur on the X or Y axis independently of each other. Atlas is a free tone-mapping/HDR plugin for After Effects – bring out loads of detail in your video footage. Atlas in Action (from 3DCG) Digital Anarchy’s Ugly Box. Make your talent uglier! Most editors try to smooth out skin and make talent better looking. Ugly Box is a free After Effects plugin does the exact opposite. GPU-accelerated effects and performance Render Fast Box Blur and other effects more quickly for instant feedback on your creative choices, and get faster performance across the app. Simplified effects organization Effects that reference layers now include source masks and effects. Support for high frame-rate footage.
3DCG – Normality & Atlas
Normalityis a free lighting and shading plugin for After Effects. No longer supported by the developer, but packed with a set of professional features. DOWNLOAD
Normality in Action (from 3DCG)
Atlas is a free tone-mapping/HDR plugin for After Effects – bring out loads of detail in your video footage. DOWNLOAD
Minecraft mine. Atlas in Action (from 3DCG)
Digital Anarchy’s Ugly Box
Fast Blur Legacy After Effects Free
Make your talent uglier! Most editors try to smooth out skin and make talent better looking. Ugly Box is a free After Effects plugin does the exact opposite. Great for Halloween or zombie related content. From the makers of the popular skin smoothing software, Beauty Box. Although free, you will need to register your info to DOWNLOAD
Noise Industries Free AE Plugins
When you install FXFactory by Noise Industries (free) you’ll have access to several free After Effects plugins. You can get more info and download each of these AE plugins here. Note: FXFactory is only supported by Mac/OSX. Let’s highlight a few of these AE effects:
Swish pans are a popular choice for transitions in television programs. Andy’s Swish Transitions brings this effect into AE and won’t cost you a dime:
Fast Blur Legacy After Effects Projects
Pan and Zoom is another FXFactory based After Effects plugin. This effect simplifies the process of creating a slideshow or giving your photos/videos the classic “Ken Burns” effects. Add motion to your images/video in After Effects without having to create keyframes:
CoverFlux 2 is a neat After Effects plugin that allows you to quickly create a coverflow style slideshow – perfect for showcasing images or creating a highlight video. You may recognize the coverflow look from iTunes or Mac OSX Finder:
Create unique effects with the Random Text generator from Luca Visual FX. This free AE plugin is ideal for sci-fi or business projects that require a high tech feel:
Copy Image Plugin for AE
Copy Image is a simple utility plugin that allows you to copy the current composition as a flattened image. By using Copy Image you can paste a ‘screenshot’ of your AE comp in another application (like Photoshop) without having to export out a still image and reopening in another app. DOWNLOAD
VFX Bro: Camera Shake and Camera Shake Pro
1password fedora. Our friend Aaron at VFXBro.com has created several free After Effects plugins for manipulating your footage.
Real Camera Shake is a preset that can add realistic camera movement to your still video shots. This is ideal for footage that requires a handheld look but may not have been shot that way. Real Camera Shake Pro applies similar effect but to a virtual camera inside of After Effects. DOWNLOAD both here.
Real Camera Shake:
Real Camera Shake Pro:
Coremelt EQ Animator and Plugin Pack
Coremelt makes industry leading plugins for After Effects and video editing apps. Luckily, they give away two products FREE.
VeeYou is an After Effects plugin that reacts to audio in your project. Apply these EQ, VU, analog dials and waveform generators to an audio layer in AE. Watch as the visuals react to the sound. DOWNLOAD
CoremeltFREE is an effects bundle of 39 free plugins for After Effects (also works with FCP, FCPX and Premiere Pro). Included in the pack are color effects, dynamic transitions and filters. See the full list of effects here or DOWNLOAD here.
VideoCopilot Free AE Presets
Aside from being a fantastic online training resource, Andrew Kramer from VideoCopilot.net has made available 15 free After Effects presets. Among the presets are film grains, day for night color preset, a reflection plugin (great for logos) and a tool for better controlling the AE 3D camera. Big bonus: with each of these AE presets you can also view a video tutorial on how to use them. Head over to VideoCopilot to check them out and DOWNLOAD.
AEFlame: Free Fractal Plugin for AE
Aescripts.com is a great resource for the latest After Effects Download firefox apple. tools. The following plugin, AE Flame, alows you to create beautiful fractal images in AE. DOWNLOAD
Cineblur’s Instagram Plugin
Premiumbeat blogger Brent Pierce created a set of AE color filters that mimic the looks popularized by Instagram. With one-click you can apply these looks to your video – great for experimenting with your footage. DOWNLOAD
Digital Typewriter Text Preset
If you’re working on a project with futuristic or Internet-related content this free After Effects plugin may come in handy. Typominal creates a ‘digital typewriter’ look, characteristic of Apple’s Terminal or MS-DOS. See our previous post on this AE plugin or go here to DOWNLOAD.
Earlier this summer, we released After Effects CC 2015.3 (13.8), which features a variety of performance and workflow enhancements.
In this article, we’re sharing more detail about how GPU-accelerated effects work, as well as other improvements made to effects.
Please, if you want to ask questions about these new and changed features, come on over to the After Effects user-to-user forum. That’s the best place for questions. Questions left in comments on a blog post are much harder to work with; the blog comment system just isn’t set up for conversations. If you’d like to submit feature requests or bug reports, you can do so here.
Effect rendering on the GPU
After Effects CC 2015 (13.8) can now accelerate rendering of certain effects using your computer’s GPU. This improves rendering performance for these effects by 2x-4x over rendering using only the CPU (depending on the frame being rendered and the speed of your GPU).
Effects that can render using the GPU are:
- Gaussian Blur
- Lumetri Color
- Sharpen
In the Effects & Presets panel, these effects show an icon next to their name indicating that they can render using the GPU.
GPU effect rendering is controlled via a new option in the Project Settings dialog, Video Rendering and Effects. When set to Mercury Software Only, the CPU is used to render these effects. When set to Mercury GPU Acceleration, the GPU is used to render these effects.
On Mac OS, Mercury GPU Acceleration can use OpenCL or Metal. (Metal is available only on Mac OS X 10.11. This initial support for Metal support is not yet fully optimized.) On Windows, GPU effect rendering can use CUDA or OpenCL.
GPU-accelerated effects may render with small color precision differences in an 8-bpc project when compared to CPU-only rendering. Set the project to 16-bpc or 32-bpc for accurate results. (This only applies when comparing GPU rendering to CPU rendering. The algorithms used by the CPU vs. the GPU use different methods to round color values, which at 8-bpc can result in a slightly different rendered result; at 16-bpc or 32-bpc the additional precision makes the differences negligible.)
Enable GPU effect rendering via scripting
GPU effect rendering can be enabled and disabled via scripting. The new read/write attribute app.project.gpuAccelType will return or accept an enum named GpuAccelType with one of the following values:
| value | Project Settings result |
|---|---|
GpuAccelType.CUDA | Mercury GPU Acceleration (CUDA) |
GpuAccelType.METAL | Mercury GPU Acceleration (Metal) |
GpuAccelType.OPENCL | Mercury GPU Acceleration (OpenCL) |
GpuAccelType.SOFTWARE | Mercury Software Only |
The following sample code alerts the value of current value of app.project.gpuAccelType, then sets app.project.gpuAccelType to Metal.
Lumetri Color effect improvements
// access via scripting to Project Settings -> Video Rendering and Effects -> Use var currentGPUSettings = app.project.gpuAccelType; // returns the current value var type_str = '; // check the current value and alert the user switch(currentGPUSettings) { case GpuAccelType.CUDA: type_str = 'CUDA'; break; case GpuAccelType.METAL: type_str = 'Metal'; break; case GpuAccelType.OPENCL: type_str = 'OpenCL'; break; case GpuAccelType.SOFTWARE: type_str = 'Software'; break; default: type_str = 'UNKNOWN'; break; } alert('Your current setting is ' + type_str); // set the value to Metal app.project.gpuAccelType = GpuAccelType.METAL; |
The Lumetri Color effect can now be found in the Color Correction category in the Effects menu and the Effects & Presets Panel.
HSL Secondary controls have been added. These controls provide additional color tools to isolate a color or luma key and apply secondary color correction.
The looks in the Creative > Looks menu have been replaced with the SpeedLooks Studio Linear package from LookLabs, which is optimized for Rec. 709/DSLR footage.
The Lumetri Color effect can now render using your computer’s GPU (see “effect rendering on the GPU”, above).
Gaussian Blur effect improvements
The Gaussian Blur effect has been updated to a new version. The Repeat Edge Pixels option from the Fast Blur effect has been added, and the effect can now render using your computer’s GPU (see “effect rendering on the GPU”, above).
This version of Gaussian Blur is a new effect. It replaces both the previous Gaussian Blur (Legacy) effect and the Fast Blur effect, which have been moved to the Obsolete category. (The only difference between Gaussian Blur (Legacy) and Fast Blur was the Repeat Edge Pixels option.) There are differences in the rendered results, given the same blurriness value, between the new Gaussian Blur effect and the older Gaussian Blur (Legacy) and Fast Blur effects.
For scripting and expressions, the match name of the new Gaussian Blur effect is “ADBE Gaussian Blur 2”. Gaussian Blur (Legacy) retains its match name, “ADBE Gaussian Blur”.
Swap Colors button in Tint Effect
The Tint effect now has a Swap Colors button. When clicked, the color values of the Map Black To and Map White To parameters are swapped.