Top 25 Best Effects in After Effects

Key Takeaways

take a look at the time of this video because this is gonna be a super stag video we're not going over 5 10 15 or even 20 so we're going over 25 of the best effects when using After Effects oh my goodness effects effects effects effects effects is so redundant you may be like Nate what the 25 we're not talking about just 10 20 we're talking about 25 of the best effects yeah After Effects comes with I think over a hundred if you were to sit down and it's like really get into the weeds of it you can do a lot of really cool stuff but this is just the things that hopefully are useful for a number of situations so that's why they made it on this list they got the black mixture stamp of approval okay so first up on the list at 25 we have an effect that I talked about in the last tutorial the After Effects VFX basics tutorial this effect is super useful super powerful it's called liquefied I've used liquify for all things from head transplants to teleportations to fire in my hand and yeah it just blows my mind if you need a controlled displacement that you also probably want to animate liquify is going to be your go-to there's a lot of other ones like turbulence and displace and things like that but it's a little bit trickier when it comes to being able to fine-tune the animation or really get into these custom sort of setups and so that's why I hands-down will recommend liquify it's one of the best one of my favorites definitely gets the black mixture stamp of approval ok so number 24 on the list is also a really useful puppet pin is pretty similar to liquify in that it handles controlled distortions but the way that I gets done is way different it's almost like an entirely different workflow so this one you can access by clicking this button right here at the top it kind of looks like a pin looks like a pin because it's the puppet pin tool it does deformations in a way that a rigging system would do it or 2 and 2.5 these setups and After Effects so I use it for everything from reshaping people to animate ish and even doing like little hair transformations like you can see in this workflow video really powerful tool highly recommended puppet pin tool gets a well-earned black mixture of stamp of approval that if you've ever worked with a green screen and needed to key out your footage you're gonna know that afterwards sometimes you're ending up with this little green tint on the edges of the footage and so that's where an effect like spill suppressor comes super in handy because what its gonna do is let you just quickly fine-tune those edges and take out any spills from the footage for that reason it gets a well-earned black mixture stamp of approval 22 on the list is an effect that I've used in all things like music videos to sports videos that's called leave color and it does exactly what it says it takes out everything from the footage but that one color kind of neat and makes things also look like it's been done in a who's that movie from like 2000 and whatever it's like Sin City is that's the movie I think it's I think it's Sin City not much else to say about it leave color gets a black mixture stamp of approval okay so number 21 on the list we have an effect that probably gets use in just about every project during the final touches and this is hue and saturation now it's really useful for just really fine-tuning the saturation of your footage in the final stages but it's really useful because it does exactly what it says lets you control the hue and saturation a little cool feature of it is this drop-down right here which lets you select the individual of color channels and the individual color ranges let's say I want the hues of the Reds to look a little bit more blue or you know kind of funky I can only select those colors and even adjust my ranges so it's super cool really useful and I feel like you get to apply to at least one adjustment layer in every project and for that reason it gets a well-earned black mixture stamp of approval number 20 on the list we have mosaic now I don't know if you've ever seen cops shows or even some music videos where they haven't cleared the logos oh also it's like really useful for creating some cool geometric visuals that are a little bit you know kind of funky I think I've used this when animating this light show here that those little sections are actually done using mosaic on an animation I've already made so for that reason it's pretty useful pretty handy you just got to get a little bit more imaginative when you're using it against a welder and black mixture a stamp of approval okay so number 19 on this list we're talking about warp stabiliser personally this one is on the list only because I've seen so many editors use it to take their garbage shaky cam footage and make it into a nice buttery smooth steady cam looking shot but I will warn you it does not work all the time but what it does it makes video just you know just video magic it much closer rarely ever works so don't expect this one to always save your day if you're just out here shooting shaky handheld shots like an unstabilized DSLR if you're already trying to keep something a little bit stable this is going to go ahead and be out the results will sometimes look really great if you're able to get something that works well with the software but there's also third-party plugins that I think do the job a lot better for everyone who doesn't necessarily need the extra muscle and the cost to buy one of those warp stabiliser is going to be a really good workaround for that you know so for that reason it gets a well-earned black mixture stamp of approval okay so right now we are getting into number 18 on the list so when I first learned the vignette I had this huge aha moment because I was like whoa that's that's what that is called I finally get it now the cinematic portrait looking shots so it's one of those things that's so subtle that you might not ever notice it but I swear once you've learned the term vignette you're gonna just see it everywhere from movies to photos - oh my gosh it's literally everything from animation compositing vignettes are really useful and there's a super simple way to creative in After Effects now I used to do this the old way which was to go into creating a new solid and then applying a circular mask and then feathering it out and then adjusting the opacity of the solid and yeah doing all that mess but there's another way which comes built into After Effects which is just by going into the effects panel clicking on CC vignette now this one is super useful because it lets you control all of those settings but right from the effects panel so you don't have to worry about fading a solid and doing it the long way this way runs super fast you have to add up another layer it's really easily a customizable it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval [Applause] number 17 on the list is also an effect that is really useful have you ever shot something with a super wide angle or fisheye lens like an eight millimeter lens or a GoPro and wondered how do I fix this and make it look like it was shot with a normal lens optics compensation and if you ever shot with a 24 like 50 millimeter lens and you're wondering how do I make it look like it was shot with a superfish eye and all trippy and stuff answer again is optics compensation in terms of compositing I've used this for things like the VFX tutorial that's gonna be coming out soon which I use it on this lightsaber but the footage was shot with a fisheye so I wanted my VFX to match it I'm also use it for creating these faux CRT TV effects you know the ones where the TVs used to bulge yeah flat screens weren't just like the norm or stuff like that really useful really handy I just love it for that reason it gets a well-earned black mixture stamp of approval number 16 is hands-down the best King effect that comes with After Effects right out the box keylight this effect is super useful for green screens blue screens you name it with an easy eyedropper selection tool built-in clean-up options and the ability to preview different matte outputs this is just like a dream this effect has been used time and time again because if you do the effects and you use After Effects you're gonna end up using key light because it is so powerful so useful there's a few drawbacks but honestly once you master key light the possibilities just just go out the frickin window because I'm able to make things like a dude who's sitting on his back on an ottoman behind the portable green-screen look like he's falling in outer space you know it's just it's just mind-boggling being able to master key light will definitely put you in the top ranks of After Effects users it's just one of the most powerful tools in the compositors arsenal for that reason it gets a well-earned black mixture stamp of approval okay so number 15 on the list camera lens blur it's really cool because it tries to mimic the actual lens blur from using a camera unlike fast blur and Gaussian blur which are pretty quick and standard blurs and After Effects camera lens blur is a blur effect that is especially useful for tricky compositing situations in which you really want to be able to mimic how a camera lens blur looks you can even change the shape of the iris it's really useful when you're trying to sell an effect that needs something like that I've used it for being able to composite in additional depth to 3d shots that I've already rendered so far it's been super human handy so for that reason it gets a black mixture stamp of approval number 14 on the list most people know of trap codes audio react which is a super powerful third-party plugin and it also costs like hundreds of dollars but what also most people don't know is that After Effects comes with something called audio spectrum right off the bat which is free with a purchase of After Effects so a lot of music visualizers are made with audio spectrum as the main component but when coupled with other effects like row just even being able to layer it up and change the different settings to it you can make some really slick visuals it's a bit limited when it comes to the expensive third-party plugin but for those of us who don't really need the extra muscle and then extra complicatedness of the third-party plugins audio spectrum is gonna be your go-to for those quick and dirty dubstep and for that reason it gets a black mixture stamp of approval ooh drop shadow number 13 on the list so there's multiple ways to make a drop shot on After Effects like you already off the top I can think of three which is one duplicating the layer going it in with black or whatever color you want and then adding a blur to it you even add in a light source and after effects make a layer 3 D which there's four you can even go into After Effects click on layer styles down to the drop shadow settings and add the drop shadow and change all the customizations and whatnot but honestly all of those ways are super whacked because they take forever I mean yeah you might have to do them once in a while whenever you need to were like a specific job but for the part I love using the after-effects is built in effect called drop shadow it's pretty much the fastest way that I know to make a drop shadow in After Effects and still have customizable features it's super useful for I would say just about 90% of the times and you're gonna be adding a drop shadow the other 10% you're probably doing one of the other methods the ability to take away a whole bunch of button presses and later blow being able to speed up my workflow this gets a huge well deserved black mixture stamp of approval hey number 12 on the list motion tile motion tile is useful for a number of reasons not only is it useful for making trippy VFX shots like this drug stimulation I made a while back but it's also really neat for being able to seamlessly resize textures let's say you have a super tiny like 50 by 50 texture and you want it to take up a composition that's 1980 by 1080 you can go ahead and use motion tile to actually expand the bounds of it and just make sure that the edges are mirrored so that you get this really cool effect it's almost like a kaleidoscope but a little neater if you're trying to make something like infinite floors and you want a nice seamless edge that isn't notice what all motion tile is gonna be that go-to I've used it in actually this video that we did on the channel back the music mix comes super handy for stuff like that and for that reason it gets a black mixture stamp of approval number 11 on the list this is the light sweep effect this effect is really useful for making quick light sweeps and if you're wondering what a light sweep is you've probably seen it like a million times in some sort of Hollywood movie trailer with the text and these are also sometimes referred to as gleams and animation there's a bunch of ways again to make something like this in After Effects but I found the simplest and easy way to do this is by using the light sweep suspect it pretty much simplifies the entire process of making a moving light source across something like text or output footage into a few button clicks and a few simple controls it looks really nice on these layers and I just love playing around with light sweep I've seen a lot of people be able to make cool stuff with it as well that he gets a well-deserved black mixture of samples approval okay so number 10 on this list kind of a cop-out because I'm putting two together so this list is really more than 25 holy [ __ ] we're already at number 10 on this list so I just want to go ahead and take a quick break to let you guys know this video has been not sponsored the entire time right you guys thought I was gonna say it was a sponsored video of a no it's not this is a not sponsored video this video is literally just to hopefully help you guys we're starting out after figs find the ones that are really useful for the projects that you guys are gonna be tackling and making not have to weed through all the things like see see what is it I'm later trying to think of the most useless effect in After Effects but I can't think of it because I don't even use it fair disclaimer this is just my opinion based on the products that I've done and based on the products that I've seen others do but honestly when it comes on to After Effects there's a million ways and more to make something really cool and really dope so I highly recommend you guys still go out and experiment and mess around with the software see what kind of things you can make make sure that you tagged us black mixture if you make something really cool you want me to see it or if you want someone else from the community to see it I hope you guys enjoy the rest of this list thanks again for watching all right all right enough of this let's get back into this list okay so number 10 on the list is turbulent displace and displace the map these are two of my favorite effects when it comes to doing displacements in After Effects I know I talked about liquify and I know I talked about puppet pin tool which are really really powerful tools I use them just as much but when it comes to doing something like making liquid energy ripples through footage or even making this concrete puddle like texture which you can see in this video I know a lot of other tutorials are gonna also bring up turbulent displace in this place of map I actually learned about it my first time from Andrew Kramer when we're making this really cool is like a gun shooting effect we wanted the ripples to go through the footage and yeah it looks really dope and do a lot of cool stuff with it highly recommend turning displace in this place or map for that reason it gets a well-earned black mixture stand for approval number nine on this list is an effect that I've actually used since way way back when we had this a video called Cayuse wagging me in high school I looped myself like a bajillion times by the way if you guys are looking for that video ticket down I'm a repost it later but probably not because I should see we're embarrassing shots out old high school Nate anyways this effect I've compared it the equivalent of being Albert Einstein because you are able to make time your book the distinction between the past present and future there's but two stubborn illusion so on the surface it's pretty straightforward you're able to create multiple copies whatever layer it is when also paired with a few other effects you're able to create some pretty trippy visuals and for that reason it gets a well-earned black mixture stamp of approval number eight on the list if CC particle world because who doesn't just love playing with balls or particles so when you want to explode something into just a million little balls CC particle is gonna be your go to yeah now I'm just playing this effect is really useful when you want to get into doing some pretty complicated particle systems CC particle world is gonna be one of the most comprehensive particle systems that comes with after-effects off the bat and for that reason it gets a well-earned black mixture stamp of approval number seven on those lists the fractal noise is one of those super versatile effects that takes a little bit of getting used to because honestly maybe like what the hell do I need a fractal noise for you know it just looks like a Rorschach bomb that's moving but no let's say a couple it with something like turbulence displace all of a sudden you get an ocean right or ooh all of a sudden you couple it with a few other effects change the blending mode you got volumetric lighting so it's one of those effects that is pretty useful when it comes to compositing and animation I've seen a lot of VFX artists use this effect in their projects to create all kinds of custom things it's really useful oh yeah like how do you create subsurface lighting of vampires burning underneath their skin fractal noise right if you can create organic sort of looking things it's kind of complicated to talk about if we don't go into the depths of compositing and just all the different layers and how different channels are able to link into other things so we'll probably go over stuff like that in our After Effects advanced tutorial but for now just know that this is an effect that you're gonna want to keep on your radar even if you don't know all the complicated weeds of the After Effects it gets a Weller and black make sure stamp of approval ooh okay number six on the list simple choker and I'm not talking about you know choking somebody out I'm talking about not a choker for your neck chokers for Matt's all right this effect comes in super handy when it comes to creating motion graphics really fixing up Matt's adding a simple chokers it will clean up those mats by pushing in or out depending on however you need to use it it'll make things look super smooth this is really useful again for things like compressed images with just baked in backgrounds and you've done a key and all of a sudden you still get these really weird parts because of the gradients well simple choker is gonna save the day and for that reason it gets a well-earned well-deserved big fat black mixture stamp of approval okay oh my goodness we are really at number five we are at number five on this list I feel like you guys have got to take a break right now to give yourself a pat on the back for sitting through this because we went through twenty really useful effects and after-effects and if you can keep up that much I'm just even impressed that there's a lot I know there's a lot ever you feel like you're forgetting which effects just feel free to go back and forth throughout the video you know skip around and see which effects are useful what I said about them anyways let's just get back to number five on the list so I talked about this already really quickly I didn't go into as much depth I talked about camera lens blur another super useful effect I'm gonna just give you two right now it's called dodging and flash blur and these two are just the fastest blurring effects in After Effects now I don't know if you've ever messed with doing things like out-of-focus backgrounds or even making really smooth gradients using another blur effect in After Effects could slow you down tremendously I know camera lens blur is one of the slower uses of After Effects blurring fast blur really in handy just click and you're actually able to get really buttery smoother results that are super fast and you get the same thing when you use Gaussian blur these blurs are really versatile I've used them for things like custom glows custom drop shadows smoothing textures and it's really creating really nice color gradients for that reason Gaussian blur and fast blur get a well-earned well-deserved big fat black mixture stamp of approval okay number four in this list is also another double one I'm loading it up I know motion tracker and camera tracker these aren't necessarily two effects in After Effects but they kind of are the way that you get to them is by clicking all the way up over here can also right click and then go to camera tracker but essentially it still requires an additional piece of understanding in the workflow but once you understand that you're able to create really good 2d tracks and with the camera tracker you're able to even do pretty good 3d camera solves with in After Effects so no more of the days of having to pull up a third-party program like mocha or washa I'd still recommend you use mocha for like serious tracks but for really quick and dirty job you're able to get some really nice results just using the built-in one in After Effects so I've done this for quick projects like logo removals sky replacements cell phone replacements yeah motion and camera tracker have been here to save the day for that reason it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval number three on the list this numero tres one in oh ok sock alone only it's the number three we're gonna be talking about glow now I'm pretty sure that you know that a whole lot of third party plugins try to challenge After Effects when it comes to making their own blows we got deep blow we got trap code shine you got trap code starglo but I can tell you to this day I still use the default little in After Effects because it is that powerful off the bat you may be like Nate there's way better ways to get glows you know these ones don't look that good trust alright just wait a second if you double up your glows in After Effects you're able to create really awesome customizable glows you can change you know a regular kind of radius to all of a sudden having like three different glow set up with just variant and flickers and things like that and it's really able to create some awesome effects so I talked about blow in the last tutorial the effects the effects tutorial for creating that fire and hand effect we're also probably gonna mention it in the next tutorial that we're doing the one in which we go over lightsabers and things of that nature and how to make them super easily so hands down I can't recommend Glo enough oh shoot I even use it for the black thing video yeah globe literally gets to use in almost every VFX project can't recommend it enough and it gets a well-earned well-deserved big fat black mixture stamp of approval number two on this list I'm also gonna give you a double one I swear this though this the last time I'm giving you a double one it is Bill ingredient ramp now the reason why I'm coupling these two together is because they're super similar now I'm sure if you've ever created a solid and After Effects you're gonna know that at the top we have the fill ingredient settings but what you may not know is that there's also an effect called fill ingredient ramp built into After Effects which works on just about any layer so it doesn't have to work on only those text layers or solid layers this works on any footage from literally like heat alpha mats even P and G's it works on just about any kind of layer and that's why I highly recommend it I don't think there's a product that I've done without filler gradient ramp at least added in once these are literally filled through all my animation projects if you're getting into animation or even compositing yeah this is just one of those effects that transcends the different types of work that you can do in After Effects oh that reason it gets a well-deserved big fat black mixture stamp of approval okay and this is the last one on the list now before I get into the very last effect I want to go ahead and let you guys know definitely still go out there still experiment have fun with After Effects because honestly that's really just what it's all about having fun trying new things so number one on this list is an effect that literally gets used in every single project from animation compositing VFX motion graphics it's like I can't imagine doing a project without this effect and I actually first heard about it from the after-effects Godfather himself Andrew Kramer color correction curves which is amazing effect I love this effect who doesn't love this effect well I knew this one guy he didn't like curves he liked levels and now he works at Starbucks so you know it's just as I guess so right underneath the color correction panel my favorite effect occurs now what's really useful about curves is that it can not only be used for just color correction but even for compositing because you're able to select the individual channels as well so let's say I want Red's in the shadows or I want Reds in the highlights it just gives you that full range when it comes to it now some people may say hey levels can also do it but those who I say not don't do it that way there's a way better way purposes Lily the only way you should be doing it but hey I mean After Effects a lot about you know experiment and having fun so curves gets a well-deserved big fat black mixture stamp of approval that video is super stacked I hope you guys enjoyed it keep on experimenting keep on having fun with After Effects if there's another effect that I have not mentioned on this list that you just think I absolutely need to bring up make sure you leave a comment down below I'm gonna read it I'm sure others will too we're gonna be having the VFX tutorial coming out super soon it's a really special one I'm excited for it surprisingly it's also pretty easy to do I sort of like once you get into this I'm going to be creating all kinds of cool stuff anyways I hope you guys enjoyed it and I hope to catch you on the next one peace [Music]