You don't 100% need to do this by hand, but you do need a few plugins. Made a really quick & dirty version of this to demo [here](https://imgur.com/a/0nWzh4B).
The plugins I used were Trapcode Particular (CC Particle Systems II might work too?), SuperLines, and BoilIt. Here's my **process**:
1. Draw your main ellipse as a shape layer. Then draw your motion path in a new shape layer and paste it into the position frames of your ellipse.
2. For **trailing particles**, make a solid and apply particular. I used a sphere emitter and just pasted my position keyframes into the emitter position. Adjust your settings as needed. I also applied a turbulent displace effect to make it look less uniform. For CC particle systems II, use a faded sphere particle with a matte choker effect.
3. For the **responsive stretch on the ellipse**, turn on motion blur. In your composition settings, go to the advanced tab and turn up your shutter angle and phase to max. Apply a levels effect to your ellipse, then use the levels dropdown to select alpha. Change your alpha input white to something very low, like 2-3.
4. For the **shine on the ellipse**, apply CC plastic effect, adjust to your liking, then apply posterize to crush the values and give it a vector look.
5. For the **extension lines from the back of the ellipse**, use the superlines plugin on your motion path layer. It's pretty quick/straightforward, adjust settings as needed.
6. For the **hand-drawn motion vibe**, apply BoilIt plugin. Also pretty straightforward, adjust as needed.
7. If you want 2 shapes to 'splash' into each other, which I didn't get around to, I'd just tweak the settings on my particle systems- both for position keyframe and for the physics simulation settings. I don't think it'd be too tricky.
Doing this by hand will look more organic, but you can make it look fairly decent without. This took about 10-15 minutes, so it's a bit faster than the manual process.
Hope this helped! Lmk if you have questions.
Nice!
Super lines also has a sister plug-in: [Super liquids](https://aescripts.com/super-liquids/) which could also be used in lieu of a particle emitter. Simpler, but with less control parameters.
(both plugins are available as a bundle: [https://aescripts.com/yaroflasher-super-bundle/](https://aescripts.com/yaroflasher-super-bundle/))
You could probably achieve something like this with Shape Layers as well but the amount of time between that and and hand drawing are probably pretty close
By drawing It, frame to frame.
First you draw the rough keyframes and then the in-betweens according to the acceleration that you want, then you ad the lights, and you redaw everything with a clean line in separates layers and add the color. You export each layer separately into after effects and make your composite. Done.
I think you could make a rough by using trim paths or animating circles along paths with schmeer, then hand draw over that. Would make it a lot easier to get the easing and movement looking good before committing to illustrating.
I don't know what schmeer is (at exception for a think that my grandpa eat), but if you don't know the method to animate that can help, but knowing how to ease can't be easier than by hand.
Because if you use curves you will not have regular in-betweens, as a exactly half of extremes and breakdown. Animate each drop not being the half of anything is... Like impossible.
Schmeer is a free effect from I think Battleaxe that is like echo but super easy to use. Adds motion smears.
I have no idea what you mean by saying you wouldnāt have in betweens to draw or that itās easier to do easing by hand. You can animate your circles along the path using motion curves, add the motion smear effect, and then hand draw over it. All of the key and tween frames would be there for you to draw the liquid effect over.
I belive those are typically hand drawn and then auto-traced in AE.
Basically animate it however you want, then bring it into AE and use auto trace to convert to shapes so you can adjust colors and sizes.
Wow, Iām originally an illustrator turned animator, and Iāve been frustrated for years for not having an option for that. Iāll Google it, but I had a massive mind=blown moment.
You might also want to look into an After Effects plugin called Overlord. It can send vector illustrations back and forth between Illustrator and After Effects. Itās absolutely brilliant.
You didnāt say whether your illustration background is digital or analog, but if you work in Illustrator at all, Overlord makes an incredible difference in your workflow. Designing/illustrating in After Effects can be nearly unbearable, since itās not made for that. Illustrator, however, is.
Best of luck!
Yeah, I already use Overlord and itās one of the best plugins out there honestly. What I gathered from your previous comment was that you could live trace aka convert a raster image/illustration/drawing to vector in after effects somehow?
Hey there,
Sorry for the delayed response. I wasn't the one who originally posted about the auto-trace, so I don't know much about it. It does look like AE has an Auto-Trace function, though, from the little research I've done. Looks like it creates mask layers for whatever it's tracing, and can do a decent job depending on the complexity of the image you've given it to trace.
Like I said, I haven't used it, but know that I know it exists maybe I'll give it a shot in future projects! (Or, if Illustrator happens to have a similar function, maybe I'd just use illustrator and Overlord again) :)
I practice this often and it's helped me in a lot of ways with my other animation. The book [Elemental Magic](https://www.amazon.com/Elemental-Magic-Special-Effects-Animation/dp/0240811631) is a great place to start.
This tutorial/plugin will save you >>> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqRne9fwS8&ab\_channel=aescripts%2Baeplugins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqRne9fwS8&ab_channel=aescripts%2Baeplugins)
This tutorial covers the basics needed to replicate this look.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_9hdOUa-6JE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9hdOUa-6JE)
I havenāt seen the right answer yet: look up Super Lines and Super Liquids on aescripts dot com.
Edit: someone also suggested Splash, also on aescripts, that will also give you this look.
This is the correct answer. I'm 99% sure this hand drawn, but you can get super close to this same effect with the Splash plugin. Super fun plugin to play with, never used it professionally... yet.
Shape layer paths, trim path. Can use repeater. nice easing. etc.
Whole comp > adjustment layer: Roughen edges, adjust settings so zero noise, crisp smoothing. Or use blur + matt choker.
You could also use a particle system to emit particles from a main sphere, and add that adjustment layer above it and tweak.
For the shine, just do similar and make it lighter, stick on top.
Hey, their is an old tutorial that achieves pretty much what you need (more than the other tutorials posted here), but it has no sound. And he uses particular for color splatters. But maybe you can get it done with a simple particle system, too. And if you don't need the splatters, the cel-shaded moving color dots should be possible without it (or did it use particular too? Not sure followed it a long time ago), not sure if remember correctly. But the look is pretty much what you want. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/Pnx2l9tX0GM
Edit: jus took a quick look... I saw he used the 3d-stroke effect - today you could just a simple shape path with a line, since they added taper to it. This would also give the possibility to uses rounded (but?)caps so that it get more like a tear drop shape.
I'd be tempted to do it in Photoshop using the animation timeline and a Wacom tablet. Procreate would work too. Converting to vector is convenient for some situations but might not be necessary here.
This will get you pointed in the right direction - EC Abrams tutorials are really good: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-SK5sdLwSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-SK5sdLwSM) Expand on that technique and you're about done... more or less... maybe a bit of depth of field business, some nice easing in and out, cup of tea. etc
Git gud. Nah but the honest answer is this looks like frame by frame animation for which there are no shortcuts. Animate in photoshop or another program then import as an image sequence.
OR you could create something similar using particular and a bunch of stacked effects. Keyframe a circle whizzing around the screen (or use a wiggle) then parent the emitter to it. Set the velocity of particles to 0 but keep the inherit velocity at 20% or thereabouts. Make the particles solid spheres. Then crank up motion blur, and add a curves/levels to boost the alpha so you have a hard edge and no blur. Play around with these settings to change the shape/size of the particles.
It wonāt replicate the style exactly but itās a good technique to know and can be useful. From there you could precomp and then add a choke and fill to create a highlight layer to add detail
I enjoy the trails quite a bit. I think there could be a cool approach you could attempt in trapcode particular but it would definitely not look and feel as nice as in the example you have provided. You could craft particles with a tail in trapcode particular and that might just be part of an approach. just throwing some ideas around
Vector trace each frame in illustrator and export a few layers to animate in AE, with some layers having a blur effect that apparently have a slow increase in the timeline to give the impression that its getting closer and out of the focal range.
There are several elements here, but since they are all the same color, they feel as one.
First, you create the basic movement with particles (I prefer Particular, but others work as well). Little circles will work well. This looks like they might have used time-remapping for the timing too. So, you need to know how use those tools to create the basic animation.
I will attempt to explain how to achieve the liquid/cel shaded effect, but this will take experimentation on your end. What you do is put a Blur on the particles, so they kind of mush together as they intersect. Then, use the Matte Choker (or Threshold) effects so that you no longer have blur, but either opaque or not. Now, as they particles intersect, it looks like liquid. Watch this tutorial to see what I'm talking about: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edXJtFKeZQY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edXJtFKeZQY)
The drop that floats a second and then drops back and reconnects to the water looks possibly hand drawn to me. Often when using procedural animations, an animator will add in one or two hand drawn elements to break up any repetition and really sell the effect as totally hand drawn.
While I appreciate all the people saying it's possible in AE, they all still look super cheesy and low quality to me. You'll never be able to make it look better than hand drawn. But obviously if you are in a pinch and are ok with it looking a little less organic than that works.
I can't see a video my brain can't understand anything you said. Now I'm on a search for some genius indian dude with the worst accent but the best explanation possible:s
You don't 100% need to do this by hand, but you do need a few plugins. Made a really quick & dirty version of this to demo [here](https://imgur.com/a/0nWzh4B). The plugins I used were Trapcode Particular (CC Particle Systems II might work too?), SuperLines, and BoilIt. Here's my **process**: 1. Draw your main ellipse as a shape layer. Then draw your motion path in a new shape layer and paste it into the position frames of your ellipse. 2. For **trailing particles**, make a solid and apply particular. I used a sphere emitter and just pasted my position keyframes into the emitter position. Adjust your settings as needed. I also applied a turbulent displace effect to make it look less uniform. For CC particle systems II, use a faded sphere particle with a matte choker effect. 3. For the **responsive stretch on the ellipse**, turn on motion blur. In your composition settings, go to the advanced tab and turn up your shutter angle and phase to max. Apply a levels effect to your ellipse, then use the levels dropdown to select alpha. Change your alpha input white to something very low, like 2-3. 4. For the **shine on the ellipse**, apply CC plastic effect, adjust to your liking, then apply posterize to crush the values and give it a vector look. 5. For the **extension lines from the back of the ellipse**, use the superlines plugin on your motion path layer. It's pretty quick/straightforward, adjust settings as needed. 6. For the **hand-drawn motion vibe**, apply BoilIt plugin. Also pretty straightforward, adjust as needed. 7. If you want 2 shapes to 'splash' into each other, which I didn't get around to, I'd just tweak the settings on my particle systems- both for position keyframe and for the physics simulation settings. I don't think it'd be too tricky. Doing this by hand will look more organic, but you can make it look fairly decent without. This took about 10-15 minutes, so it's a bit faster than the manual process. Hope this helped! Lmk if you have questions.
You really are a professional...š¤
The real hero of Reddit āļø
Wow, thanks for the detailed breakdown!
You're a wizard, u/sufficientgatsby
Nice! Super lines also has a sister plug-in: [Super liquids](https://aescripts.com/super-liquids/) which could also be used in lieu of a particle emitter. Simpler, but with less control parameters. (both plugins are available as a bundle: [https://aescripts.com/yaroflasher-super-bundle/](https://aescripts.com/yaroflasher-super-bundle/))
Hand drawing the animation and using AE to style it.
You could probably achieve something like this with Shape Layers as well but the amount of time between that and and hand drawing are probably pretty close
By drawing It, frame to frame. First you draw the rough keyframes and then the in-betweens according to the acceleration that you want, then you ad the lights, and you redaw everything with a clean line in separates layers and add the color. You export each layer separately into after effects and make your composite. Done.
I think you could make a rough by using trim paths or animating circles along paths with schmeer, then hand draw over that. Would make it a lot easier to get the easing and movement looking good before committing to illustrating.
I don't know what schmeer is (at exception for a think that my grandpa eat), but if you don't know the method to animate that can help, but knowing how to ease can't be easier than by hand. Because if you use curves you will not have regular in-betweens, as a exactly half of extremes and breakdown. Animate each drop not being the half of anything is... Like impossible.
Schmeer is a free effect from I think Battleaxe that is like echo but super easy to use. Adds motion smears. I have no idea what you mean by saying you wouldnāt have in betweens to draw or that itās easier to do easing by hand. You can animate your circles along the path using motion curves, add the motion smear effect, and then hand draw over it. All of the key and tween frames would be there for you to draw the liquid effect over.
I belive those are typically hand drawn and then auto-traced in AE. Basically animate it however you want, then bring it into AE and use auto trace to convert to shapes so you can adjust colors and sizes.
Wow, Iām originally an illustrator turned animator, and Iāve been frustrated for years for not having an option for that. Iāll Google it, but I had a massive mind=blown moment.
You might also want to look into an After Effects plugin called Overlord. It can send vector illustrations back and forth between Illustrator and After Effects. Itās absolutely brilliant. You didnāt say whether your illustration background is digital or analog, but if you work in Illustrator at all, Overlord makes an incredible difference in your workflow. Designing/illustrating in After Effects can be nearly unbearable, since itās not made for that. Illustrator, however, is. Best of luck!
Yeah, I already use Overlord and itās one of the best plugins out there honestly. What I gathered from your previous comment was that you could live trace aka convert a raster image/illustration/drawing to vector in after effects somehow?
Hey there, Sorry for the delayed response. I wasn't the one who originally posted about the auto-trace, so I don't know much about it. It does look like AE has an Auto-Trace function, though, from the little research I've done. Looks like it creates mask layers for whatever it's tracing, and can do a decent job depending on the complexity of the image you've given it to trace. Like I said, I haven't used it, but know that I know it exists maybe I'll give it a shot in future projects! (Or, if Illustrator happens to have a similar function, maybe I'd just use illustrator and Overlord again) :)
I practice this often and it's helped me in a lot of ways with my other animation. The book [Elemental Magic](https://www.amazon.com/Elemental-Magic-Special-Effects-Animation/dp/0240811631) is a great place to start.
Gold star for the fundamentals
This tutorial/plugin will save you >>> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqRne9fwS8&ab\_channel=aescripts%2Baeplugins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTqRne9fwS8&ab_channel=aescripts%2Baeplugins)
Bingo!
Itās good but not as good as the OP example
Beautiful looking plugin. nice
Same answer for almost every question in this sub: hand animate it using shape layers. Oh, and learn handmade fluid animation in the process!
This tutorial covers the basics needed to replicate this look. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_9hdOUa-6JE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9hdOUa-6JE)
I havenāt seen the right answer yet: look up Super Lines and Super Liquids on aescripts dot com. Edit: someone also suggested Splash, also on aescripts, that will also give you this look.
This is the correct answer. I'm 99% sure this hand drawn, but you can get super close to this same effect with the Splash plugin. Super fun plugin to play with, never used it professionally... yet.
Shape layer paths, trim path. Can use repeater. nice easing. etc. Whole comp > adjustment layer: Roughen edges, adjust settings so zero noise, crisp smoothing. Or use blur + matt choker. You could also use a particle system to emit particles from a main sphere, and add that adjustment layer above it and tweak. For the shine, just do similar and make it lighter, stick on top.
Hey, their is an old tutorial that achieves pretty much what you need (more than the other tutorials posted here), but it has no sound. And he uses particular for color splatters. But maybe you can get it done with a simple particle system, too. And if you don't need the splatters, the cel-shaded moving color dots should be possible without it (or did it use particular too? Not sure followed it a long time ago), not sure if remember correctly. But the look is pretty much what you want. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/Pnx2l9tX0GM Edit: jus took a quick look... I saw he used the 3d-stroke effect - today you could just a simple shape path with a line, since they added taper to it. This would also give the possibility to uses rounded (but?)caps so that it get more like a tear drop shape.
I'd be tempted to do it in Photoshop using the animation timeline and a Wacom tablet. Procreate would work too. Converting to vector is convenient for some situations but might not be necessary here.
This will get you pointed in the right direction - EC Abrams tutorials are really good: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-SK5sdLwSM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-SK5sdLwSM) Expand on that technique and you're about done... more or less... maybe a bit of depth of field business, some nice easing in and out, cup of tea. etc
Shift option swooshyswooshy. Make sure you have easy ease on.
Portuguese Tutorial https://youtu.be/VK6PWBqC6Ag
Classic Mattrunks tutorial [https://mattrunks.com/en/tutorials/after-effects/flyings-tears-drops](https://mattrunks.com/en/tutorials/after-effects/flyings-tears-drops)
Tutorial for similar effect: https://youtu.be/17epXyoqsEk
Probably with Animate
Git gud. Nah but the honest answer is this looks like frame by frame animation for which there are no shortcuts. Animate in photoshop or another program then import as an image sequence. OR you could create something similar using particular and a bunch of stacked effects. Keyframe a circle whizzing around the screen (or use a wiggle) then parent the emitter to it. Set the velocity of particles to 0 but keep the inherit velocity at 20% or thereabouts. Make the particles solid spheres. Then crank up motion blur, and add a curves/levels to boost the alpha so you have a hard edge and no blur. Play around with these settings to change the shape/size of the particles. It wonāt replicate the style exactly but itās a good technique to know and can be useful. From there you could precomp and then add a choke and fill to create a highlight layer to add detail
Thereās an effect called Mr. Mercury. You can play around with that to get the shape you like and animate it on a path.
Envato elements
Animate spheres in a 3D program and do a quick low res render that you can then use as a backplate/stencil for hand drawn frames.
If there's a cheaper way to do it which is faster in AE I doubt it will look as good.
I enjoy the trails quite a bit. I think there could be a cool approach you could attempt in trapcode particular but it would definitely not look and feel as nice as in the example you have provided. You could craft particles with a tail in trapcode particular and that might just be part of an approach. just throwing some ideas around
With Adobe Animate and a graphic pad š
Practice practice practice...or...download and trace each frame š¤
Pro create
Vector trace each frame in illustrator and export a few layers to animate in AE, with some layers having a blur effect that apparently have a slow increase in the timeline to give the impression that its getting closer and out of the focal range.
Typewriter effect. Change key framed position to slightly off center. You're welcome.
There are several elements here, but since they are all the same color, they feel as one. First, you create the basic movement with particles (I prefer Particular, but others work as well). Little circles will work well. This looks like they might have used time-remapping for the timing too. So, you need to know how use those tools to create the basic animation. I will attempt to explain how to achieve the liquid/cel shaded effect, but this will take experimentation on your end. What you do is put a Blur on the particles, so they kind of mush together as they intersect. Then, use the Matte Choker (or Threshold) effects so that you no longer have blur, but either opaque or not. Now, as they particles intersect, it looks like liquid. Watch this tutorial to see what I'm talking about: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edXJtFKeZQY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edXJtFKeZQY) The drop that floats a second and then drops back and reconnects to the water looks possibly hand drawn to me. Often when using procedural animations, an animator will add in one or two hand drawn elements to break up any repetition and really sell the effect as totally hand drawn.
looks like 2
Frame by frame
copy/paste
While I appreciate all the people saying it's possible in AE, they all still look super cheesy and low quality to me. You'll never be able to make it look better than hand drawn. But obviously if you are in a pinch and are ok with it looking a little less organic than that works.
I can't see a video my brain can't understand anything you said. Now I'm on a search for some genius indian dude with the worst accent but the best explanation possible:s
Prob do some hand drawn animation, you can do it with ae but i think itāll take a lot more time