Top 30 Best Effects in After Effects

i hope you're nice and comfy because this is a super stacked video take a look at that time we're not talking about 5 10 15 20 or even 25 effects this time we're talking about 30 effects built right into after effects oh my goodness how many times am i gonna say effects in this video [Music] after effects is a super powerful software for creating all sorts of vfx motion graphics compositing and so much more but the effects list is so expansive that it can be pretty daunting to even know where to get started today we're talking about the best 30 effects built right into after effects that's right no plug-ins required now whether you're an after effects vet or a complete noob to the software you're going to want to stick around until the very end because who knows you might just learn an effect that you have never even considered before or you might see an effect that you're familiar with and end up learning a super handy and clever use case for them they're my favorites because they're the most handy the ones that i've used in all sorts of projects and we're gonna be talking about where you can find them how to use them and what they're especially great for if this is your first time here on black mixture we talk about all sorts of different motion graphics animation 3d stuff so make sure you hit that subscribe button and ding that notification bell so you don't miss out on any of the super dope stuff we got planned also want to send a huge thanks to everyone who has hit that subscribe button because you guys are helping us get that much closer to our goal of 500 000 subscribers by the end of this year i'm super excited i know you are too all right let's go first up at number 30. here we have rotobrush and refine edge this is one of the most powerful vfx tools built right into after effects yet don't even try to find it in the effects controls panels because you will not find it there it's actually all the way up here if you click on this little brush icon and then start painting an area on your footage then all of a sudden you're gonna see this effect getting applied in the effects controls panel now the roto brush and refine edge tool work pretty much like the magic wand in photoshop in which it will highlight areas of pixels until it finds an edge that seems pretty intelligent to an object or high contrast pixels which makes this effect super useful for either keeping stuff in your footage or removing it i personally use this effect to remove super difficult stuff from footage without the headache of having to manually create a mask and then animate one by one so we're able to make something like this ipad that looks like it's opening and closing by itself or even more drastically that looks like it's floating in mid air there are so many use cases for the roto brush and it's one of my favorites for that reason rotobrush and refine edge gets a well deserved black mixture stamp of approval number 29 on the list we have time displacement which is one of my favorite displacement effects right in after effects this effect is super cool because it lets you create trippy visuals really easily and lets you use time as the actual manipulation factor i've used it to create a warping teleportation effect or super trippy dream like lsd visuals and it's really cool because the displacement map for this is affecting the time which as you'd imagine if you have some sort of teleportation you'd want the time to be affected you can pair this effect with a whole bunch of other unique ways to create some amazing visuals and for that reason it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval next we have at number 28 tint this is a go-to for color correction because not only is it super easy to use but it also runs super fast and it can be used in all sorts of creative ways it does exactly what the name says which is hint and using these black and white color controls you can easily change the whites in your footage to another color and the blacks in your footage to something else as well making cross process effects really easily or just having that much needed fine tuning for compositing different vfx elements that were shot in different lighting conditions it's a great tool to play around with a super handy tool for the vfx artist for that reason it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval here at 27 one of my favorite effects in after effects liquify it's an effect that i've talked about time and time again we've actually used it for creating this fire and hand effect mainly because it lets you manipulate your footage like picasso manipulates a canvas with his brush there's a bunch of brushes built into this effect and it lets you manipulate your footage in all sorts of unique and interesting ways so we've actually used it to pull in all the pixels to the center to create this really nice portal effect and we've also used it to fine-tune the manipulations of a fire vfx shot so it actually matches the skin and the shape of the hand not only that but the stopwatch icon next to it means that you can keyframe all of your manipulations which makes this a handy tool especially when you want to be able to animate some sort of distortion or displacements on your footage the possibilities are really just limited to your imagination and for that reason liquify gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval 26 on the list next up we have the puppet pin tool which actually is not an effect that you find just here in the effects list either it's an effect that you find all the way up here in the corner and the icon looks like a pin because it's the puppet pin tool the puppet pin tool is super useful for creating all sorts of character animations or manipulating motion graphics and vfx elements because it gives you a very easy to control mesh that allows you to apply different displacements using pins as the markers i've used this effect in all sorts of interesting ways for manipulating a motion graphics arrow to point in a different direction or even adding hair dynamics to a still image and it's a really fun effect to play around with because of the intelligent meshes that allow you to control animatable distortions on your footage layers it's a great tool super powerful and really versatile for that reason it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval here at 25 we have mosaic mosaic is one of those effects in after effects that helps you reduce the pixel count in your footage and you may be wondering why would you ever want to reduce your pixel count well if you're ever compositing multiple vfx elements and shots together you may have some super high resolution assets and some lower resolution assets without having to go in and pre-comp everything and then adjust them in the composition settings you can actually just use mosaic to reduce resolutions to something that looks more cohesive for your shot not only that but whenever you want to blur out some swear words like you know you could use the mosaic effect just like that as well i've personally used the mosaic effect to make old-school computer graphics that mimic how they would look if they were on some sort of computer screen like a crt one that has only so many pixels and resolution it's a really useful effect and it runs super fast and for that reason it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval next up at 24 leave color is one of those effects that does exactly what it says it does and that is it leaves color in a footage that means it desaturates everything else from the color that you select we've used this to create all sorts of interesting motion graphics anyone has ever seen the old video we did for the super bowl in which we isolated the colors yellow from the footage this was all created just using the leave color effect which it's an effect that lets you create color isolations super fast super easily and for that reason it gets a well deserved black mixture stamp of approval 23 on the list warp stabilizer is an awesome effect in after effects it does exactly what the name suggests which is it uses warps to stabilize footage so let's say you've shot something that is just slightly a bit too shaky for your liking you can actually go into warp stabilizer let it analyze your footage and then adjust your stabilization values and instantly you're going to get a super awesome looking result now sometimes this effect does not work the best so don't expect it to completely save the day if you've just shot something that's like taken right out of cloverfield an insane amount of camera shake and motion blur and things moving around but if you've been shooting something handheld it can give you that almost stabilized tripod look or like it was shot with a steady cam without having the need for all this extra gear and whatnot so for that reason i love warp stabilizer it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval at number 22 cc vignette is a handy effect that once i learned what a vignette was i ended up seeing it everywhere if you've never heard of a vignette it's pretty much just the lightning or darkening around the edges of a frame so it is essentially an optical artifact when using an actual camera it's a technique that gets used in all sorts of different cinematic shots and they're pretty much everywhere in film so whenever you're making some sort of vfx composited shot or even just want to amp up your motion graphics a little bit it can help to add a vignette to your scene the old-school way of doing a vignette would be to create a black solid and then add an ellipse mask invert the mask feather out the edges but that can be super time consuming and does not lend itself to a whole lot of customization easily so the cc vignette effect comes in really handy and not only that but it lets you control these vignettes in a super easy to adjust way because it has helped speed up a workflow and i love just how handy and customizable it is sees even yet gets a black mixture stamp of approval 21 on the list here we have spill suppressor which if anyone has ever keyed out footage before in after effects you'll know that you may end up with some unsightly looking green tints or different colors that look super awful whenever you're messing around with the green screen footage using spill suppressor you can easily clean up those edge distortions that you get from keying out a green screen footage by just selecting on a color in the eyedropper tool and then instantly you're gonna see that some magic happens and it recolors all those pixels back to how they're supposed to be it's a super useful and easy to use tool and for that reason it gets a well deserved black mixture stamp of approval if you guys are enjoying the effects on this list and want to show support make sure you guys go ahead and leave a like it does a tremendous amount for the channel here we have at number 20 optics compensation have you ever shot something with a super wide angle like eight millimeter lens or even a gopro and wondered if there's ever a way to make it not look so distorted along the edges well optics compensation is gonna be your best friend because it does exactly what the name suggests it compensates for the different optical lenses that you're using so this is super handy when you want to composite an element and don't want everything to look super distorted or it's also useful in the exact opposite way if you've ever shot something that was too straight and you actually want it to look really trippy and distorted which is something that we've done a couple times for different music videos and whatnot it just adds a nice little effect by warping footage as if it was shot optically which can be pretty interesting for mimicking natural lens distortions when you have motion graphics elements the possibilities are really only limited to your imagination and for that reason optics compensation gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval number 19 on the list next up we have key light key light is hands down the best keying effect built right into after effects this effect is really useful for green screens blue screens you name it and that's because it has this built-in eyedropper tool for color selection and it also lets you selectively show your different outputs for your map which helps you get really nice clean keys this effect has been used time and time again when i'm looking for a reliable key and i know that there's all sorts of different paid plugins like composite brush or primatte keyer which helps you make keys really easily but if you don't want to spend a whole lot of money on paid plugins you actually have key light which is going to come to the rescue built right out the gate in after effects there are a few drawbacks to it but honestly once you figure out some clever workarounds like layering up multiple key lights to get a really fine-tuned key it becomes a super useful tool in your compositing arsenal for that reason key light gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval at 18 here we have hue saturation which is a color correction effect that gets used in just about every project i've ever used in after effects it's really versatile runs fast and helps you fine tune all the different color ranges and color corrections that you're going to be doing for your footage or motion graphics i love it not only because it's easy to alter the saturation and bump up your footage as a whole but it actually lets you direct the color ranges so that you can control whether or not you want your greens to be more vibrant resulting in more vibrant looking trees and grass or let's say you want to make things look super trippy by altering their hues you can do that as well using this effect super handy and useful to use and i love it a lot it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval number 17 on the list here we have camera lens blur which is one of my favorite blurring effects for after effects specifically for whenever i want to add in a nice bokeh the cool thing about camera lens blur is it lets you adjust your digital lens by creating all sorts of different shapes for the blurs whether it's just a complete circle or a hexagon and not only that it actually lets you use different depth maps so whenever you're rendering out a 3d image can actually leave off the depth in your render and then just do that all in post using after effects and the camera lens blur feature unlike fast box blur or gaussian blur camera lens blur does tend to run a lot slower once you crank up those values but it is especially useful for compositing and tricky depth of field shots because of its custom aperture settings it's a super intelligent and clever to use blur and i love how it adds depth of field to 3d renders with mind-blowing results for that reason camera lens blur gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval at number 16 next up we have audio spectrum have you ever wondered how some of those music playlist channels can play a song or a higher set of music while having some really awesome visuals that move dynamically and in sync with the beat well that is all thanks to audio spectrum which is an effect built right into after effects you can find right here this effect lets you input a layer's audio as its source and then it'll create all sorts of customizable motion graphics based off of that audio's frequency range and amplitude we've used this effect to create this really cool motion graphics audio visualizer for a playlist on the channel and the best part is we didn't have to use any keyframes at all audio spectrum is an awesome effect and i love it a lot for that reason it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval all right we're about halfway through the list at number 15. here we have drop shadow which can be fine right here in the effects panel i know that drop shadows can be made a multitude of ways in after effects but by far the fastest and most effective and customizable way to create a drop shadow in after effects is to use the drop shadow effect the tedious way to do a drop shadow is to go into your layer properties and then turn on drop shadow all the way down after going through all these different drop down settings and then it's a pain in that to have to go back and actually adjust any of these values later on whereas the drop shadow effect is something that you can apply instantly and then get all these different parameters from distance color to even the softness of it the strong suit of this effect is just how fast and easy it is to use and how it's helped tremendously boost my workflow for that reason drop shadow gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval next up at number 14 you have motion tile motion tile is a super versatile effect that has been used time and time again not only have i used it to create trippy visuals like this drug simulation video that we made but i've also used it to neatly resize textures in a seamless way so i've used motion tile to create infinite floors upscale textures that were just a bit too small and make a never-ending wall of animated faces the possibilities and results of this effect are endless and for that reason motion tail gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval here at 13 on the list light sweep is an effect that is super useful for creating really quick light sweeping effects now you've probably seen a light sweep or know it as a gleam in animation which is just this nice roving highlight across some sort of element they use it for logo animations or even character v effects and the cool thing about this light sweep effect built right into after effects is that it helps amplify and make this process a whole lot easier with just a few simple controls because the old-school way of doing this was to duplicate your footage add in the curves up the brightness and then create a mask and do all this extra stuff whereas the light sweep effect directly affects the alpha channels of your footage so you're not really having to worry about fine-tuning everything and instead you're just able to create which is awesome light sweep looks really nice on text and motion graphics layers it's a fun effect to use and for that reason it gets a well deserved black mixture stamp of approval number 12 on the list cc particle world is the most advanced particle system built right into after effects it's pretty much just a more advanced version of cc particle systems 2. it's useful for creating all sorts of custom motion graphics and the effects like rain falling sparks flying all over the place or a freaking asteroid which is insane plus cc particle world runs super fast it's really fun and who doesn't love playing with balls for that reason cc particle world gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval here at 11 here we have displacement map and turbulent displaced these two are my all-time favorite displacement effects built into after effects displacement map is so versatile because it lets you make all sorts of effects from liquid energy warps to glitchy text effects i've used this effect in music videos to create awesome smoky dream like visuals i love just how fast and versatile this effect is for that reason it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval all right this is where it's heating up the final 10 at number 10. here we have venetian blinds which is categorized as a transition effect it's really cool because when you apply venetian blinds you may be like what is this even useful for but the magic comes when you only use the venetian blinds by a small percentage to create these nice bars of lines across your footage instantly you have something that looks like it was shot on a scanline crt tv this effect is really useful for creating retro looking motion graphics and footage for that reason it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval number nine on the list here we have fill and gradient ramp which are some of the most insanely useful generative effects in after effects mainly because of their ease of use and their versatility we've used the fill effect to change the color of graphic elements and we've also used the gradient ramp effect to create super easy gradients there are effects that come handy for a number of use cases and i love that they have this eyedropper tool so you can really pick a specific color that matches something else in your shot also really cool is this handy technique using an expression linked to a color control across multiple layers to develop easily customizable color scheme that updates everything at once it's a pretty neat and versatile trick for that reason gradient ramp and phil gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval next up at number eight add noise and add green are some of the best degenerative noise and grain effects built into after effects this is an effect that i've used time and time again for creating cinematic looking shots or adding a little bit of cinematic flair to motion graphics color corrected shots or even 3d animations this is an effect that you don't need a lot of to make an impact and in fact i use it super subtly because grain and noise can make static images have a bit more dynamic movement without overpowering an image just take a look at these two animations on black backgrounds the one with noise and grain added looks a lot more visually interesting and i've learned this trick specifically when i was making vox style animated videos i love this effect and just how fast and easy it is to use and for that reason add noise and add grain get a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval number seven yo okay fractal noise is an insanely powerful and versatile effect built into after effects it is by far one of my favorites for creating organic vfx because not only does it run fast but it has a ton of customization options that lets you make some of the most impressive looking visuals it's helped create a star surface fire and heat distortion maps as well as faux fog asteroid falloffs and a whole lot more one of my favorite uses of this effect is to make the subsurface lighting of a zombie that is getting burnt alive underneath the skin which is just freaking insane it's an effect that we ended up learning about from andrew kramer at video co-pilot the possibilities are really only up to your imagination and for that reason fractal noise gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval here at number six here we have simple choker simple choker has saved me time and time again when it comes to cleaning up mats in a very effective and simple easy to use way sometimes when you're keying something whether that's a green screen footage or even just some sort of motion graphics element you found online you're gonna end up with these really ugly looking edges and sure spill suppressor will help you recolor some of those edges but sometimes it's just not enough and you get all these different artifacts and pixels that look super gross and ugly well using simple choker you can save the day because it applies a really nice and smooth choke to your mat which helps it look that much cleaner also as a neat trick you can actually invert a simple choker to create a nice smooth outline for your footage so there's really a whole bunch of different ways that you can use this effect i love how fast it is how useful it is and for that reason it gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval all right we're at the final five number five on the list here we have linear wife which is by far the most useful transition effect in after effects even though it's simple it's actually super versatile and really useful in fact it actually gets used on just about every thumbnail we've ever created for the channel i love how it's super simple yet manages to speed up any workflow that would require a nice gradient or transition so whenever we want to add a really nice and subtle color edge we use a linear white or when we have different composited elements that we don't want to have specifically a hard edge we'll also use this effect mainly because the linear wipe effect is so much faster than having to go up to the mask options and then create a rectangular mask and then adjust the feathering instead it gives us two easy to use controls right here in the effects panel which is super helpful and a huge time saver we've also used this effect to simply create nice side-by-side references or vfx breakdowns which is a fun use of this effect without taking a super insane amount of time i love linear wife a lot and for that reason it gets a well deserved black mixture stamp of approval next up at number four we have gaussian and fast blur which are my favorite blurs in after effects because they just run super fast unlike camera lens blur which is going to slow down when you start to increase those values gaussian and fast blur are going to let you crank those values up to insane amounts without slowing down your footage at all so whenever you want to get a buttery smooth blur for a background or for just your own liking of different motion graphics elements and you don't want to spend a whole lot of time and completely destroy your computer can't recommend gaussian and fast box blur enough they're super versatile for compositing elements motion graphics and so much more for that reason gaussian and fastbox blur get a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval at the final three number three on the list here we have motion tracker and camera tracker which are built in trackers right into after effects i know there are a whole bunch of paid options but when you don't need to spend money at all that's also a bonus we've used motion tracker to create reliable tracks for compositing vfx elements like this gunshot effect and for adding in motion graphics like we did in this k-pop dance scene and so so much more i'm pretty sure the motion tracker and the camera tracker are probably one of the most used effects in after effects for vfx shots now despite the slow uptime for having to track your shot and set a track point once you have something that looks nice and reliable you can do all sorts of awesome stuff with your footage like doing sky replacements adding motion graphics to the drone shot which we did in this app commercial you can also recreate a camera at shadow catchers and ground planes and so so much more it's a really fun effect to play around with and it can help spice up just about any footage for that reason motion tracker camera tracker get a well deserved black mixture stamp of approval number two on the list here we have glow which is a super simple sounding effect yet is incredibly powerful now i know a lot of paid plugins and packs will talk about their own glows like red giant and boris effects yet i said last time and i'll say this again i think the glow effect right in after effects is already the best glow effect you'll ever need it's super powerful delivers amazing results runs incredibly fast and you can create beautiful glows just by utilizing the simple trick of doubling up this effect and having different threshold and radius values to really fine-tune the glow to your liking we've used this glow effect time and time again even while owning some of the paid packs definitely recommend for that reason glow gets a well-deserved black mixture stamp of approval and last but not least number one i know last time i had curves at the top of the list and guess what this time again curves is at number one because after reflecting on all the effects that i've ever used for after effects across all the many different projects it turns out curves was the one effect that i'd use in pretty much every single project since learning about it it helps color correct footage super easily and it's used about 90 of the time i know there's things like levels and highlights and shadows and all these different ones but they do not have the versatility and the ease of use that curves does as a pro tip most of the time you're using curves you're just going to be making this s shape which will add more contrast to your image by increasing the highlights and highest area and then decreasing some of the shadows as well i love that the color range is represented in this nice and easy to understand graph in which the far right side are going to be your highs and your highlights while the lower side is going to be your darks and shadows while the middle area is just that nice mid area this lets you fine tune your image to get a really nice color correct and if you go into the different channel ranges and create cross process color effects really easily not only that but there's magic in the alpha graph which actually lets you adjust the way that the alpha transparencies are interpreted so let's say you have a nice pre-keyed footage element with something like fog or smoke and you want it to be even more transparent or a little bit harder you can do that right inside of curves as well i love how fast it runs how easy it is to tweak an image just how useful and powerful it is for that reason curves gets the well-deserved honor of a black mixture stamp of approval so those are hands down the best effects that i've used for after effects but i'm sure there's other effects that i've never even used before so make sure you go ahead leave a comment down below so that the rest of us can get to benefit from your hidden knowledge if you guys want to learn more after effects techniques more creators pushing the software to its limits make sure you go ahead and click this video guarantee you're gonna like it because there are some of the most mind-blowing use cases of after effects we talk about how these things were even created anyways thanks for watching and i hope to catch you all in the next one peace [Music] you

Channel: Black Mixture

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Keywords: blackmixture, after effects, after effects tutorial, how to use after effects, Adobe After Effects CC, Top 10 Effects, Best effects in After Effects, Best Effects in Adobe After Effects, Top 10 effects in after effects, Best effects for vfx, Best effects for After Effects, How to use effects in after effects, Best effects software, after effects beginners, best plugins for after effects, top 25 effects, top 25 best effects in After Effects, motion graphics, top 30 best effects

Id: yrj6dgPF_aU

Length: 27min 38sec (1658 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 22 2022