After Effects is a motion graphics, digital visual effects and compositing application. This is predominantly used in the post-production process of film making, television and video gaming. The main uses of After Effects for post-production is tracking, compositing, keying and animation. Here we breakdown the top 5 free After Effects plugins and templates. These plugins will help you create diverse, cool and professional-looking effects that will add unbelievable value to your production.

Typominal - Digital Typewriter Text Preset

Typominal is fantastic for editing Sci-fi films and more. It’s an add on which is applied to the text layer and creates a computer-terminal-feel to the text. Think Matrix or Star Wars. This is an ingenious plugin enabling you to emphasise script; with the footage, background music and this effect you can bring your film to life. It comes with two different cursor types to give you variation when editing. It is easy to integrate with After Effects, and most importantly it’s free!

AE Flame

AE flame is an add-on that generates beautiful fractals that can be animated with ease. It comes with multiple options including colours, intensity and density to bring your graphics and film to life. It’s easy to customise which allows you to create the effect that you want.

If you want to find out more about AE Flame watch their tutorial here.

Animation Composer

We absolutely love this plugin, and if you’re new to animation it’s a must-have! It’s smooth in functionality and easy to integrate. There are also plenty of high-quality presets you’ll have access to. You can change each element of the animation quickly and smoothly which helps you edit more efficiently.

It’s great for sound effects too! It allows you to change the whole of the pitch through the plugin to suit your piece of work. It comes with additional free add-on tools that include:

Keyframe Wingman, Anchor point mover and the Transition shifter.

Video Copilot Reflection Plugin

This plugin is one of the best we’ve seen; the quality is insane. Video Copilot is renowned for its quality offerings. Creating reflections is not an easy task, but with Copilot’s reflection plugin you can create smooth, professional-looking shadows with ease - make sure to check out their video guide here. This will help you build on your animation skills and works perfectly with film title artwork.

Normality by 3DCG

Normality is an add-on for After Effects which helps you improve your lighting and shadows. It’s a free plugin but the quality of Normality is incredible; it’s one of our favourites. It allows motion graphic artists to create lighting on 3D objects at a high spec in After Effects. It’s high-quality features help you light your scenes to a professional level.

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