20 FREE After Effects Effects + Tutorials
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Download these FREE After Effects Effects and watch the tutorials to make video post production like a pro from the first try. They’ll help you add smooth transitions, animated effects, icons and moving objects to your videos in a single click.
What Are After Effects Effects?
Effects in After Effects software represent combinations of different dynamic animated layers, which can include: smooth or abrupt transitions, various jitters, objects that fade in and out, drawn lines, details, figures, titles, color gradations, and more.
Top 20 After Effects Effects
I’ve prepared 17 free meticulously drawn and cool After Effects effects that will make your videos astonishing. I also included 3 sets of packages that contain titles, icons, and 3D logos.
1. Glow Text
This free effect allows you to apply a smoothly highlighted text to the beginning/ending of a video. The effect contains an editable layer for typing in your own glowing text. Additionally, you can completely remove the background to apply the text directly to your video.
- View more about how to download Adobe After Effects for free.
2. Video Transition Stroke
Video Transition Stroke is an awe-inspiring animated effect with moving strokes that add style and motion to your media files. Create a smooth and stylish transition by applying this best After Effects tool to your travel videos.
3. Video Transition Fill
Smoothen the transition between different scenes in your video with the help of this free effect. It contains a patchwork that smoothly fades in and out. This effect is perfectly suited for a short video that features a lot of changing scenes with the model.
- Learn more about the Best Ways to Buy Adobe After Effects.
4. Parallax Slide
Parallax Slide is one of the coolest After Effects effects for creating an effective intro for your company’s or product’s promo video. The effect includes a smoothly appearing text that simultaneously darkens/removes the background image, focusing all the attention on the text. Two customizable layers allow you to change the background image and add your text.
5. Logo Animation
This effect automatically breaks up your logo into such shapes as diamonds and triangles. As a result, you get a stylish logo that appears from dozens of smaller pieces.
6. Text Animation
Add a more creative presentation to your text with the help of this free tool that is considered to be one of the best After Effects effects. The text initially appears blurry and unreadable and then slowly turns into clearly-written letters. This effect will draw the viewer’s attention and focus it on the title text.
- Check out Top 10 Best After Effects Alternatives.
7. Food and Culinary Titles
Use these animated titles to promote your new menu, restaurant, culinary classes, or anything else food-related. The effect includes several types of unfolding titles, simply type in your text and press “Render”.
8. Logo Reveal
This professional effect uses a combination of dynamic animated layers and lines for presenting your logo. It contains 3 customizable layers, two of which allow you to write the text, while the third one is for changing the logo. You can use them in isolation or include in various parts of your video.
9. Fire Logo
Fire logo is a dynamic animated effect with a fireball that rises and explodes, giving your logo a stylish showcase. It’s considered to be one of the best After Effects logo tools and contains 1 logo-filler, 1 customizable text layer, and a smart color controller.
10. Fast Slide Show
This free effect will help you create a beautiful, smooth slideshow that is 41 seconds long. The template comes with over 20 efficient quick transitions, including splits, covers from the right/left/above/below, gradual draw-ins, and several others. One of the cool things to do in After Effects with this slideshow effect is to create a small promo of your adventures, highlight several key moments, and add some captions.
11. Dynamic Fluid
This effect contains a gradually falling and pouring multicolor liquid that resembles space. This dynamic template can be used for the ending of your video when you have credits that mention and thank all the people, who were working on the project.
12. Wedding Title
This free wedding title includes a drawing of two rings, a heart, an arch, and customizable text that slowly appears on the screen. Write your names and wedding date, and add this effect to the beginning of your wedding video.
13. Gold Simple Titles
This After Effects effects pack contains 30 unique, original 4K titles. With the help of the title controller, you can adjust the placement of the text and the header, change their size and color, turn the background on/off, add shadows, and more.
14. Animated Icons
This collection offers an icon pack created to add life to any project you’ll use it on. Each icon has its own effect/animation loop. You can set the icon’s color, shadow, turn on/off the animations, and even add sound effects.
15. Call-Out Titles
Drawing 3D Logo Reveal is an adjustable effect that allows you to transform your personal logo into a 3D model. The effect contains 9 mind-blowing animated drawings done in different styles, 14 grid options, and 11 background styles (paper, wood, stone, concrete, etc.).
16. Glow
This built-in effect serves to add glow to any object you need like a logo or some text. It’s widely used for creating neon drawings. The only drawback such After Effects effects suffer from is poor compatibility with transparency (the color fades).
17. Gradient Ramp
This effect can add variety to the foundation of virtually any design. By adjusting just a couple of sliders, you can elevate the background to a whole new level.
18. Warp Stabilizer
This amazing free plug-in allows you to stabilize your video in a couple of mouse clicks. The effect is applied automatically, and if you suffer from any problems, you can perform manual adjustments like smoothening abrupt movements, stabilizing and cutting.
19. Fractal Noise
This free built-in effect is used for displacing or creating backgrounds featuring motion, transitions, clouds, fog, fire, water, paper, metal and other textures, watercolor and ink After Effects video effects, etc.
20. СС Particle World
This effect offers a welcomed variety of settings, starting with color selection and ending with the number of particles. With the help of this free effect, you can enrich your video with snow, rain, hail, and more.
- View more about the differences between Adobe After Effects vs Premiere.
How to Install Effects in AE?
Once AE has loaded, it searches for plug-ins in multiple locations, including the Plug-ins folder. Unless a plug-in is paired with an installer or an installation manual, then you can simply add a plug-in by copying it to the After Effects Plugins folder.
The default location of this folder is:
- (Windows) Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects <version>\Support Files
- (Mac OS) Applications/Adobe After Effects <version>
Advanced After Effects Tutorials
If you plan to learn how to use After Effects like a true professional and use it to design mind-blowing VFX, you need some of the cool After Effects tutorials.
Make Yourself Disintegrate
Make Yourself Disintegrate is a relatively simple visual effects tutorial as it offers a basic lesson in VFX design. Dedicate 10 minutes of your time to learn this trick.
After Effects VFX Basics
Here you can learn how to create a burning fire effect in After Effects. The process includes universal methods that are used as a basis for lots of different visual effects, making it one of the best After Effects tutorials for beginners and advanced users alike as it allows developing essential carry-over skills.
How to Make a Custom Glitch Effect
Learn how to create a glitch effect without having to purchase paid packs with this After Effects effects tutorial. As a result, you’ll receive classic digital and analog errors like artifact compression, bugs, and digital code disruptions or physical manipulations of electronic devices.
- Read more about Adobe After Effects Crack.
Create Animated Backgrounds
Watch the basics of creating animated graphic elements from scratch, which can later be used for designing an animated background. You can even create a background with a seamless cycle using the evolution settings.
Quickly Create 3D
Discover how to create and work with 3D in compositions. Learn about the different visualization methods offered in After Effects, how to turn on 3D on a layer for positioning 2D layers in a 3D environment, and how to add light sources to a composition that contains 3D layers.
How to Control Multiple Layers
This lesson allows you to master methods and tools that simplify the process of choosing and animating several layers in your composition. You’ll work with multiple layers, use Pre-compose to animate groups of layers, and employ nil objects to control the animation of several layers.
- View more about Adobe After Effects Torrents.
Realistic Lightning Effect After Effects
This tutorial will help you create an amazing electricity effect that will look dynamic and realistic thanks to the functions built into Advanced Lightning in After Effects.
Color Grading
Perform color grading and create a cinematic look with the help of this video, which is one of the best advanced After Effects tutorials you can find. The way Kriscoart uses solid objects, masks, and corrective layers to draw attention to certain aspects of a flat video clip, is truly inspiring and stands above others. If you’re currently using different color grading software, give After Effects a chance.
Rise from the Dead Effect
The most valuable lessons included in this video deal with combining the ground explosion with a green screen. The effect seems easy until you realize that the hand needs to be in the middle of the debris.
