After Effects expressions library
Life is easier with After Effects expressions, but writing them can be daunting. That's why our team spent hours on writing and testing the most useful After Effects expressions for you.
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All expressions
Last update 27. Nov 2024.
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Detect Layer Overlap
Great for collision detection effects, such as interactive animations where elements change on contact.
See expressionElastic Connection Expression for Linked Animation
Perfect for animating objects connected with a spring-like motion, like bungee cords or flexible connectors.
See expressionWiggle One Dimension Only Expression
Ideal for subtle jitter effects on text or images that should only move horizontally or vertically.
See expressionDigital Timer, Hours, Minutes, and Seconds Format
Useful for detailed time-based animations, such as timers or digital displays.
See expressionDigital Timer, Hours and Minutes Format
Great for countdowns or time-based animations where hours and minutes are needed.
See expressionSquash and Stretch Animation Expression
Ideal for adding a lively, cartoony effect to bouncing or landing animations.
See expressionIgnore Parent Layer Rotation Expression
Perfect for elements that need stable orientation despite parent layer rotations, like fixed icons or labels.
See expressionDisplay Current Date in After Effects
Useful in dynamic date overlays or template projects where the date should auto-update.
See expressionAutomatic Fade In and Out Expression
Ideal for templates or MOGRTs where layers need quick fade-in/out transitions.
See expressionReplace Spaces with New Line Expression
Great for automating multi-line text layouts in templates or data-driven projects.
See expressionLookAt Expression in 2D Space
Ideal for creating interaction effects, like eyes or arrows that follow a moving object.
See expressionGradient Ramp Fixed to Layer Edges, Ignore Rotation
Ideal for animated backgrounds, shapes, or titles where the gradient should stay fixed to the layer’s edges without rotating, preserving a stable gradient effect regardless of layer rotation.
See expressionGradient Ramp Fixed to Layer Edges
Perfect for animating backgrounds, shapes, or titles where a consistent gradient needs to stay aligned with the layer as it moves.
See expressionMaintain Stroke Width in 3D Space
Great for 3D projects where stroke width consistency is critical, such as motion graphics with line animations.
See expressionInherit Parent Opacity
Useful in lower-thirds or other animated text elements that fade in and out with the parent layer.
See expressionLoop Mask Animation Expression
Great for looping animations on raster images, videos, or shapes when track mattes aren’t practical.
See expressionTrigger Animation with Markers
Useful for triggering UI animations on click or hover, like button highlights or tooltips.
See expressionScale Up Near Another Layer Expression
Great for interactive animations, like UI buttons that grow as a cursor approaches.
See expressionMaintain Scale While Parented Expression
Perfect for maintaining the original size of elements within a hierarchy, like text or UI components.
See expressionMaintain Stroke Width During Scaling
Essential for icons or shapes where stroke width consistency is key, regardless of layer scaling.
See expressionLoopOut Duration Control Expression
Ideal for animating short loops with controlled timings, like flickering lights or pulsating effects.
See expressionLoopIn Specific Number of Keyframes
Handy for creating dynamic intro animations, where the start of the animation needs to repeat.
See expressionLoopOut Specific Number of Keyframes
Great for looping specific motion sequences, such as repetitive character movements or logo animations.
See expressionLoopOut Continue Expression
Useful for animations that should continue smoothly beyond their last keyframe, like gradual fade-outs or growing/scaling effects.
See expressionLoopOut Offset Expression
Perfect for creating staggered animations, like a row of bouncing balls or objects moving forward in a cascading pattern. Each cycle builds on the last, ideal for effects where movement needs to accumulate over time.
See expressionRandom Seeded Color Expression
Generating random colors consistently for text layers, ensuring each layer gets a unique color.
See expressionParent Position Offset Expression
Offsetting a child layer’s position by 100 pixels relative to its parent.
See expressionScale Based On Distance
Scaling an object based on its distance from another object in the scene.
See expressionRandom Rotation Expression
Randomizing the rotation of layers in a starburst pattern, between 0 and 360 degrees.
See expressionParent Scale Expression
Increasing the scale of a child layer by 10% compared to its parent layer.
See expressionWiggle with Seed Expression
Creating a wiggle effect on position with a set seed, ensuring the randomness is consistent across renders.
See expressionLooping Wiggle
Use this on the Position property of an object (like a floating balloon or drifting cloud) to make it gently move up and down in a looping, natural manner. This expression ensures the wiggle effect loops seamlessly every 3 seconds, preventing abrupt jumps.
See expressionRolling Ball Expression
Automatically rolling a ball that has position keyframes.
See expressionChange Value Based On Position
Changing the opacity of a layer if it crosses a certaing position.
See expressionRandom Position Expression
Randomizing the position of a layer within a 200-pixel range in both X and Y directions.
See expressionLayer Linking Expression
Linking a child layer’s position to its parent with a slight offset to create a trailing effect.
See expressionEaseIn Expression
Gradually increasing a layer’s scale from 50% to 150% over 2 seconds.
See expressionCenter Anchor Point Expression
Aligns other elements (like icons or graphics) to the exact center of a dynamically sized text box, keeping the layout balanced.
See expressionExponential Counter Up Expression
You want to animate a text layer that shows a price or number increasing exponentially, simulating the effect of fast-growing numbers.
See expressionColor Fade Expression
Fading a color from white to black over 5 seconds.
See expressionTime-Remap Control Expression
Slowing down a video clip by half its speed using time remapping.
See expressionDynamic Text Box
Automatically resizes a background box to fit around changing text, ensuring consistent padding for labels, buttons, or captions.
See expressionValue Relative to Time Expression
Gradually changing the scale of an object from 0 to 100% over 5 seconds.
See expressionStrobe Light Expression
Making a text layer's opacity blink between 100% and 0% every second.
See expressionOscillate Expression
Creating a simple sine wave motion for a bouncing object or pendulum effect.
See expressionLoop Path
Use this to have an object (like a car or airplane) continuously follow a looping path, such as driving around a track or flying in a circular route, without needing to manually repeat keyframes.
See expressionDistance-Based Scale Expression
Scales the layer based on its distance from the point [500, 500]
See expressionOvershoot Expression
Adding an overshoot effect to the scale property, causing it to bounce back slightly after reaching its final value.
See expressionRandom Color Expression
Randomly generating a color within the RGB range for a flashing light effect.
See expressionParent Rotation Expression
Adding 45 degrees to the parent layer’s rotation to ensure the child rotates at an offset angle.
See expressionSine Wave Motion Expression
Animating the opacity of an object to pulse over time using a sine wave.
See expressionDelay Expression
Delaying the rotation of a gear object so it follows the rotation of a larger parent gear.
See expressionPosterizeTime Expression
Forcing a layer to update at 12 frames per second to create a stop-motion effect.
See expressionToComp Expression
Use when you want the 2D element to track the position of the 3D layer but stay flat and readable without 3D distortions.
See expressionSeedRandom Expression
Ensuring random values for each layer stay consistent over time based on their index.
See expressionConvertToWorld Expression
Aligning a spotlight’s position to the world space anchor point of another 3D object.
See expressionSmooth Expression
Smoothing out the jittery motion of a handheld camera by averaging out its position over time.
See expressionLookAt Expression in 3D space
You want a layer (such as a 3D object or camera) to always face another moving object (the target layer)
See expressionClamp Expression
Ensuring that a layer's scale never goes below 50% or above 150%, no matter what animations or adjustments you apply.
See expressionNumber Counter With Separators
Neatly formats large financial figures (e.g., "1.500.000") from a slider for on-screen display.
See expressionIndex Expression
Placing each layer 50 pixels apart for a grid layout.
See expressionLoopOut PingPong Expression
Animating the position of an object in a cosine wave pattern, creating a back-and-forth motion.
See expressionBounce Expression
A ball bounces to a stop after falling, using this expression to animate its bounce motion.
See expressionRandom Expression
Setting the opacity of multiple objects to random values between 0 and 100.
See expressionEase Expression
Smoothly increasing opacity from 0 to 100 over 1 second for a fade effect.
See expressionValueAtTime Expression
Delaying the position animation of a layer so it follows another layer with a slight lag.
See expressionLoopOut Cycle Expression
Looping the position of a bouncing ball to repeat its motion indefinitely without adding more keyframes.
See expressionWiggle Expression
Creating a subtle shake in a text layer to simulate a hand-held camera effect.
See expressionTime Expression
Rotating an object at a steady rate over time by applying it to the Rotation property.
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