Created: last year

Video Templates for fast editing

final Cut icondavinci icon

Top 5 After Effects Extensions

Hi, editor!

Extensions can make your work in After Effects much easier and quicker and some of them - would be more than helpful. Most professional editors use extensions on a daily basis, so we made a list of the top 5 After Effects Extensions you should check!  

Overlord

Overlord - an extension for Adobe After Effects and Adobe Illustrator, creates an invisible bridge between the programs, allowing them to share graphics.

The extension gives you the ability to transfer shapes from Illustrator to After Effects without importing, converting or redrawing them - quickly and in the same form they were created. Now you won’t have to do extra steps like converting Illustrator files to shapes inside of After Effects or preparing your AI layers for convertation - Overlord does it all itself.

Price: $45

Requirements: After Effects and Illustrator CC 2014 and above

How to use:

After installing Overlord to both After Effects and Illustrator, you’ll get a tab with multiple options. To reveal it, go to the Window>Extensions>Overlord.

You’ll be able to: push single shape, group of shapes or the whole layer from AI to AE and backwards, center Anchor Point, correctly convert parametric shapes, import guides, gradients, text and many other. During this convertation all layer names and parameters will be saved.  

Kbar

Kbar - this script enables you to create custom toolbars with any buttons and After Effects functions. Now you’ll be able to link your favorite effects, presets or scripts with buttons and quickly use them in your editing.

You can even paint these buttons in your favorite colors!

Price: $39.99

Requirements: Adobe After Effects CC 2019 and above

How to use:

After installing Kbar, go to the Window>Extensions>Kbar. You’ll get a tab with some simple buttons you can customize. In the Kbar tab, you can click “Add Button” and link any script, expression or preset you have to the toolbar. You can combine buttons, set the shortcuts to them, export toolbars to other devices and many other.  

EasyEdit Viewer

EasyEdit Viewer - quick and simple access to thousands of video templates. Here you can preview and import ready-made compositions to your project in just one click.

Apart from that, you can find and download free media resources from all over the internet, with seamless integration to After Effects and Premiere Pro.

Price: Free!

Requirements: After Effects and Premiere Pro CC 2014 and above

How to use:

 After installing the extension from the archive, go to the Window>Extensions>EasyEdit Viewer. Here you’ll be able to add a pack of templates, preview and import any template and easily customize it. Animation, editing or content creation - everything becomes much easier.

If you click to the Assets tab, you’ll be able to choose the media file you need to add in your project from any available stock website - video, photo or GIF. Here you can choose the resolution, format or source of the file, easily preview suggested media files and import them to the project or your computer.

Find more about Assets in this guide.

You can also check this tutorial to learn more about Viewer: 

Pseudo Effects Maker

Pseudo Effects Maker - sometimes it’s necessary to hide effects under the hood. With this extension, you will be able to easily create your own custom effects and controllers.

The extension provides a tidy workflow which is easy to control and advance - all your expressions will be manageable and grouped the way you want.

Price: $17.99

Requirements: After Effects CC 2015 and above  

How to use:

After installing the extension from the archive, go to the Window>Extensions>Pseudo Effects Maker. The tab gives you such buttons as“Actions”,“Controls” and“Options”, each can help you to operate your expressions.

Here you can create and customize an effect, update it with new controls without losing expressions and keyframes, and conveniently work with your expressions and work without keyframes.

After Ease

After Ease - helps you to forget about tediously setting up a bounce and elastic animation leveraging its intuitive UI to set up a curve and apply it via expressions or bake keyframes onto your timeline. 

Price: $25

Requirements: After Effects CC 2014 and above

How to use: 

After installing the extension from the archive, go to the Window>Extensions>After Ease.

You’ll be able to: bake the expressions into keys, bake expressions on mask and shape paths, design your motion curves intuitively with a live preview and many other.

Conclusion

Hope this list was useful! We’re sure that some of these extensions can do a great job in your every day’s work and bring a lot of freedom to your workflow - free or paid, they are worth your attention.

For more tips for editors, check our blog - we create guides for After Effects, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve and Final Cut; tips for designers, filmmakers and especially - for editors.


10k elements for Reels and Stories

Looking to add a splash of creativity to your Instagram stories and reels? You're just a click away! Discover our iOS app infi: packed with 10,000+ unique stickers and design elements to breathe life into your social media content.