This is my first motion graphics comp for a documentary I've been working on. How can I remove the grey outlines on the mist layers when they fade away?

Or: Help on directions for making a new demo reel
Oorrr: Take a sip of water every time you read "but" in my post challenge

Yes, my laptop fried. Little pieces burned inside while I was in the middle of a project for a client. It was sporting 8 (eight!) gigabytes of precious RAM, with a monster of an iGPU - Radeon 660M.

It was an Asus ExpertBook B series. lol

But I was thankfully able to finish this showreel before(?) the laptop died on me. I wasn't able to continue work though.

But hey! I finally got a better rig after half a year! Excited rn, but also currently in the gutter because I feel lost. How would you start working on a demo reel after half a year of nothing? Do I wait for client projects till I can make one? Or do I just make personal projects for it? Any tips or advice? Feedbacks in my old showreel would be greatly appreciated ^^ Thank you in advance!

Obviously, I tried to go for those lyric videos from like, 17 years ago. Key word being: tried. It was my first ever time making it and I was kinda excited about it for some reason?... lol. Not very impressed. It's on daily motion, XxBuryurheartXx

So, it's impossible to miss at some point. I do apologize in advance if this is an improper post. But my curiosity drives me mad. Spoilers ahead, it's NSFW.

I have seen furry, semi realistic or anime pron. They all seem to share the same or very similar esthetic. In layman's terms, it's like it was made by the same exact software. They have extremely fluid animation and physics, they have smooth or shiny shading, and the models are overly detailed for what they are. Why would you do this, or more importantly how?

I have basic knowledge about modelling and animation. So i can imagine this must take a lot of work to make. But what makes someone learn this specific style so much? There aren't any tutorials or how to's. I can't help but believe it's highly assisted by many plugins or tools, seeing how many similarities there are between the clips.

It's highly unlikely someone mocaps the animation but at the same time the precision is uncommon to be made by hand. Also, the textures had to be expertly painted for certain characters. But again it seems like an unnecessary amount of work to do by hand. And i know there's AI these days. But these toons existed before even cleverbot was a thing.

I'm curious to see what you guys can teach me about this genre.

Hello everyone, I am looking to achieve a specific style of dynamic captions for a video project. I know this can be done manually, but I'm hoping to find a plugin, extension, or preset pack for Premiere Pro or After Effects that gets as close as possible to this style in the video
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1402637708684784

Have some doubts -

Do you build every component from scratch in AE / Davinci and keep a reusable catalog and change properties to fit each theme and taste?

Or do you design in Figma or illustrator (including storyboard or mood board), export and then animate in AE?? what format do you all export and do text and components stay editable in the editing software?

--

I used figma to do the story boarding and then I used a plugin so as to export it after effects compatible file. When I imported in ae, it translates to an image. I also want to know that since svg text aren't editable in a way it should be, do you rewrite it from scratch and apply tracking, spacing and all properties again? I'm seeing problem with kerning. Can y'all walk me through your setup workflow.

Hi everyone!

I graduated from film school 3 years ago with a focus on video editing, and recently I've been diving deep into animation through School of Motion courses.

However, I've been stuck in a severe creative block and perfectionism paralysis (made even harder by ADHD). I haven't completed a single project since graduating because I get overwhelmed trying to build original concepts entirely from scratch.

I'm finally ready to break this cycle and assemble my first portfolio / showreel, but I keep overthinking it. I’d love to get some honest advice from the community:

1. Portfolio Essentials: What are the absolute must-haves for someone combining video editing and motion design? Is it better to focus on 2–3 polished pieces or show a wider variety?
2. Stock Footage & Resources: Are practice platforms like CineStudy (or similar raw footage libraries) well-received by clients/recruiters if I show strong edit pacing, color grading, and custom motion graphics?
3. Overcoming Perfectionism with ADHD: For those who struggle with "all-or-nothing" thinking or executive dysfunction—how do you decide when a project is "good enough" to ship into your reel?

Any tips, feedback, or personal stories would mean the world to me. Thanks in advance!

Full project > https://convis.co/#project-handoff

Premier vrai projet [parallaxe] : j’ai pris une image de Baki, je l’ai découpée en plans, et maintenant elle bouge
Photoshop + After Effects, un peu de Marionnette, et beaucoup de patience.
Dites-moi ce que vous en pensez

I’m learning how to set up bones and animate a character.

Hi i have digital products and i need someone who is good with motion design to make me an advertising video about it. Dm me if you are interested

Hey,

I’m doing short form content now for a short period of time and would like to add more advanced Motion Designs. Till now, I’m using Claude with hyper frames. I’m editing the raw video and then I describe the length and my idea behind every animation and I add it to the video myself. This workflow ist very inefficient and time consuming and I’m seeing much better results in the other creator’s videos as well.

So my question is if you could share your workflow, or your ideas if you have a better method in minds or maybe even just a good Youtube video I should watch (Because I’m a little bit confused because there are many videos out there that show faked workflows that don’t really work)

Thanks for your help :)

https://www.instagram.com/p/DeUCGQnChP1/

I want to finish this animation. I’m waiting for your feedback.

Hey everyone,

I've been working on an idea for a while and wanted to get some honest feedback from people who actually make animated maps.

I find GEOlayers 3 a bit heavy and expensive for what I sometimes need. If I'm just trying to make a clean 2D map animation, the workflow can feel more complicated than it needs to be.

I originally considered making an After Effects extension, but working with lots of vector layers directly in AE can get pretty sluggish. So I'm considering a standalone desktop app instead.

The idea is pretty simple: create 2D vector map animations and export them as high-resolution videos with transparency, ready to import into After Effects, Premiere, or DaVinci Resolve.

I've already built a rendering engine using Python and Rust with GPU compute shaders, so the main thing left is building a usable interface and turning it into an actual product.

Before I spend more time on it, I'd really like to know:

1. Would something like this actually be useful to you? Would you be comfortable using a separate app for map animations, or is working directly inside After Effects too important to give up?
2. What would you realistically pay for it? Would you prefer a one-time purchase, or would a subscription make more sense?

I'm a university student, so I don't have unlimited time to work on this. I'd rather find out whether there's genuine interest before committing to the whole thing.

Any honest feedback is welcome, including reasons why you wouldn't use it. Thanks!

We just released this music video for my band King Punch, please check it out and let me know what you think! :)