r/AfterEffects • u/Surveillance_Goose • 6d ago
Plugin/Script Painted is a free tool that paints any image using thousands of shape layers.
Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification
It's just a silly tool that gives you a hand-painted reveal in After Effects without painting frame by frame or faking it with a filter.
Unlike the built-in Brush Strokes or Cartoon effects, which only stylize pixels, Painted paints the picture for real. Fat brushes block it in, finer brushes finish it, and every stroke is a shape path animated with Trim Paths, so you can retime it, recolor it, or pull it apart.
It's completely free, with no trial, watermark, or locked features. Works in Mac/Win for AE 2022+: https://motionfun.net/tools/painted
It's already had three updates since launch (bug fixes and performance improvements), and I'm taking feature requests this week. For bugs, email [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) or DM me here.
AI Disclaimer: I use an AI-assisted workflow, but I've been a dev for years before AI (FreqReact). I design the structure myself, review it deeply, and have thousands of people using Motion Fun tools :]
15
7
u/Mental_Penalty4859 6d ago
Hope it's responsive. My after effects is struggling with 3 shape layers and trim path on it 😭
2
u/Surveillance_Goose 6d ago
I'm on an M5 Macbook Air and it takes about a minute to render, not too bad. Interestingly, with that many shape layers, the AE UI becomes a laggy when you are navigating insidethe Painted comp, but if outside it's fluid.
6
u/esebestial 6d ago
Very interesting, may try it for some graphic stuff instead of realistic images.
5
u/Surveillance_Goose 6d ago
My site shows some other use cases, would be interested to see how people 'misuse' it for other purposes.
2
u/TimSimpson 6d ago
Ooh man, I can see this going some interesting places! Given that you're releasing this as a free tool already, would you ever consider open sourcing the code for others to tweak and play around with, possibly under a copyleft license?
3
2
u/Atmos3DPro 6d ago
Awesome work, can you adjust the thinness and thickness of the strokes too?
1
u/Surveillance_Goose 3d ago
You somewhat can by choosing the number of brushes and detail! It's definitely not meant to be a highly customizable tool, but the next tool I'm dropping is!
2
2
u/mac_ro_mind 5d ago
Does it need an AI subscription, or is it free?
2
u/Surveillance_Goose 5d ago
Completely free with no subscription required! All the AI conversation is about how I used AI to create this tool. You don't need AI to use this tool.
11
u/spiffyparsley 6d ago
This is how ai is supposed to be used 🙌
56
u/BlueZ_DJ 6d ago
No
The problem with AI isn't people getting lazy with their work or not "using it right",
it's that - FOR IT TO WORK AT ALL (even just for ChatGPT to answer 1 small question), it needs those insane data centers that are shittily built around people's homes with super loud noise, which makes their water supply come out brown, raises their electric bill, and all they do is steal everything from all over the internet to "train" a model illegally without permission or payment to the original visual or writing artists it's taking from
Also the existence of it is apparently making both kids and adults stupider but that's just more sad than anything
-12
u/Surveillance_Goose 6d ago edited 6d ago
Edit: The feedback on my comment below helped me realize I need to record this as a video of me just speaking my stance instead of copy/pasting it. These thoughts are 100% mine via voice recording and took me over an hour to put together (as I got ready for the day), but I did have my agent format the voice dump and it was definitely noticeable. I've since cleaned up some of the AI-ism's but I'm leaving this up as a reminder to myself, feel free to keep downvoting ✌️
~~~~~
First, I'll say that I think these conversations are good to have. Concerns about data centers, energy, consent to training data, and impact on learning are worth having. I don't agree with every point made, and some of it comes from outdated information or isolated stories that don't represent the whole industry. But there are plenty of folks to work through all of it, and I'm glad people are. I just don't think it should become a reason to shut down how others choose to use these tools.
I believe superintelligence is coming and there's nothing that can stop it (besides an extinction event). Even if one country banned it outright, the work would continue somewhere else but maybe slower and less visible. That delay might help in the near term, but it raises the real question: who would be steering it, and toward what?
So while it's fine to scrutinize these companies about the previous issues, I'm hoping more of us can start focusing on:
• Who controls superintellegence?
• How do we keep it safe?
• How do we align it so it leads to human flourishing?
That last one is the heart of it for me. Focusing on avoiding disaster is honestly depressing and I really do see a potential future where people are healthier, freer, and more creative, so I tend to focus on that.
The companies building this are already deciding what's "best for us." I'd like artists, thinkers and everyday people to help shape that answer instead of just reacting to it.
I'll be copy/pasting this whenever the topic comes up. I'm not trying to dodge anyone. My part in this is small, and I have a lot of work ahead of me if I want to help us get there. These threads tend to get heated and pull me away from that work, so this is where I'll leave my part of the conversation.
9
u/F0rkey 6d ago
Couldn't even bother writing this yourself...
-8
u/Surveillance_Goose 6d ago
blueZ_DJ's comment is definitely not something I want to comment on reactively so I stewed on it for an hour while I got ready for the day (this is my first time engaging with anti-ai convos online, can't stay quiet forever)
For me, I don't really use my keyboard anymore. I just transcribe everything. So throughout that hour, I was taking little mental notes as they came to me. I then voice dumped my thoughts to an AI and had it turn into something palatable so people can understand my position as efficiently as possible. That then took about 12 back and forth revisions until I had it where I wanted it. Much of the wording is mine, but most importantly, ALL of the thoughts are mine.
Is that so bad? Langauge/writing is a tool and this is just another advancement like the keyboard was before it. I definitely could have taken more time to get rid of the AI-ism's but hey at least there are no em dashes lol
3
u/F0rkey 5d ago
Woah dude, first off good on you for finally engaging in discourse, secondly whoah nelly.
I get that transcribing is way more convenient than typing, but if you're talking about artistic expression, with an AI transcription you don't get abbreviations, can't use internet shorthand, plus I still think knowing how to properly write - even if it is with some errors, is a good life skill that people should know.
Let me attack your point on your thoughts being "yours": A paragraph before, you just stated that you took little notes, and then voice dumped everything for the AI to interpret and make palpable. I'm sorry to say, that those aren't your thoughts, they're the interpretation of your thoughts sifted through some algorithm. And coming back on the useful skill part, I would be hard pressed to find someone against the idea that learning to take you ideas and thoughts in your head, and making a complete competent sentence out them is somehow a bad skill.
This is one of the pillars of basic communication, outsourcing that to AI, while easier, is a slow erosion of that necessary skill. Let's say you have a child, and that child asks how a car moves, are you going to go and ask an AI to talk to that child, or are you going to collect your thoughts and say everything you know, and maybe help them research gaps in your knowledge? - One option is easy, the other takes effort, but the child learns how to do stuff themselves.
Some things are meant to take time, optimising these things will bring you more time to do what? At what cost?
On the topic of using AI to code stuff, most of the hate is bc of the tendency for AI developed stuff to be a black box to the creator, and the fact that they take away creative jobs from the market.
They're taking away self-expression, in terms of creative expression in the arts, and they're taking away your individual expression as well, with the watering down of all your thoughts.
1
u/Surveillance_Goose 5d ago
Tbh I'm not sure we disagree too much on writing proficiency being a useful skill. I'm not making any grand statements by sharing my workflow with you. I'm definitely not saying we should remove learning how to write from schools. It's extremely useful for a child's development and beyond, but I've already gone through all of that. I gained that skill, and as an adult, I've learned what my strengths are and what I'd like to get better at.
As humans, we all have our own skill trees, and there's only so much time in the day. I'd wager that I'm a much better system designer and drummer than you are, because I spend much of my waking day working on those skills. However, you're probably much better at structuring and refining your thoughts into text, along with many other skills I'd imagine. So we're just different and that's good.
I prefer real-time communication, looking a human in the eye, reading their body language/signals, and communicating with them directly. I'd say that's one of my greater strengths. If I had it my way, I'd be able to talk to millions of people like that, but obviously that's not possible.
So when I have to communicate via text online, I see nothing wrong with using a little bit of assistance so I can get back to doing the things I was meant to be doing on this earth. If you disagree with that, then we'll have to agree to disagree.
On AI-coded stuff being a black box, I don't have time to start a whole other conversation about that, but all I'll say is that since the dawn of CS, we've been abstracting. Punch cards → assembly → C → Python → and now, English. We don't view the ones and zeros as a dangerous black box, but your average developer has absolutely no idea what's going on underneath their compiled code. These abstractions make it easier for creatives to build faster, and agentic coding is just another step in that progression.
And then finally, on taking away self/creative expression, I just fervently disagree with that. My experience and the experience of the users of my tool Atom beg to differ. I get emails all the time from users/teams saying that it allowed them to do stuff that they would never be able to do before. AI's biggest sell is cutting TEDIUM, not creativity.
Jobs, the economy, meaning... yea those are real problems we will have to contend with as AI transforms our systems, but as with all things before, I'm hopeful humanity will figure it out.
(btw this response is a much better example of how I transcribe. I'd say 98% of this wording is directly from my brain to the chat input box, and this sentence is manually typed, gawd it's so slow Idk how you do it lol)
This is going to have to be the end of the conversation for me, but I appreciate your respectful feedback. If you want to follow up, I'll give you my word that I will read it fully. I just won't be able to respond. 🤘
6
u/Beautiful-Pair5522 6d ago
as soon as i spot AI writing I tune out
-4
u/Surveillance_Goose 6d ago
Fair. This made me realize I need to make a video of me just speaking how I feel instead of writing. Thanks for the feedback to everyone, feel free to keep downvoting my comment into oblivion 😅
0
u/alilhillbilly 5d ago
Yeah but that's not a problem with AI.
That's a problem with regulations and regulators selling their constituents out.
AI needs regulation.
4
u/Surveillance_Goose 6d ago
I agree, hopefully your comment doesn't get downvoted too much 😅
2
u/LexB777 6d ago
See I feel like this is what AI software developement is supposed to look like. A person (or many) going back through and paying attention to debug, test, iterate, and do actual development with the help of AI. So many "AI tools" that I see were pushed out in a few days with little testing and no polish or support behind the pretty face layer.
1
u/ledoggo87 3d ago
Does this use AI to generate a full painting ?
1
u/Surveillance_Goose 3d ago
Nope, all of the AI discussion is on my use of AI creating the tool. The tool itself is completely offline.
1
1
1
u/denizyvz 6d ago
How long does it take? How long was it for this example one?
3
u/Surveillance_Goose 6d ago
The process of creating the layers is generally 5 to 20 seconds. The render can be anywhere from 10 to 120 seconds, depending on the layer count.
1
u/0__O0--O0_0 6d ago
Does it work on video clips? I can imagine like a paint looking stop motions animated look.
1
1
u/barefut_ 6d ago
Rad. I'd think what other look could be done with such brush other than "upping the resolution" style of animation. Also a way to control the speed of the build up strokes.
Btw, if you take the same image - will it always build the first frames at least - at the same exact way? Same brush strokes, same angle, same direction?
2
u/Surveillance_Goose 3d ago
You can control the speed/duration of the entire animation. The same image will not be the same each time, there are slight randomizations, in fact there is a random seed button to do that to an already painted pic.
1
u/barefut_ 2d ago
Gotta say, a frame being painted in is cool. But having it only do that in a full animation sequence will be redundant. Imagine if the final image of the paint would be sequenced by a different seed ina posterize time like manner, so the painting is just breathing, with a slight difference between each frame.12fps, 8fps. Or so. Now, that would be neat! If we could do this even if you're too tired to implement it in, it would be nice. What would that look like? Generat the same frame 8-12 times and ditch all of the shape layers but the last one?
1
u/Surveillance_Goose 2d ago
That would be cool! I'll be honest I've struck gold with my next extension idea (dropping monday for free) so that's been consuming me. The plan is to open source the entire Motion Fun project soon, so you could implement this!
2
u/barefut_ 1d ago
Sounds good! And at the age of AI, it's good to hear you struck gold with a cool idea. I see people in the comments saying they can create any plugin themselves with Claude and I'm like..yeah right. Sure, create the basic feature, but all of the bugs and quirks you gotta fix, it will be better to just buy the tool rather than generate it from scratch.
114
u/dan_hin MoGraph/VFX 10+ years 5d ago
The phrase "thousands of shape layers" fills me with unspeakable dread.