Drop it. Watch it fall. Bake it.
A real-time physics panel that lives right inside After Effects. Drag gravity, bounce and weight while it runs, then bake the whole thing to plain keyframes you can edit by hand. Made for fast, everyday motion design.
After Effects 2020+ · macOS and Windows · pay once, no subscription · free to try, the whole plugin
the 30-second version
Select layers. Press play. Bake.
That is the whole loop. Everything after this is just dialing it in.
the point
Not a rocket. A really good bicycle.
The big physics plugins are rockets. Gorgeous, powerful, able to do things MatterAE never will. But most days you are not going to space. You are crossing town.
For that you want something already parked at your door that you just hop on and ride. Falling logos. Bouncing UI. Tumbling type. Confetti going everywhere. A ball rolling down a ramp for an explainer. That is the 90% of daily work that only needs to feel real, done in the time it takes to make coffee. That is what this is for, and the price matches.
what you get
Everything you reach for, none of the faff
Lives in the panel
It docks right inside your workspace, next to everything else. No separate app, no second window, no jumping in and out of After Effects.
Tweak it live, no re-render
Drag gravity, bounce, weight and wind while the sim is running. It updates the second you let go of the slider. Nothing to wait for.
Bake to real keyframes
When it looks right, bake it to a fresh comp full of normal AE keyframes. Tweak them by hand after. Nothing stays locked to the plugin, nothing breaks if you uninstall.
Five ways a layer can behave
Dynamic, Static, Sleeping, Kinematic and Inactive. Mix them to build anything from a wall of dominoes to a clean hold-then-release reveal.
Decide who hits what
Collision groups 1 to 8. Layers in the same group pass straight through each other but still bump into everything else. Sort out the chaos in two clicks.
Collisions that follow the real shape
It reads your actual artwork, not a rough box around it. Round off corners so things roll, pad the edge, or swap in a circle or rectangle per layer when you want it simpler.
Hold, then let go
Animate a layer with your own keyframes, then release it into physics. It keeps the exact speed it had at the moment you let go. Hold-and-drop reveals in a single take. This one is the crowd favorite.
Markers for your sound design
Tick one box and MatterAE drops a timeline marker on every frame two things collide, named after both layers. Your SFX line up to the frame without guessing.
layer modes
The same colors you see in the panel
Every layer is one of five modes. The colored dot tells you exactly how it behaves, here and in the app.
Dynamic
Full physics. Falls, hits, bounces, tumbles.
Static
Does not move. The floors, walls and ramps everything else lands on.
Sleeping
Sits still until something touches it, then wakes up and joins in.
Kinematic
Follows your own keyframes first, then releases into physics.
Inactive
There for reference only. No collisions, no physics.
preview
Real-time, at your real frame rate
The preview runs at your comp's frame rate, not the browser's. What you see is what you bake. Zoom and fit, watch things fly past the edge of frame, and grab any shape to drag it to a new starting spot.
- Matches 24, 25, 30 or whatever fps your comp runs at
- "Show outside comp" reveals things before they enter frame and after they leave
- Grab the hand tool to reposition shapes and set where they start
- Undo controls, 30 steps deep, covering positions and settings
bake
Bake once, own it forever
Baking makes a fresh comp of normal AE keyframes. No live plugin hanging off it, nothing that breaks if you uninstall, nothing slowing your renders. Edit the result by hand like any other animation.
- Real keyframes in a new, clearly named comp
- Anchors centered for you, with position handled automatically
- One undo group, so a single Cmd+Z in AE reverts the whole bake
- Reads from frame 0 no matter where your playhead sits
- Optional collision markers for frame-accurate sound design
◆ Rotation 120 keys
◆ Markers 14 collisions
linear interpolation · time-remapped stills
the origin story
About that "duplicate functionality"
MatterAE got turned away from the big AE plugin marketplace because a physics plugin apparently already existed. Fair enough. So does gravity, and people still seem to want more of it.
So it is launching on its own, here, on Gumroad. The rejection turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to the pitch. Read the whole story →
Drop something. Watch it land.
Free to try with the whole plugin in your hands, or unlock it fully for $35, once, no subscription.