The Wiggle expression in After-Effects is a great way to make things shake, whether you are trying to simulate a camera shake, or move letters in a word in random directions, wiggle is the goto expression for motion designers for most of these cases.

At the end of May 2021, I have released Colors for After-Effects, which lets you do magnificent things with colors that are not yet possible natively. It is a color sampler that lets you sample raster images (any frame from an active comp) into a compact palette. It also lets you generate new palettes on spot without thinking about it too much, so you can quickly be inspired by many different color options and start using the one you like the most. It also lets you recolor entire comps in a breeze, as well as examine and create different gradients. It also (yes a lot of alsos) lets you drop into the comp a variety of custom elements that use colors that are based on the active palette. It also does a lot more.

Here in this little space of mine, I’ll share more about the creation process of this tool.

When learning how to use After effects should you learn how to use expressions? Well, I think the main question should be: Why would you even want to?

Banging your head against the wall from time to time while trying to create the perfect ease will teach you more about motion than any expression ever will.