Motion Array Shows How to Create the Impossible Penrose Triangle in After Effects, in Under Ten Minutes.

It’s always captivating to see impossible objects come to life with the help fo the computer world. Impossible objects are typically 2D representations of 3D objects that couldn’t physically exist in the real world, but with some trickery, they can live within the realm of computer graphics. With this tutorial Motion Array’s Owen Chikazawa shows how you can create one such impossible object, the Penrose Triangle, in After Effects.

The walkthrough shows how you can create an animated Penrose Triangle using some simple, albeit core After Effects tools and techniques to bring the illusion to life.

We’ve seen impossible objects, particularly the Penrose object come to life in other tutorials. Pedro Alpiarça showed how to put together a more elaborate one, using SideFX Houdini. Alpiarça walks through how to approach modeling the triangle making use of some UV tricks.