Evan Abrams Shows How to Animate and Loop Falling Leaves Without the Need for Any Specialized Tools in After Effects.

When you think of creating a falling leaves animation in After Effects things don’t have to get much more complicated than nested compositions, keyframes, and the puppet tool. Motion Designer Evan Abrams dives into creating a falling leaves scene using only Ae tools.

Evan shows how to put together the scene with a bit of forethought, using nested compositions to logically layout the looping effect so that many leaves can drop in the animation from a single source. The puppet pin tools in After Effects take care of deforming the leave against its motion path. After Effects recently received an update to the puppet tools making them more flexible and easier to work with, especially with character rigging. Pins are an easy way to deform all kinds of shapes in Ae.