Thomas Alberti offers a preset that creates a featured parametric rectangular path in After Effects.

While shape layers are both fantastic and, in other respects, not so amazing, you may consider an alternative to creating primitives such as rectangles in After Effects. Check out Path Expression, a new and free preset from Thomas Alberti that offers a fully-featured parametric rectangle path that includes rounding and some other helpful tidbits.

Path Expression – Shape.

The preset is for After Effects (2019+) and lets you create a fully featured parametric rectangle path. Also included is rounding, so the preset also can draw circles and ellipses.

“The Path Expression preset packages the core path expression on a mask path with a corresponding effect control. Controllable properties include position, scale, rotation, anchor point, height, width, roundness, and input/output of position and orientation along a path.”

The core expression is a function that draws and transforms a shape or any set of points. The preset is on par with a native shape layer’s features but adds the flexibility of letting users apply it to any path property.

Get the preset here, and visit the page here for more information.