What It Does

Dropletee creates liquid distortion effects by accumulating frames over time, pushing pixels along surface normals, and adding iridescent colors and lighting on top. The plugin runs on GPU via WebGPU and leverages native technologies like Metal, CUDA, and OpenCL for performance.

Think of it as a frame-based distortion engine. Each frame builds on the previous ones, creating flowing, organic motion that mimics liquid surfaces. The effect works by analyzing your footage’s surface normals (the direction pixels face) and displacing them gradually as frames accumulate.

Key Features

Six built-in presets. Chemtrails, Blue Acid, Dust Devil, Oil Slick, Wave Rush, and Soap Burst provide starting points you can customize. Each preset combines different accumulation settings, displacement amounts, and color palettes.

Multiple view modes let you see exactly what the plugin is doing. Output the final result, clean accumulation without stylization, alpha mask, or normal map. Noise, Palette, and Light modes help debug your settings.

Three caching modes adapt to different workflows:

  • Live Preview: Toggle parameters and see instant feedback, up to 120 frames
  • Compute: One-click full sequence cache with an in-frame progress bar
  • Auto Cache: Silently caches as you play the timeline

On Windows, Live Preview and Auto Cache work for real-time results. Manual Compute caching is coming in a future update.

Who It’s For

Useful for motion graphics artists creating abstract visuals, title animations, or organic transitions. The accumulation-based approach works well for evolving backgrounds, acid-trip effects, or anything requiring flowing, unpredictable distortion.

Since it builds effects over time, you’ll get different results depending on your footage length and accumulation settings. Best for projects where you want that liquid, morphing quality rather than precise, repeatable distortions.

Pricing

Dropletee costs $49.90 USD (special price valid until May 19, 2026, regular price $69.90). This is a one-time purchase with a license for one installation plus one archival copy. Upgrade pricing is available for qualifying previous buyers. A free trial is available from the aescripts page.

Compatible with After Effects 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026 on macOS 10.15+ (Intel and Apple Silicon) and Windows 10+.