What It Does
Fluid is a GPU-accelerated plugin that runs a genuine Navier-Stokes fluid simulation directly inside the After Effects timeline. Rather than baking out a simulation in an external tool and importing the result, you work with live, GPU-driven fluid in real time. Any layer in your composition, whether it’s a logo, a text layer, or a graphic, can act as a fluid emitter or a collider, with the simulation reading the layer’s alpha contour to define where fluid is released or blocked.
Key Features
Source Layer emitter. The plugin reads the alpha shape of any layer and emits fluid along its exact contour. Logos dissolve into flowing liquid, text unravels naturally, and any graphic becomes a fluid source without any manual masking.
Full physics system. Gravity, Wind X/Y, Buoyancy, Vorticity, Swirl, and Viscosity all interact frame-by-frame, producing motion that evolves continuously rather than looping or repeating.
Collision support. Designate any alpha-based layer as a collider. Bounce and Friction (Navier slip) parameters shape how the fluid responds to the surface. Invisible colliders let you guide flow with hidden boundaries, useful for keeping fluid within a defined region.
Second independent emitter. A second source system lets you run two fluid streams simultaneously, each with its own color settings, so dual-stream collisions and blended flows are straightforward to set up.
Five color modes. Original, Color, Dual Color, Random Color, and Gradient modes give you control over how the fluid is colored. The Original Color mode samples colors directly from your source layer, so a multicolored logo retains its palette as it flows.
Motion-driven emission. Keyframe the Source Point and the plugin converts the point’s velocity into emission force, producing path-following trails that respond dynamically to speed. Tail Length, Velocity Dissipation, Front Bombe, and Wake Width all react automatically.
Procedural turbulence. A 3-octave fBm noise layer plus a Wiggle parameter adds organic variation to the flow without manual animation.
Post-processing. Pseudo-volumetric Shading and Bloom with threshold control let you add depth and glow directly inside the effect, keeping the look self-contained.
Detail levels. Standard, High, Ultra, and Extreme quality presets let you work fast during design iterations and switch to sharper output at render time.
Who It’s For
Fluid is a good fit for motion designers building logo reveals, title openers, or abstract motion graphics where physical fluid behavior is part of the visual language. Because the simulation runs natively in After Effects with no external pipeline, it suits projects where round-tripping through Houdini or similar tools isn’t practical. It requires a Metal-capable GPU on macOS or an OpenCL 1.2-capable GPU on Windows, and at least After Effects CC 2021.
Pricing
Fluid is a one-time purchase at $59.99 for a single-user perpetual license. Floating Server and Render-Only licenses are also available. A free trial can be downloaded from the product page.