What It Does
Slides & Grids handles three distinct tasks in After Effects: creating animated grid layouts from layers or footage, precomping multiple items with custom sizing and fitting options, and bulk editing compositions by targeting layers across multiple comps at once.
The grid system arranges selected layers into rows and columns with controls for distribution, margins, offsets, and progressive shifts. A controller layer manages animation timing, transform delays, and randomization. You can convert grids to static layouts for manual tweaking or release layers back to individual control.
The precomp function takes multiple selected layers (video, images, shapes, text) and creates individual precomps with specified sizes, margins, fitting methods, and optional background layers. It can also update existing precomps selectively, swapping content while preserving settings.
Bulk editing targets layers by name or index across multiple compositions simultaneously. Useful for template workflows where you need to replace placeholder content, adjust visibility, or update layer properties in dozens of comps without opening each one manually.
Key Features
Grid creation and management. Set number of items per row/column, or let the plugin fit them to comp dimensions. Distribution options control spacing and alignment. Progressive shift offsets rows or columns incrementally. Margins adjust padding around items. The controller layer includes animation delays for position, rotation, scale, and opacity, plus random influence settings to vary timing across items. Frame features add masks (with adjustable roundness), strokes with dashes and gaps, and background layers.
Precomping with fitting options. Choose from fit-to-comp, fill-frame, or custom sizing. Set margins (including negative values to crop). Select fitting behavior when layer dimensions differ from frame size. Add background layers and set duration, frame rate, pixel aspect ratio per precomp. Update mode allows selective property changes on existing comps without recreating them.
Bulk composition editing. Add, replace, remove, or change visibility of layers across selected comps. Target by current selection, layer index, or name matching. Distribution methods control how new items get placed. Repeat option duplicates items when source and target counts don’t match. Fitting and placement controls determine how added layers scale and position within each comp.
Additional utilities. Convert grids to static layouts for manual editing. Release layers from grid control while preserving their positions. Hide released layers automatically. Transform individual grid items with custom presets. Update old grids created in earlier versions. The plugin includes multiple panels for grid presets, frame features, and quick access controls.
Version 1.3 improved grid creation speed by 4x and added auto-fitting with masks, ratio linking in precomp dialogs, and arithmetic support in size fields (useful for calculations like “1920/2”).
Who It’s For
Motion designers building slideshow templates or grid-based animations will use the main grid features. The bulk editing function targets template creators who need to populate multiple compositions with different content quickly. Editors working with large projects can use precomping utilities to organize layers efficiently without repetitive manual setup.
Pricing
Single-user license costs $58. A free trial is available with a 12-item limit. Bundle with Flex for a 20% discount (single-user licenses only). Compatible with After Effects CC 2020 and later.