How to Animate Textures in After Effects

Animated textures are a growing trend in motion graphics. They add personality without being distracting and add movement without being complicated, while bringing authentic qualities to digital work.

Simple Position Expression Technique

This technique was used in the Get Rect promo video. Start with a large texture (6000 x 4000 pixels) added to the composition.

1. Anchor Point Setup: Position the anchor point at the image's top-left corner
2. Expression Application: Apply an expression to the position property:

posterizeTime(4)

xMax = thisComp.width - width;
yMax = thisComp.height - height;

xPos = random(0,xMax);
yPos = random(0,yMax);

[xPos,yPos]

The posterizeTime() function allows you to change how many frames per second the rest of the expression will affect the property. The variables calculate safe position boundaries to prevent image clipping, and the random() function generates new coordinates each frame.

The texture layer then receives a Black & White effect, gets pre-composed, and integrates into the main composition with Multiply blending mode at 20% opacity.

Texture Hop

Building on this foundation, Texture Hop is a free After Effects preset featuring expandable controls beyond position randomization. The preset enables randomizing position, rotation, reflection, scale, and frame rate through simple sliders.

A Pro version ($10) includes 10 high-resolution textures (5,616 x 3,744 pixels) and a Premiere Pro MOGRT version.