GPT-6 Astra + After Effects Creates Motion Graphics in Minutes! transcript

Wait, what? That's it. So fast. Let's see. [music] Hi, I'm Adil. I've been using AI for pretty much all motion graphics in my recent videos. [music] Today I'll walk you through seven examples. The inputs I started with, what Astro built, and how I worked with the results. [music] And you don't really need any technical skills to get started. Let me show you. So, first [music] go to Hixold and download the After Effects plugin.

I'm going to leave the link in the description. [music] Install it. Then open Chad GBT and type this at Hicksfield install/ [music] After Effects. Now, the plug-in includes skills developed by my team, which gives Astra detailed instructions for all the tasks we'll be covering [music] today. Once it's connected, you're ready to start. [music] Okay, pretty impressive, right? Well, here's the brief behind this promo. It [music] describes the scenes, the visual style, and how the elements should move.

To build a brief like this, start with the idea and ask Astra to develop it scene by scene. You can work through the details together before starting production. And references help a lot here. If there's a particular rhythm, typography treatment, or movement you like, showing it gives Astra a much clearer sense of what you're after. Now, once the [music] brief is ready, Astra generates the image assets in Hicksfield and builds the storyboard layouts in Figma.

[music] This is where I can ask for changes to fonts, colors, or composition. [music] And once I approve, Astra builds and animates the project in After Effects. For this promo, Hixel generated five growth stages of the dragon fruit. Watch how they change size. As the controller moves closer to each fruit, it grows. As it moves away, it shrinks. What surprised even me was how much of the work it can take off your hands because building an effect like this by hand takes [music] hours and third party plugins.

Then look at the animated accents around the typography. Astra builds those into the composition as well without [music] again extra plugins. What I love most is that I can turn my ideas into motion without having a motion design background. Now, if you're already a professional, having AI handle repetitive setup gives you more time for creative decisions and room to take on more ambitious projects or offer clients additional services.

For me, it comes down to how these tools work together. Kicks generates the artwork. Astra works through my brief and builds the animation. And After [music] Effects gives me an editable project I can keep refining. This next one is actually crazy. To make it, Astro used Hicksfield, After Effects, [music] and some custom code. Let me show you. [music] Can you see what this image is made of? Letters, numbers, symbols, but you can still recognize the smile, follow the twisting metal, and see the star moving through the scene.

Here's how you can create this type of motion. So first we start with a black and white video generation in key field that gives us the movement. Now we need to turn it light and shadow into characters. In the chat I work with Astra to build a custom converter with a small control panel for After Effects. Once the tool is built I open the panel through file scripts run script file. [music] I select the video and choose the section I want to convert.

Then I set the number of rows and [music] columns. Fewer cells give me larger characters. First, the video is split into frames. Python reads their brightness, divides each frame into a grid, and picks a character for each cell based [music] on how bright that area is. Now, brighter areas get dense characters like 8, S, or hash. Darker gray areas get lighter marks like [music] dots and slashes. And see, I can still recognize the shape.

Those different characters recreate the light and shadow that gave the original image its depth. The conversion produces two transparent PNG sequences, the main image and the background symbols. [music] And that transparency matters. You can put the animation over another background or footage, change its color and add [music] effects. Want it in your brand color? Change the color in After Effects. Want to glow around the characters?

Add it to the important sequence. You don't have to write the Python code yourself. You describe the effect and Astra [music] helps build the converter. Then you can finish the look in After Effects. Now, let me show you how to create a SAS promo video. [music] Okay, I mean, watch the labels inside the phone. They fall, rotate, and settle while the phone is moving, too. So, how do I make something like this from scratch?

Here's a pro tip. Pick a motion reference you like, send it to Astra, and ask it to adapt that style for your business. I don't even have to write the prompt myself. GBT takes control of the chat, writes the request, and gives itself the task. I can just sit back and watch it work. Take the falling labels for example. To create that sense of weight by hand, I'd have to work through the fall, the rotation, the bounds, and how each label settles.

For simulated gravity and collisions, motion designers often use a dedicated physics tool or a third party plugin. And those plugins cost real money. And this isn't a regular AI generator video. I generate it once, then keep editing the same project without running back to us and picking the best take. Now, let me show you how to use motion design, not just for your business, but for your content, too. Back then, I had no idea what to do.

It felt like the ground disappeared from [music] under my feet. But that's exactly when I realized no one is coming to save you. Either you get up or you stay down. [music] I got up and that changed everything. >> All right, so this workflow is for content creators. You can make a promotion video like this, even without an editor, stock footage, or any [music] manual motion work really. To do that, upload your original video, then describe how the graphics should follow your speech.

And again, I didn't have to write this manually. I used my earlier tip and let Astra write the request for me. I just said, I want zooms, dynamic animated captions synced to my words, and cutaways generated inside Kefeld that match the meaning. And this works for anyone who makes content. It doesn't matter where you upload. What matters is that this use case works. Because here's the real problem with this style of editing.

It's not even the hours, it's taste. To make graphics like this look good, you normally need at least the basics of editing in motion. Which word to emphasize, when to zoom, how long a cutaway should stay on screen. Here, all of that is done for you. The scale carries our team's editing decisions, so Astra already knows where the emphasis and the zooms should go. And instead of searching for stock, Kixle generates cutaways that match your exact words.

Then the pipeline can work through those decisions with you and build the animation in After Effects. You can direct it with your idea and reference, even if you couldn't build those effects yourself. And now I'll get to the part a lot of you have been waiting for. Bringing illustrations to life. [music] I mean, just look at that. Character animation of this quality in After Effects can be a real pain. You need a special plugin and most importantly know how to use it.

I mean, there's a reason some motion designers specialize entirely in character animation. A project like this can involve an illustrator preparing the artwork as separate vector layers. The head, body, arms, legs, then a character animator connecting those parts, building the rig, and deciding how their movements connect. Look at the cyclist. The feet have to follow the pedals. The hands need to stay on the handlebars and the hair and scarf have their own movement.

Now, in our case, Hixel generates the illustration, Astro rebuilds it as separate shape layers inside After Effects, sets up the connections, and animates them. You might still be thinking, couldn't I just generate a video? Yes, you absolutely could. If you want a finished clip, that can be enough. But this workflow gives me all the separate parts of the animation so I can adjust each one individually and have more control over the result.

Okay, once the campaign is approved, the next request might be another language. Here's how it would handle that. Say a company likes my work but needs it in another language or an existing client wants to launch the same campaign in three different countries. I already have the animation. Now I can adapt it for those audiences. And think about what that means for your portfolio. You can show a potential client how your work would look in their language with emotion and style that caught their attention in the first place.

Here's what you need to get started. The After Effects project, the folder containing its linked assets, and the finished original [music] video. Then just choose your target languages. For example, here's my [music] request. Now, there are two parts to this workflow, and our team built separate skills for them. One handles the editable design in After Effects. the [music] text, the fonts, the layout, and the language compositions.

The other one handles video clips that [music] contain spoken language. It identifies those clips, prepares the translated lines, and uses Hixo to generate the localized versions. Once you review the localized clips, have them replace the matching shots in the language composition. Now, look at these versions side by side. Follow the scene changes, the zooms, [music] and the way the text appears. The animation follows the original while the text is adapted into Japanese.

And that includes the smaller details, the buttons, the status messages, and the [music] text inside the interface. And changing the language might be only half the job. What happens when the client needs that same campaign, say in a vertical format for reals? Changing the frame size is easy. The frustrating part is going back into finished project and rearranging everything so the animation still works. Now I can hand that work over to the Hixo skill with one prompt.

Now, watch what happens to the [music] layout. The images and text need new positions, but the connected parts still have to work together. A label needs to follow its object. The cursor still needs to point at the right button after everything is moved. The adaptation skill gives Astra our team's instructions for this process. So, you don't have to explain every layout rule from scratch. I mean, this took Astra about 50 minutes.

We'd estimate around 2 to 3 hours to do the same work by hand. [music] And while Astra is doing that, you can just kind of chill. And here's how this helps you earn more from a project. A business that orders a video will often need it [music] in several formats. That gives them more opportunities to reach potential clients. [music] So, you can offer those resizes as an additional service and increase the price of the job.

[music] And by the way, the plug-in handles resizing motion graphics that have product photos really well, too. So, what could you offer a client with this? If you already design for clients, you could take on more of a [music] campaign. the artwork, an animated promo, banners, and versions for different markets. [music] Think about building toward a $5,000 campaign instead of stopping at a 500 buck design. [music] Start with one service you can deliver well, and build from there.

The free Kixles After Effects plugin, the skills we use, and the setup instructions are linked below. And as always, if you found this video helpful, hit the like button, subscribe, and I'll see you guys in the next one.