But why? And how do you actually use this effect? Here’s everything you need to know about Motion Tile in After Effects.
What Is Motion Tile In After Effects?
Motion Tile is an effect that comes with the After Effects software. This effect can be found in most comprehensive video editors and will sometimes be labeled as “Mirror Edges”. Because that’s exactly what it does; it mirrors the edges of a clip’s composition.
What does it mean to mirror the edges? The surrounding area of a clip’s frame will consist of nothing by default. But when you mirror its edges, you fill in that empty space with a mirror or repetition of whatever is in that clip’s composition. You’ll effectively only see Motion Tile in action when you reduce the size of a clip or move it around. More on this later.
In After Effects, Motion Tile is customizable; you can determine the size, position, and direction of the mirror effect. Motion Tile doesn’t mirror the edges of the entire composition of your edit, but rather whatever is in the single layer that you’ve applied it to. You’ll need to apply it to every layer and clip separately to get its desired effect.
When Should You Use Motion Tile?
Whenever you reduce the size of a clip or animate it, you should, ideally, apply Motion Tile. Let us paint a picture for you…
When you animate a clip, whether it’s zooming out or doing a left-to-right transition with keyframes or whatever else, and the clip starts moving around in the playback frame, you’ll notice a black background peeking out around its edges (that’s the default color in After Effects). We want to avoid this.
This is where Motion Tile comes to the rescue. It effectively mirrors or repeats the edges of whatever the clip is composed of. When Motion Tile is applied and you see the clip’s animation in action, it looks a lot more natural; your eye won’t be drawn to that out-of-place black background.
Below is a comparison of a clip with and without motion tile.
Without Motion Tile:
With Motion Tile:
When you watch the animation in real-time, Motion Tile makes it look natural, you won’t even notice it’s there if it’s a speedy animation. But without it, you’ll definitely notice.
Sometimes, a black space surrounding your clip will be part of the aesthetic you want, or perhaps Motion Tile will hinder another effect you’re using, such as working with text or 3D elements; you don’t want that to be reflected on every side.
But if you’re working with a simple 2D image or video, a good rule of thumb is to always apply Motion Tile to every clip on every layer before your start editing with motion.
Where to Access Motion Tile In After Effects
Motion Tile is easily accessible. It’s not a feature you can toggle on, but rather an effect you need to apply. In the panel to the far right, you’ll find Effects & Presets. Click on the tab to open it up.
You’ll see a bunch of effects sorted into different categories. To open up a category, click the little arrow to the left of its name. Motion Tile is under Stylize. Open it, scroll to Motion Tile, and simply click and drag it onto your clip to apply it. You can also search “motion tile” in the search bar at the top.
How to Use Motion Tile
Let’s give you the full rundown of using Motion Tile. Follow the below steps:
Start a new composition and import your files. Cut them into clips if necessary. Perform your animations. For this example, we did a simple transition consisting of a rotation and a zoom-out at the end of our first clip. You’re going to have to know how to work with keyframes to do this. Once your animation is complete, it’s time to apply Motion Tile. As mentioned above, find it under Effects & Presets on the right-side panel. Drag Motion Tile directly onto the clip. We recommend adding it to every clip in this step, so you don’t forget about it down the line. Now, it’s time to modify Motion Tile. The effect’s settings should have opened by default in the Project panel when you applied it. If not, locate your clip in the Composition panel, click the little arrow next to its name, open up Effects, and Motion Tile should be there; double-click it. In order to actually see what your Motion Tile modifications will look like, drag the playback cursor to where your animation happens on the clip. Turn up the Output Width and Output Height to extend the tiles around the frame of your clip. Drag the value or click on the number to enter it manually. You’ve now successfully added Motion Tile and can stop at this point. 100 is the highest that the Tile Width and Tile Height can go. We recommend not turning it down, or it will squash your composition (unless that’s the look you’re going for). Use Phase to shift the position of the tiles. Turn on Mirror Edges if you want the tiles to be a reflection of the composition. You can leave it off if you simply want the tiles to be a repetition of the composition.
You can play around with all of the Motion Tile controls to see what you like. And that’s it, you’re done. Now, that ugly black space around the frame should be filled with tiles that reflect or repeat the composition, in whichever way you’ve modified them.
Lastly, when editing with motion, there are two basics that you always need to take care of before doing anything else: Motion Tile and Motion Blur. For smooth, natural-flowing animation, these two go hand-in-hand. You should be all clued-up about Motion Tile now; read our in-depth guide on Motion Blur to understand why you should use this effect as well.
Trust us when we say it’s best to turn on Motion Blur. It’s a three-circled icon in the toolbar of the Composition panel; click it to turn it on, it will turn blue. Then locate the Motion Blur box for every clip, and go ahead and tick all of them. Essentially, this will make Motion Tile, and your overall animation, look even more natural by adding a little blur.
Make Your Animations Look Natural With Motion Tile
We’ve all seen those video edits where we could tell something was missing; oftentimes, the editor simply forgot to add Motion Tile. Don’t make that same mistake. Refer back to this tutorial to apply Motion Tile to your clips in After Effects.
