How to Add Motion Blur in Adobe After Effects CC

Motion blur is essential to making animations look realistic. It is something our eyes and cameras naturally capture whenever there is movement. Swing a camera back and forth quickly and you will see the image streak and blur. The faster the motion and the slower the shutter speed, the more blur you get.

When you create animations in After Effects, there is no motion blur by default. Everything moves with perfectly sharp edges, which looks unnatural and computer-generated. Turning on motion blur instantly makes your animations feel smoother, more cinematic, and more believable. Today we go over how to add and customize motion blur in Adobe After Effects CC.

How to Enable Motion Blur in After Effects

1. Create or open the composition that has the animation you want to add motion blur to. This could be text moving in, shapes animating, or anything with keyframed motion.
2. In the timeline panel, look for the Switches column. If you see the mode column instead, click the Toggle Switches/Modes button at the bottom of the timeline to switch views.
3. Find the layer you want to add motion blur to. Look for the column with the circle-in-a-circle icon (it looks like a small motion blur symbol). Click the checkbox to enable motion blur on that layer.
4. Now look at the top of the timeline panel. You will see the same motion blur icon next to the search bar. This is the master motion blur switch. Click it to turn on motion blur rendering for the entire composition. Both the layer switch and the master switch need to be on for motion blur to show up.
5. Play back your animation and you will see motion blur on the moving elements.

How to Customize Motion Blur

The default motion blur settings work fine for most situations, but if you need to match specific footage or want more artistic control, you can adjust them.

1. Go to Composition > Composition Settings (or press Ctrl+K / Cmd+K).
2. Click on the Advanced tab.
3. Under the Motion Blur section you will find two main controls:
   • Shutter Angle controls how much blur is applied. Higher values create more blur. The default is 180 degrees, which matches the standard cinematic shutter. Going up to 360 creates very heavy blur. Going lower makes it more subtle.
   • Shutter Phase controls where the blur sits relative to the motion. The default of -90 means the blur trails behind the movement. Adjusting this shifts whether the blur leads, trails, or centers on the moving object.
4. There is also Samples Per Frame which controls the quality of the blur calculation. Higher values give smoother blur but take longer to render.

Tips

• Only enable motion blur on layers that actually move. Static layers don’t need it and having it on unnecessarily can slow down your preview renders.
• Turn off the master switch while working. Motion blur slows down RAM previews significantly. Keep it off while you are animating and only turn it on to check the final look.
• If you also work in Premiere Pro, check out how to add motion blur in Premiere Pro for a similar technique using the Transform effect.

That is how you add motion blur in After Effects. It is one of those small details that makes a huge difference in the quality of your animations.