Glass morphism is one of the most in-demand visual styles in motion design right now. You see it everywhere — in SaaS product demos, iOS UI animations, and premium tech brand content. This guide covers how to build a liquid glass effect in After Effects, both manually and with a script.
What Is a Liquid Glass Effect?
A liquid glass effect simulates the optical properties of frosted or translucent glass — refraction, rim lighting, blur, and a subtle reflection layer. In After Effects, this requires stacking multiple effect layers precisely to get a convincing result.
The core components of any glass effect in AE:
- Displacement map — creates the refraction distortion
- Blur layer — frosted glass feel behind the panel
- Highlight layer — top-edge specular reflection
- Rim light — edge glow that gives the glass depth
- Glow layer — ambient light bleed from behind the glass
Building It Manually
The manual approach takes 20-40 minutes per panel. You create each layer by hand, apply the right effects, and link them together with expressions so they stay in sync when you move or resize the element.
Here is the basic layer stack:
- Duplicate your base shape layer
- Apply Fast Box Blur to the duplicate — this is your frosted body
- Create a highlight shape at the top edge — Screen mode, 30-50% opacity
- Add a Displacement Map effect using a subtle gradient as the map source
- Add a thin rim outline — white stroke, low opacity, Screen mode
- Group everything into a pre-comp and add a soft glow
The main challenge is keeping all of this in sync. If you resize the panel, every layer needs to be manually adjusted. If you have multiple glass panels in a composition, the work multiplies fast.
Automating It With a Script
The Liquid Glass Script for After Effects automates the entire process. You select a shape layer, click one button, and the full 4-layer glass system is built and linked automatically.
Every layer is connected through expressions — resize the base shape and the entire glass stack updates. Change the corner radius and everything follows. The script uses matchName internally, so it works in any After Effects language version — English, German, Japanese, Spanish.
The result is production-ready glass morphism in seconds instead of 30 minutes.
When to Use Liquid Glass
Glass morphism works best when you have a meaningful background. The effect reads as glass because you can see something through it — a gradient, a blurred image, a colourful shape. A glass panel over a plain white background loses the effect entirely.
Good use cases:
- SaaS product UI demos (show your app in a premium context)
- Mobile app animation mockups
- Notification and card animations
- Abstract motion graphics with colourful backgrounds
- Title cards with depth
After Effects Version Compatibility
The manual technique works in any version of After Effects. The Liquid Glass Script is compatible with After Effects 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025 on both Mac and Windows.
For best results, work in a composition with a vivid or gradient background — the glass effect depends on having something behind it to refract and blur.