If you’re diving into the world of 3D animation to enhance your After Effects projects, Blender is an absolute game-changer. It’s free, powerful, and integrates well with After Effects, allowing you to create stunning animations with a mix of 2D and 3D elements.
Before we jump into using Blender, let’s get it installed:
Now that Blender is set up, let’s break down how to use it alongside After Effects!
After Effects is incredible for motion graphics, but it has limitations when it comes to 3D. While it does have basic 3D capabilities, Blender gives you full control over lighting, textures, and realistic physics.
With Blender, you can create complex 3D elements—titles, abstract backgrounds, product animations, or even stylised characters—that seamlessly blend into your After Effects workflow.
But before we get into the technical side, let’s talk about rendering engines, because choosing the right one can make a massive difference in your workflow.
Blender offers two main rendering engines: Eevee and Cycles. Both have their strengths, and the choice depends on what you need for your project.
✅ Real-time rendering – Powered by your graphics card, making it much faster.
✅ Great for motion graphics – Perfect for stylised, NPR (non-photorealistic) renders.
✅ Works well for After Effects – If you need quick renders without ultra-realistic lighting.
❌ Not as realistic – Lacks ray tracing, so reflections and shadows aren’t as accurate.
Eevee is brilliant if you’re working on fast-paced animations and don’t need hyper-realistic lighting. It’s perfect for things like 3D titles, UI animations, or stylised backgrounds.
✅ Ray tracing for realism – More accurate reflections, shadows, and global illumination.
✅ Perfect for high-end visuals – Great for product renders, VFX, and cinematics.
❌ Slower to render – Uses CPU or GPU but takes longer than Eevee.
❌ More taxing on hardware – Requires a good GPU for efficient rendering.
If you’re after cinematic, high-quality visuals, Cycles is the way to go. It’s great for realistic textures, soft shadows, and complex lighting setups.
🚀 Pro Tip: If you love Cycles but need faster renders, enable GPU rendering in Blender’s preferences (Edit > Preferences > System > CUDA or OptiX for NVIDIA, Metal for Mac). This speeds things up significantly if you have a decent graphics card.
One of the most important things when rendering animations in Blender is choosing the right format.
💡 Always render as a PNG sequence instead of a video file. Here’s why:
Once rendered, you’ll have a folder full of numbered PNG files, ready to bring into After Effects.
Once you’ve got your PNG sequence, importing it into After Effects is simple:
🎨 Bonus Tip: If you want to speed up or slow down the animation, right-click the sequence in the Project panel, go to Interpret Footage > Main, and adjust the frame rate.
Now your Blender animation is ready to be enhanced with After Effects magic!
🎥 Prefer a visual guide?
I’ve created a quick video tutorial that walks you through exporting a Blender animation as a PNG sequence and then importing it into After Effects.
Once your 3D render is in After Effects, you can take it to the next level with a few creative effects:
✨ Glow & Light Effects – Add a glow (Effect > Stylize > Glow) to enhance lighting, especially if you’re working with neon or sci-fi elements.
📽 Motion Blur – If Blender’s motion blur wasn’t enough, apply CC Force Motion Blur in After Effects for extra smoothness.
💨 Smoke & Particles – Use a 3rd party effect like Trapcode Particular or built-in AE effects such as CC Particle Systems II or CC Particle world to add smoke, sparks, or dust for a more dynamic look.
🎞 Colour Grading – Adjust curves, levels, and add LUTs (Look-Up Tables) to give your animation a cinematic feel.
Blender and After Effects together give you endless creative possibilities. Whether you’re making slick 3D titles, futuristic UI elements, or cinematic animations, Blender’s power combined with AE’s post-processing tools will take your work to new heights.
✔ Use Eevee for fast, stylised renders and Cycles for high-quality realism.
✔ Always render as a PNG sequence to avoid losing progress if Blender crashes.
✔ Use After Effects to add motion blur, glow, particles, and colour grading to polish your animation.
Got questions or need help with your Blender-AE workflow? Send me a message!
Here are a few projects where I’ve used Blender—sometimes as the main focus of the video, other times for specific elements that bring the scene to life:
🕰 Splintered Throne – Time Stands Still
Most of this video was created in After Effects, but the clock at the start and end, along with the fire effect, were made in Blender. I rendered the animation as a PNG sequence with a transparent background, allowing me to seamlessly integrate it into After Effects, where I added extra effects like the smoky atmosphere to enhance the final look.
📖 KITTN and PHENIKX ft. Anon – Glow
The lyrics, book cover & posters were animated in After Effects. I animated them in After Effects first and then imported them as an Image Texture into Blender. Everything else—from camera movements to animating objects—was created in Blender. A standout moment happens around 1:50, when the bedroom scene comes to life. That entire sequence was animated in Blender, making it one of the most immersive parts of the video!
