AEScripts GEOlayers 3 for After Effects
Version 1.18.0 · AEScripts + AEPlugins · Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) · ranked #243 in the library
Map making inside the compositor, pulling real cartographic data as editable layers so a route, a region or a city plan animates with the same tools as everything else in the composition.
Read the installation section below before you start. The order of the steps matters on this release.
About this release
Overview
GEOlayers builds maps directly inside After Effects. Instead of exporting a static image from a mapping tool and animating a pan across it, you pick a region in a browser panel and it creates a composition containing the map as layers you can style, animate and composite normally. Zooming, panning and rotating are keyframed like any other transform, and the map re-renders at the right detail level as it moves.
The data comes in as separate elements rather than as a flat picture. Roads, water, borders, buildings, labels and terrain arrive as styleable layers, so you restyle the whole map to match a brand palette in a few clicks rather than accepting whatever the source tile server looks like. Style presets cover the usual dark, light, satellite and minimal looks, and custom styles can be built and saved for reuse across a series.
The features layer is where documentary and news graphics work happens. Import points, lines and polygons from standard geographic data files, or draw them by hand, and they stay locked to their real coordinates as the map moves. Animate a route drawing itself along a real road, place labelled markers that stay pinned to cities through a camera move, and highlight a region with a shape that follows its true border. Terrain data can be pulled as a height map for three dimensional relief.
What it does
Feature breakdown
Map creation inside the composition
Choose a region and get a live composition rather than a flat image, with zoom, pan and rotation keyframed as ordinary transforms.
Styleable data layers
Roads, water, borders, buildings, labels and land use as separate elements you can recolour and restyle to match a brand palette.
Geographic feature import
Bring in points, lines and polygons from standard geographic data files, locked to real coordinates so they track the map through any move.
Route animation
Draw a path along real roads and animate it revealing itself, with markers that stay pinned to their locations through camera moves.
Terrain and elevation
Pull elevation data as a height map for three dimensional relief, usable with the compositor's own camera and lighting.
Offline tile caching
Cache map data locally so a project renders on a machine with no connection and looks identical to the version built online.
Changed in this build
Version 1.18.0
- New style presets and a rebuilt style editor with live preview across the whole map.
- Feature import extended to more geographic data formats.
- Faster tile loading and caching, with a cache size limit that can be set per project.
- Route animation gained easing controls and multi-segment paths with per-segment timing.
- Fixed label collision handling at high zoom levels where names previously overlapped.
Installation
Follow these in order
- Close After Effects completely before installing.
- Extract the archive and pause real time protection.
- Run the installer, pointing it at your After Effects installation folder.
- Apply the included activation before launching.
- Open After Effects and confirm the panel appears in the window menu.
- Set a cache folder on a drive with room, then restore protection.
Release notes
From whoever packed it
- This is a plugin for an existing After Effects install. It does nothing on its own.
- Cache map data for any project that has to render on a machine without a connection, otherwise tiles come back empty.
- Map data licensing depends on the tile source you choose. That question sits with the data provider, not the plugin.
System requirements
Minimum and recommended
| Operating system | Windows 10 version 21H2 or Windows 11, 64-bit |
|---|---|
| Processor | Quad core or better |
| Memory | 16 GB recommended, maps with terrain and many features are memory hungry |
| Graphics | GPU with 4 GB VRAM for smooth preview at high zoom levels |
| Storage | 2 GB for the plugin plus whatever the tile cache grows to |
Questions about this release
Answered before you ask
- Does it need a connection?
- To fetch new map data, yes. Once cached, a project renders offline with identical results.
- Can I import my own geographic data?
- Yes, the common geographic file formats import as feature layers with coordinates preserved.
- Does it work in other compositors?
- No. This is an After Effects plugin specifically.
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