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After Effects
PhysicDesk
A real-time 2D physics simulator for After Effects — fast, accurate, and running right inside your viewport. Build scenes with dynamic, static, and animated bodies; connect them through pivot, weld, spring, wheel, and rope joints; add force zones for wind, magnets, portal, and explosions; layer in particle emitters, fracture, soft bodies, and sound-driven motion. When the simulation looks right, bake every motion path into native After Effects keyframes — fully editable, ready to render.
| PhysicDesk // Field manual | Real-Time Physics · Adobe After Effects |
right inside After Effects.
PhysicDesk 2 — Official Preview |
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Index /
What's inside
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01
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Chapter 01
Build & play
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Fig.01 / Create
Draw & create — right in the panel
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Start creating right away with the panel's built-in drawing tools. Sketch shapes, lines and custom forms directly on the stage, then build out your whole scene from scratch — there is no need to jump back to After Effects or prepare any layers in advance. |
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Panel / Playback
Timeline
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Everything plays back on the Timeline. Press Play to run the simulation live, Record to capture it, and Reset to start fresh. Switch on Loop Play to watch it repeat, set the total number of frames in a single field, and pick your frame rate — all right here, simple and quick. |
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Fig.02 / Takes
Record Pool
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Every take is saved to the Record Pool, so you can keep as many records as you like. Preview each one as a thumbnail, switch between them instantly, and browse your whole history to compare takes and pick the one you want. |
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02
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Chapter 02
Behaviour
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Modes / Behaviour
Physics modes
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Every shape has a physics mode that defines how it behaves. Pick a mode below, then fine-tune Mass, Friction and Bounce or apply a Material preset. The last two, Keyframed and PhysLink, appear only when the selected layer was imported with its own keyframes. |
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Dynamic
A fully simulated body — it falls under gravity,
collides with everything and reacts to every
force in the scene.
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Static
Fixed in place and immovable, yet still solid, so
other shapes collide and pile up against it.
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Motor
Drives a shape with continuous, powered motion.
Choose how it moves — Oscillate on X, Y or XY,
Rotate, Pendulum or Orbit — then set its
Amplitude, Speed, Phase and Range.
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Sleeping
Starts at rest and stays put until another object
strikes it, then wakes up and joins the
simulation.
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Elastic
Holds a shape to an anchor point with a spring,
so it stretches away and springs back. Tune
Stiffness, Damping and Spin Damp, move the
Anchor, and even cancel Gravity for a floating,
elastic feel.
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Path Follow
Sends a shape travelling along a path you define
— set its Direction, Distance, Speed and Curve,
add Ease In and Out, and choose One Way, Round
Trip or Loop.
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Soft Body
Turns a shape into a deformable, jelly-like body
built from soft segments. Control Stiffness,
Damping, Pressure, Buoyancy, Smoothing and
Bounce, and switch on Jiggle for extra wobble.
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Dead
Excluded from the simulation entirely — ideal as
a source shape for an emitter or as a visual
reference.
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Keyframed
Plays back the layer's own imported keyframes
exactly as they were animated.
* Appears only when the imported layer has
keyframes.
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PhysLink
Follows the imported keyframes while still
colliding and reacting, blending hand-animated
motion with live physics.
* Appears only when the imported layer has
keyframes.
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Fig.03 / Constraints
Fixed Rotation & Pin Position
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Lock a shape's spin with Fixed Rotation so it slides and collides but never rotates, with an adjustable lock strength — or use Pin Position to anchor a shape in place while it still reacts to hits. |
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Fig.04 / Reactions
On Collision — actions & sound
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Make a shape respond the moment it is hit. Trigger an action on collision, or play a sound on impact, so your scene reacts and sounds off exactly when objects strike. |
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Fig.05 / Timing
Layer Trim
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Trim a shape's active range so it only takes part in the simulation between the frames you choose. |
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03
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Chapter 03
Workflow
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Fig.06 / Workflow
Select & batch-edit
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Select a whole group of shapes at once and change their properties together, or scatter random values across the entire selection for instant, organic variation. |
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Fig.07 / Combine
Merge
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Merge multiple shapes into a single combined body that moves as one. |
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Fig.08 / Combine
Bind
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Bind shapes together so they move as a connected group while still flexing under force. |
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Fig.09 / Populate
Generate
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Populate a scene in seconds by scattering shapes with the Random, Grid and Pattern generators. |
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04
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Chapter 04
Import & animate
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Fig.10 / Import
The Import panel
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Open the Import panel and it instantly detects the layers in your composition, listing them clearly so you can choose exactly what to bring in — fast, tidy and effortless. |
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Fig.11 / Import
Import your layers
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Bring in shapes, text down to the single character, images and masks straight from your composition. |
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Fig.12 / Import
Import keyframed layers & sync
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Import layers that already carry keyframes, keep them in sync with After Effects, and choose how the motion continues once the keyframes end — Dynamic, Dynamic + Velocity, Loop, Ping Pong or Static. |
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Fig.13 / Import
Animated nulls as Emitter or Magnet
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Rename an animated null — keyframed or driven by a Wiggle expression — and import it as a moving Emitter or Magnet, so its motion drives your particles or pulls shapes around the scene. |
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Fig.14 / Animate
Animate properties — Toggle Keyframe
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Turn on Keyframe mode and use the Toggle Keyframe button to animate properties over time right inside the tool, so values can change as the simulation plays. |
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05
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Chapter 05
Systems & forces
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Fig.15 / Particles
Emitter — particle system
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Emit from a Point, Line, Circle or Rectangle using built-in shapes, custom paths, letters or your own text, with full control over life time, fade, color and collision groups. |
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Fig.16 / Teleport
Portal
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Teleport shapes between an entrance and an exit, with two-way travel, two-sided openings, and portals you can parent to moving objects. |
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Fig.17 / Connect
Rope & chain
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Connect shapes with realistic rope that drapes and collides, complete with Tear, Stretch, Wave and Turbulence. |
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Fig.18 / Mechanisms
Joints
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Build real mechanisms with Pin, Weld, Pivot with angle limits, Spring, Piston and Wheel — enough to assemble working machines and vehicles. |
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Fig.19 / Audio
Sound-driven physics
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Drive shape and emitter properties straight from your audio, binding them to the Bass, Lo-Mid, Mid or Treble frequency bands through the Live Spectrum. |
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Fig.20 / Destruction
Explosion
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Blow shapes apart with adjustable Radius and Strength, and time it precisely using Delay and Repeat for sequences of blasts. |
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Fig.21 / Destruction
Breakable & shatter
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Let shapes fracture and break apart on impact for clean, satisfying destruction. |
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06
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Chapter 06
Shaping & saving
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Fig.22 / Shaping
Trim & Edges
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Open up hollow shapes by trimming them and removing individual edges — turn a closed ring into a bowl, a funnel or a half-pipe that catches and guides other shapes. |
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Fig.23 / Shaping
Hollow shapes & parenting
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Place an Emitter or other shapes inside a moving hollow shape and parent them to it — even Static shapes can be parented — so everything travels together as the shape moves. |
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Fig.24 / Shaping
Hollow Shape Options — Trap (one-way)
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On a static hollow shape, open the Hollow Shape Options and switch on Trap (one-way): particles and shapes can flow in but never get back out, turning your hollow shape into a one-way catcher. |
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Note / Save
Save your scenes
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Save complete scenes with their records, capture quick Snapshots, and keep your work safe with Auto-Save. |
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Mode A
Keyframes
Writes native Position and Rotation keyframes
straight onto each layer. Retime, re-ease, move,
delete or tweak any keyframe by hand, parent
layers and stack more animation on top — it
renders natively, with nothing left behind.
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Mode B
Expressions
Drives the motion with expressions instead,
keeping your timeline clean and letting you
offset or retime the whole animation at once.
Convert it to keyframes whenever you want
frame-level control.
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[✓]Works with Adobe After Effects on Windows
and macOS.
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[✓]Fully universal — built to run with After
Effects in any language.
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[✓]Exports standard, editable keyframes,
with an optional expression-driven mode. No
external renderer required.
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[✓]Simulation runs in real time inside the
panel; the final result is baked to keyframes in
your timeline.
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| PhysicDesk — Real-time physics simulation for After Effects. | // end of manual |
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Version History
2.0.141 -
Jul 15, 2026
- Full real-time liquid engine: pour and pool modes, viscosity, liveliness, impact bounce and liquid presets
- Fast solver — heavy scenes and fine-grained liquid stay responsive, even while recording
- Splash droplets with intensity and style controls, plus Motion Stretch for fast-moving liquid
- Foam & whitewater with per-speck size and opacity, amount and lifetime controls
- Surface Highlight with custom color and width
- Drain zones — liquid leaves the scene wherever you place them
- Liquid Scale — one knob for the grain of the whole liquid: chunky cartoon fluid or fine realistic water
- Two-Way mode — the liquid pushes rigid bodies around
- Emitter parenting with full AE-style rotation — pour along moving, rotating hosts and hand-drawn paths
- Everything exports to After Effects as clean, editable shape layers, with edges that match the in-tool preview
NEW — TOOLS & MOTION
- Squash & Stretch — cartoon impact deformation on collisions
- Goal Solver — pick a target and PhysicDesk finds a physical trajectory that hits it, with Soft Land / Fast Impact arrival styles and multi-goal protection
- Path Spring — bodies follow hand-drawn paths; Static bodies become kinematic movers and Dead bodies become collision-free moving nulls — the perfect carrier for parented tools
IMPROVEMENTS
- Rebuilt Magnetism — velocity-based attraction, clean release, and a new per-group Affects row (ALL / A–E), just like force zones
- Scene-Object emitter, reworked — imported layers now emit naturally: clones spread and push each other correctly, never spawn inside each other, never tunnel through walls, keep their true masked shape in recording playback, and stale sources after a scene reload no longer emit broken shapes
- Separation, rethought — Emitter Separation now fades with particle age (no more sudden late-life jolts), World Separation respects Dead and Trigger bodies, and the emitter, world and birth separators no longer interfere with each other
- Parenting everywhere — Magnet, Repeller, Explosion, Particle Emitter and now Fluid can all ride another body; parent pickers list Dead + Path carriers first
- Dead bodies are now truly immovable — never pushed by walls or separation, reliable scene dressing anywhere
- Breakables, ropes, pistons, welds and elastic anchors refined across the board
- Native After Effects progress palette during export with detailed per-stage progress — always visible, even when the panel loses focus
- Faster, more reliable export pipeline across bodies, particles and effects
- Multi-selection correctly reports shared body type
- Cleaner, reorganized panels with tuned defaults and an Advanced section
FIXES
- Stale emitter sources after scene reload no longer emit broken shapes
- Export progress palette closes properly when the export finishes
- …and dozens of bug fixes and stability improvements across recording, playback, import, export and licensing
1.6.23 -
Jun 8, 2026
Compatibility
After Effects
2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022
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