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VKO Shader

SHADERS ON YOUR TIMELINE.

A native After Effects effect built around a GPU shader engine. 79 shaders, a live thumbnail browser, drop-in custom GLSL, every control keyframable. Runs on the GPU, animates on the comp clock, reacts to your composition's audio. Works with or without sound.

Build your own shaders in the free web editor, drop them straight into AE. Library grows as far as you take it.

macOS and Windows, native on both Metal on Mac, Direct3D 11 on Windows. One GLSL file, same shader, same look, either platform.


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$54.99
  $39.99
Special price valid until August 21, 2026
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Description

Browse. Click. Render.

Stop pre-rendering loops and stacking plugins to fake generative motion. VKO Shader runs real GLSL on the GPU, live on your timeline — scrub it, keyframe it, retime it like any other effect. Pick one of 60 built-in shaders or write your own, and it just renders: no precomps, no external apps, no round-trips.

VKO Shader effect controls and thumbnail browser in After Effects

Write a shader. Hit render.

Import your own .glsl with one click (or drop files in the VKO Shaders folder). They appear in the browser instantly — no AE restart — and recompile on every save. You write plain GLSL; VKO Shader cross-compiles it to Metal on macOS and Direct3D 11 on Windows. One shader, every platform.

Locked to the beat.

This isn't just an audio meter wired to a slider. VKO Shader runs the same beat engine as the VKO1 live VJ app — FFT spectral analysis with real onset and beat detection, reading your composition's audio track directly. Kicks hit, the visuals hit. No manual keyframing, no expression rigging.

No audio in the comp? Set a BPM and every shader pulses in perfect tempo — a beat-locked animation with nothing but a number. Dial Audio Amount to blend hand-keyed motion with the live beat, anywhere between fully manual and fully reactive.

Make more shaders!

Don't want to write code? Build shaders visually in the free VKO Graph Editor — node-based, runs in your browser, exports ready-to-import .glsl. There's a button for it right inside the plugin.

Use the free web editor to create new shaders, add modifiers, remix them, have fun!
Shaders 60 built-in + unlimited custom GLSL
Engine Metal (macOS) · Direct3D 11 (Windows)
Host After Effects 2025 / 2026
macOS 14+ (Sonoma), universal — Apple Silicon + Intel
Windows 10 / 11, 64-bit
Color 32-bit float pipeline
  • 0:00 Intro
  • 0:15 Applying VKO Shader to a layer
  • 0:57 Browsing the built-in shader library
  • 1:47 Palette, speed & complexity (keyframeable)
  • 2:14 Audio-reactive & BPM
  • 3:14 Position, scale & jog wheel
  • 4:33 Building custom shaders in the free web editor
  • 6:02 Exporting & importing custom GLSL into After Effects
  • 8:40 AI-assisted shader coding (LLMs.txt for ChatGPT/Claude/etc.)

Discussions

Want to talk about it?

Head over to r/aescripts to chat with fellow users about this product.

Need Support?

Please open a support ticket to be connected directly with the author of this product

Version History

1.1 -

Aug 12, 2026

- New: Mask to Shape — the shader now stays inside whatever it's applied to (titles, shapes, masked layers) instead of filling the whole layer. On by default.
- Added 19 new shaders (60 → 79 total): the 14-shader Daft Cyber Pack (Acid 303 Grid, After Work Disco, Cyber Ziggurat, Daft Pyramid, Discovery Visor, Dual Spin Engine, Interstellar Flight, Spin Vinyl, Synth Horizon, Synth Obelisk, Synth Starfighter, Ziggurat Gate, Tokyo Neon Rain, Villa Synthwave) plus 5 new one-off shaders (Ziggurat of the Ancients, Hexgate of the Ancients, Nebula Blob Bloom, 16mm Cosm, Code Cascade Matrix).

1.0 -

Aug 5, 2026

Initial release. 60 built-in GPU shaders, live thumbnail browser, custom GLSL import with hot reload, audio reactivity (or BPM pulse without audio), every control keyframable. Metal on macOS, Direct3D 11 on Windows.

Compatibility

After Effects

2026, 2025

EULA

END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

This software ("the Software Product") and accompanying documentation is licensed and not sold. This Software Product is protected by copyright laws and treaties, as well as laws and treaties related to other forms of intellectual property. The author owns intellectual property rights in the Software Product. The Licensee's ("you" or "your") license to download, use, copy, or change the Software Product is subject to these rights and to all the terms and conditions of this End User License Agreement ("Agreement").

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Updated: Oct 21, 2025 1:35 AM

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