Diorama 3D

After Effects plugin / Windows and macOS

What's Included

• Standard (W, E, R) or Blender (G, R, S) keys

• Textured, solid and wireframe display, with real-time shadows

• Draggable focal plane for camera focus

• Built on the Jolt physics engine

• Trajectory preview for launched objects, including bounces

• Animation hand-off from keyframes to physics

• Unbake restores the original keyframes

• Position, scale, rotation and aim per layer

• Lists, loops and random()

• Errors are reported with their line number

• Copy LLM instructions copies a prompt for ChatGPT or another chatbot, so it can write formulas from a description of a shape

• Ground plane Can be tilted to match footage. Placement, snapping and physics use it.

• Shadows Real-time shadows in the viewport

• Keybinds Standard or Blender controls

• Undo Uses After Effects' undo

• Panels Docks like any After Effects panel

• User guide Included in the download, covers every feature

• 0:00 Intro

• 0:13 Installing and the interface

• 1:59 Building the lane

• 5:39 Arranging the pins

• 7:09 The ball and depth of field

• 8:01 Setting up physics

• 9:45 Launching and baking

• 10:48 Custom arrange formulas

• 11:18 Outro

• An Update available button replaces the Diorama 3D title when a newer version is out

• Long text layers redraw faster while typing or animating

• Fixed: on a heavy comp, After Effects could turn sluggish while you worked, with menus lagging and keys not registering

• Fixed: on a heavy comp, moving a layer could freeze After Effects for seconds while a text or shape layer rendered at full resolution

• Fixed: a shape layer with no fill or stroke, such as a script's control layer, was rendered anyway and could freeze After Effects

• Fixed: an anvilfx.com license could deactivate itself when the license server had a temporary problem

• Fixed(Windows): an anvilfx.com activation was lost on restart when the Windows user name had characters outside the system language

• Type a number during a keyboard move, rotate or scale for an exact value

• A second press of an axis key during a keyboard transform switches between global and local, with the Standard keys too

• The rotate and scale readout has a new digital typeface with an outline

• Fixed: a keyboard rotate constrained to an axis turned against the mouse when the axis pointed away from the view

• Fixed: switching away from After Effects in the middle of a drag or a keyboard transform left it running

• Fixed: a value typed into the coordinate bar could land on another layer if the selection changed first

• Fixed: switching comps could select layers and keyframes in the new comp from the old comp's selection

• Fixed: moving a layer right after duplicating, adding or deleting a layer could snap it back

• Fixed: right after reordering layers, textures could swap briefly and a move could land on the wrong layer

• Fixed: a right-click during a viewport drag left the drag stuck to the mouse

• Fixed: Delete, Duplicate or Undo pressed during a drag could apply the drag to a different layer

• Fixed: moving a layer with an expression on a transform property wrote the expression's result into the property

• Fixed: a layer with Separate Dimensions on did not animate in the viewport and could not be moved at a keyframed time

• Fixed: a locked layer could be selected and moved in the viewport

• Fixed: a Proxy arrangement whose formula spread its objects extremely far apart could crash After Effects

• Fixed: some custom arrange formulas could freeze After Effects while typing

• The Diorama Overflow effect is now Diorama Tap, and shows in the timeline and Effect Controls instead of being hidden

• Settings has two switches: Use Diorama Tap, which effects on text and shape layers need, and Show effect overflow. Turning the tap off asks first

• Turning Show effect overflow off removes Diorama Tap from the layers that only had it for overflow

• Diorama Tap is removed with a layer's last effect, and is not added for effects that stay inside the layer

• Fixed: effect overflow could take a long time, or an effect edit, to come back after turning it back on

• Fixed: Refresh Effect Overflow could remove the overflow instead of refreshing it

• Fixed: Ctrl+Z right after adding an effect could seem to do nothing

• Fixed: removing a duplicated or pasted layer with effects took several Ctrl+Z presses

• Fixed: on a layer with many effects, effect changes stopped showing in the viewport

• Fixed: a parented layer could lose its shadow

• Fixed: a layer with Accepts Shadows set to Only showed the whole layer instead of just the shadows on it

Compatibility & Requirements

• HostAfter Effects 2025 (25.6) or later

• 3D rendererClassic 3D and Advanced 3D

• TrialFully featured, 7 days