If you have ever tried to line up a split screen or a photo wall by hand in After Effects, you know how fiddly it gets. Sizing each clip, positioning it on a grid, masking the edges, matching the gaps. It is slow, it is finicky, and none of it is the actual creative work. GridMaker skips all of it.
GridMaker is a Filmit plugin for After Effects that turns any set of footage into a clean grid in one click. This guide walks through the whole demo: building your first grid, scaling from a 2x2 split screen to a 10x10 video wall, adding padding and rounded corners, using column and row presets, making vertical grids for social, and saving your own setups.
This video may reference an older version of GridMaker. Features and UI may have changed since recording.
What is GridMaker?
GridMaker is a one-click grid builder for After Effects. You select your footage, pick a layout, and it arranges everything into a pixel-perfect grid, handling the sizing and masking for you. It works with any footage in your comp, from video clips to GIFs to stills, and the result stays fully editable in After Effects.
It installs through Filmit Studio, the free companion app for Windows and macOS, and opens as a panel under the Window menu. Dock it wherever you like and it is ready to go.
How to build your first grid
Once GridMaker is installed, open it from Window, then Extensions, then GridMaker. To grid your footage, the flow could not be simpler.
- Add your clips to the timeline. In the demo, Max pulls footage in fast using two other Filmit plugins, GIFer for GIFs and Sourcer for stock video, both included with a Filmit subscription.
- Select all the layers you want to grid.
- Click a layout, like 2x2, and GridMaker arranges and masks the footage automatically.
That is the core of it: highlight, click, done. The default settings work out of the box, so a clean split screen is two clicks away.
Pro Tip: Grab placeholder footage to test a layout fast. GIFer and Sourcer let you drop clips onto the timeline without leaving After Effects, so you can prototype a grid in seconds before swapping in your real shots.
Grid into a pre-comp for full control
By default GridMaker grids your layers in place. If you would rather work with a clean pre-composition, flip the pre-comp toggle before you click a layout. GridMaker then drops each cell into its own pre-comp, so you can go in and adjust any single cell, scale a clip down, reposition it, or change its timing, without disturbing the rest of the grid.
This is handy when one clip needs a tweak. In the demo, Max scales a short GIF to sit better in its cell and trims a couple of clips so the short loops line up, all inside the pre-comped grid.
From a 2x2 split screen to a 10x10 video wall
The same one-click flow scales up. A 2x2 makes a simple split screen. A 10x10 builds a full video wall of 100 cells. GridMaker just needs enough footage to fill the layout, so a 10x10 wants around 100 clips. If you are short, duplicate your footage to fill it out, and GridMaker grids every piece for you.
Whatever the size, GridMaker handles the math and the masks. You go from a pile of clips to a tidy wall without touching a single position value.
Padding, rounded corners, and gap color
A few settings take a grid from functional to polished. Increase the padding to add space between cells. Round the corners to soften every clip at once. And turn on a gap color to fill the space between cells with a solid background, which is just a background color you can recolor or replace later with a fill or your own layer.
Set these before you click a layout and GridMaker bakes them into the grid. Together they give you the clean, modern look you see in social split screens and highlight walls.
Pro Tip: A little padding plus rounded corners reads as intentional and modern. Even on a simple 2x2, a small gap with soft corners makes the grid look designed rather than dropped in.
Column and row presets, and vertical grids for social
Beyond square grids, GridMaker has presets for vertical columns and horizontal rows, so a four-column or four-row strip is one click. And because it respects your composition settings, it works for any aspect ratio. Switch your comp to a vertical 1080x1920 and a two-column or four-row layout instantly becomes the kind of stacked grid you see all over Instagram and Reels.
One plugin, any shape: wide video walls, tall social strips, simple side-by-sides, all from the same panel.
Custom grids and saved presets
Need something specific? Build a custom grid by entering your own rows and columns, like a 3x9 or a 3x40, select your footage, and apply. GridMaker lays it out exactly. And once you land on a look you like, a certain padding and corner radius, save it as a preset so your next grid starts from your settings instead of the defaults.
Key takeaways
GridMaker turns the fiddly job of laying out a grid into a single click, at any size and any aspect ratio.
Select your footage, pick a layout, and GridMaker arranges and masks it for you.
Build a simple split screen or a full 100-cell video wall from the same panel.
Add spacing, round every cell, and set a background color in a couple of clicks.
Column and row presets plus vertical comps make social-ready grids instantly.
Pre-comp mode lets you tweak any cell, and you can save your settings as presets.
Why I built GridMaker
GridMaker came out of doing the same tedious thing over and over: building split screens and video walls by hand. Every time meant sizing each clip, nudging it into place, drawing masks, and matching gaps, before any of the actual editing started. It is the kind of repetitive setup that quietly eats your time.
Collapsing all of that into one click changes what you reach for. When a video wall is two clicks away, you actually use it, and your edits get more dynamic because the hard part is gone. That is the goal with every tool we make: take the busywork out so the creative work is what is left.
Get started with Filmit
GridMaker installs through Filmit Studio, the free app that manages every Filmit plugin for After Effects and Premiere Pro. One install puts GridMaker in your editor, and the same app keeps it updated.
The clips in this demo came from two other Filmit tools that pair perfectly with GridMaker: GIFer drops GIFs onto your timeline, and Sourcer pulls royalty free stock video from Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay. Grab footage with those, grid it with GridMaker, and the whole build takes seconds.
