Say you want to push something through a set of shapes and have them all react, scaling and shifting as the object passes through. The natural look is a wave: layers swell as the object nears, settle as it leaves. The problem is that After Effects has no idea any of this is happening. Each layer sits alone, blind to anything moving toward it, so the only way to fake distance is to animate every reaction by hand.
That means a mountain of keyframes, one set per layer, all timed to a path you are keeping in your head, and it is slow. You can do it natively instead, but only by writing tons of expressions that fall apart the moment you move something. Either way you are rigging, not animating. ProXimity removes that step: you push one controller through the comp, and the layers react based on how close they are, with no per-layer keyframing and no expressions to write.
This video may reference an older version of ProXimity. Features and UI may have changed since recording.
What is ProXimity?
ProXimity is a Filmit plugin for After Effects that lets you create proximity animations quickly. You drop a single controller into your comp, tell your layers how to react, and as the controller moves across the screen the layers respond based on how close they are to it. Near the controller they react fully, far from it they sit still, and the transition between gives you that distance-based wave for free.
It is a paid plugin, but it comes with a 7-day free trial, and it lives in the Filmit Studio Suite. You install it from the desktop app on your dashboard, and the trial unlocks the whole growing library.
How to install and open ProXimity
ProXimity installs through Filmit Studio, the desktop app you download from your dashboard. You do not install it on its own. Filmit Studio installs the whole growing plugin library, so the rest of the suite lands too, and the 7-day free trial unlocks all of it.
Once it is installed, open After Effects and go to Window, then Extensions, then ProXimity. The panel opens docked like any other, and from here the whole workflow is a few clicks.
The idea: one controller, many reactions
It helps to hold the model in your head, because it is what makes ProXimity fast. You are not animating layers. You are animating one thing, a controller, and the layers watch it. Each reacts based on how close the controller is, so the whole comp is driven by one moving point you control.
That inverts the usual workflow. Instead of asking how each layer should animate, you ask how layers should respond when something passes near them, then you move the something. The reaction lives on the layers and the motion lives on the controller, so change the path and every layer re-times.
Pro Tip: Think of the controller as the thing moving through your scene and the layers as the crowd reacting to it. Once that picture is clear, you stop reaching for layer keyframes and steer the whole comp from one place.
Applying Scale and Move
Highlight all your footage or layers, the full set you want to react, then choose what you want the animation to do. ProXimity gives you a list of reactions and you can stack more than one, so for a strong first look pick Scale and Move. Click Apply, and ProXimity creates a controller right in your comp.
Now drag that controller across the screen. As it moves, the layers react based on how close they are, scaling up and shifting position as it approaches, settling back as it passes. That is the react-and-recover wave you pictured, from one Apply and zero layer keyframes.
To turn this into a finished shot, you keyframe the controller, not the layers. Set its position at the start, move down the timeline, drag it across the comp, and set a second position. Play it back and the whole field reacts in the controller's wake.
Pro Tip: Stack reactions on the same Apply rather than running ProXimity twice. Scale and Move together read as one motion, layers growing and sliding aside in the same beat, from a single controller.
Tuning the controller: radius, zone, shape, min scale
Selecting the controller gives you the dials that shape the reaction. The radius sets how large the proximity zone is, so a bigger radius means layers react before the controller reaches them, and a smaller one keeps the effect tight. The zone width adjusts the spread of that falloff, the band where layers transition from resting to fully reacting.
The zone defaults to a circle, but you can give it a height to make it oblong, stretching the reactive area into a tall field that catches layers differently. There is also a minimum scale, so layers never shrink past a floor you set, plus more settings to fine-tune the feel. None of this is an expression, it is all sliders on the controller.
Pro Tip: Reach for radius and zone width before you re-key anything. Widening the radius makes the wave roll through early, while tightening it gives a sharp pop right at the controller, two very different shots from the same Apply.
More reactions: Fade and Color Shift
Swapping the look is just as fast as the first Apply. To change the reaction, hit Remove All, then add something different. Try a Fade: select your layers, Apply, and now they fade by distance, going transparent near the controller and returning as it leaves. Sweep it through and elements reveal and conceal in its path.
Rotation is on the list too, with one caveat: it does nothing on circles, since a circle looks the same rotated. On shaped layers it spins them by proximity, but on round elements you will see no change. For a more colorful result, add a Color Shift, set to start white and turn to red near the controller. As it passes, the layers glow red up close and cool back to white behind it, like a stoplight moving through your comp, and it is one Apply away.
Why this beats writing expressions
None of this is impossible in plain After Effects. You can build distance-based reactions natively, but only by writing tons of expressions, linking every layer to the controller and mapping distance onto scale or opacity or color, by hand. That is real work before you have animated a single frame, and it breaks the moment the design changes.
ProXimity takes care of all of that for you. The distance math, the falloff, the per-layer wiring is handled under the hood, so what you do is keyframe the controller and pick a reaction. The tool absorbs the busywork so the creative decision is the only thing left.
Key takeaways
ProXimity turns a distance-based animation into one controller and a reaction you pick from a list.
Highlight your layers, choose a reaction, click Apply, and they react to the controller's distance on their own.
All your timing and path decisions live on one layer that drives the whole field.
Scale, Move, Fade, Rotation, and Color Shift. Hit Remove All and add a different one.
The controller circle is a working guide so you can see the effect, and it stays out of your render.
Doing this natively takes tons of expressions. ProXimity handles all of that so you focus on the motion.
Get started with Filmit
ProXimity installs through Filmit Studio, the desktop app you download from your dashboard to manage every Filmit plugin for After Effects and Premiere Pro. It comes with a 7-day free trial that unlocks the whole growing plugin library, and one install puts ProXimity in your editor and keeps it current.
If your comps lean on tiled layouts, pair ProXimity with GridMaker, our grid builder, and build the field of layers your controller pushes through. The whole suite runs under one subscription, and the team is on Discord for questions.
