Slide a layer across an After Effects comp and nothing around it reacts. After Effects has no sense of distance. Layers never know when something is moving toward them, so the moment you want a field of elements to scale, blur, or change color as an object passes through, you are stuck keyframing every layer by hand or writing a pile of expressions. On a busy comp, a thirty second idea turns into an afternoon of rigging.
ProXimity is a Filmit plugin for After Effects that gives your layers that missing sense of distance. You drop a controller into your comp, tell your layers how to react, and they animate on their own as the controller moves near them. This guide follows the demo video step by step: one example comp, one controller, and five different reactions, with zero keyframes on the layers themselves.
This video may reference an older version of ProXimity. Features and UI may have changed since recording.
What is ProXimity?
ProXimity is a distance-reactive animation plugin for After Effects. Instead of animating every layer, you animate one thing: a controller. Each layer you connect to it reacts based on how close the controller is, scaling up, blurring, shifting color, fading out, or moving as it approaches, then settling back as it leaves. The layers take care of themselves, so the only thing you ever touch is the controller.
It installs through Filmit Studio, the free companion app for Windows and macOS, and it is included in the Studio Suite alongside every other Filmit plugin. Inside After Effects it runs as a regular panel, with no expressions to write and no rig to maintain.
Open the panel and create your first controller
Once ProXimity is installed through Filmit Studio, open it from Window, then Extensions, then ProXimity. The demo uses a simple example composition, a field of layers that all need to respond to one moving object, exactly the kind of setup that is painful to animate by hand.
The workflow is two steps. First, highlight all the layers you want to react. Second, create a new controller. Pick a shape, a circle to start, and dial in the options: radius, width, height, and falloff. Then choose the reaction itself. The demo starts with scale. Click Apply and ProXimity creates a proximity controller right in your comp.
Now grab the controller and drag it around. Every layer it nears scales up, and every layer it leaves settles back down. No keyframes on the layers and no expressions. They are simply reacting to where the controller is.
Two keyframes animate the entire comp
Dragging the controller around is a great way to find the look, but the point is animation, and because the layers react on their own, animating the whole comp means animating one path. In the demo it takes seconds: set a position keyframe on the controller, move down the timeline to three seconds, drag the controller across the comp, and set a second keyframe.
Then right click both keyframes and choose Keyframe Assistant, Easy Ease. Hit play and the controller glides across the composition while every layer in its path swells and recovers in a smooth wave. Two eased keyframes on a single layer, and the entire comp is moving.
Pro Tip: Treat the controller like a flashlight you are sweeping across the comp. All of your timing, path, and easing decisions live on that one layer, so reshaping the feel of the whole animation is as simple as adjusting two keyframes.
The guide circle never renders
One thing that surprises people the first time: the circle you see around the controller is only a guide. It shows you the reach of the controller while you work, but it does not render inside After Effects and it will not appear in your final composition. You never have to hide it, mask it, or remember to switch it off before export.
The controller and its guide can sit in the comp through every revision and every render, and the deliverable stays clean.
Blur and color shift, from white to red
With the scale pass done, the demo undoes everything and starts over, because auditioning a different reaction really is that fast. This time the pick is blur plus a color shift, set to start white and turn red near the controller. Select all the layers again, hit Apply, and ProXimity updates every layer at once.
Now the same comp tells a different story. Far from the controller, layers sit white and sharp. As it approaches, they shift toward red and pick up a soft blur, that out of focus look, as if the controller is pulling focus wherever it travels. Same controller, same two keyframes if you want them, completely different result.
Pro Tip: Audition reactions the way the demo does: apply, watch, undo, try the next idea. Applying a look is one click, so you can run through scale, blur, color, and fade in a couple of minutes and keep the one that sells the shot.
Fade layers away, then set them in motion
Next up is fade. Apply it, park the controller directly on top of a layer, and that layer disappears completely, returning as the controller moves off. Sweep the controller through the comp and elements melt away and come back in its wake. It is the simplest reaction in the demo, and you can immediately see the reveals and transitions hiding inside it.
The last reaction is move, and it comes with a twist on the controller itself. Crank the radius up to 500, switch the shape from circle to rectangle, select your layers, and apply. Now a wide rectangular zone sets layers in motion as it travels through the comp, and the bigger radius means layers begin to respond well before the controller reaches them.
Pro Tip: Change the controller, not just the reaction. Swapping the circle for a rectangle or widening the radius changes the character of the animation as much as the effect you picked, and both are just settings in the panel.
Included in Filmit Studio, with direct support
ProXimity exists to speed up your workflow. The hours you would spend keyframing reactions layer by layer go back into the actual design, and the plugin is included in the Filmit Studio Suite with all of our other plugins, so it installs and updates through the same app as the rest of your Filmit tools.
If you have questions, the panel settings link to Filmit, where you can request a feature or reach support. And if you want direct access, join our Discord and tag me, Max. I read those messages and I will help you out.
Key takeaways
ProXimity gives After Effects the sense of distance it is missing, and turns comp-wide reactions into one controller and a couple of keyframes.
Select your layers, apply, and they react to the distance of the controller on their own.
Keyframe the path of the controller, easy ease it, and the whole composition moves.
Scale, blur, color shift, fade, and move, swappable in a click for fast auditions.
The circle or rectangle is a working guide only, so your final render stays clean.
Installs and updates with the rest of the suite, with support and Discord close by.
Why I built ProXimity
ProXimity came out of a frustration that never went away: After Effects treats every layer like it is alone in the comp. Any time I wanted a wall of elements to acknowledge something moving through them, I had two bad options, keyframe every layer by hand or maintain a stack of expressions that fell apart the moment the design changed. Neither one is animation. It is rigging, the kind of busywork that kills momentum.
A controller felt like the right answer because it matches the way you actually think about the shot: something moves through the frame, and things respond to it. Once that logic lives on one layer, iteration becomes fast and a little addictive. You drag a circle around and the comp answers. That is the feeling I want every Filmit tool to give you, less rigging, more directing.
Get started with Filmit
ProXimity installs through Filmit Studio, the free app that manages every Filmit plugin for After Effects and Premiere Pro. One install puts ProXimity in your editor, and the same app keeps it updated.
If your comps are full of text, pair ProXimity with TextPilot, the text manager for After Effects, and explore the rest of the suite from there. The whole toolkit runs under one subscription, always updated.
