pulpMotion lets you create animation and visual effects in your browser: titles, lower thirds, logo intros, captioned videos for social media. Start from a template or an empty composition, animate layers on a timeline, then export to video, GIF or Lottie.
Getting started
The first time you open pulpMotion, a sample intro (“Atelier Armor” logo and title, several animated layers) opens by itself so you can see what it looks like; Start from scratch or Remove the example clears it in one click, and File › See the example again (or the button of the same name on the home screen) brings it back. It only joins “Recent projects” if you change it.
- On the home screen, pick a size under “Start from a format” (Landscape 16:9, Vertical 9:16, Square 1:1, Portrait 4:5, Ultra HD 4K) or click a template under “Ready-made templates”. A new project lasts 10 seconds at 30 frames per second; you can change that in the Properties panel when no layer is selected.
- Bring in your files with the Import button (videos, images, sounds, SVG, PSD, Lottie, After Effects) or drop them onto the window. They appear in the Media tab: click one, or drag it onto the picture or the timeline.
- Animate: select a layer, then in the Animate tab choose an entrance, an exit, a loop or a text animation. To animate by hand, click a property's stopwatch in Properties: from then on, every value change sets a keyframe at the playhead.
- Play with Space, fine-tune, then click Export and choose a preset (YouTube, Reels, GIF, Lottie…).
Common tasks
How do I customise a template?
Click a template (Templates tab), then “New composition” or “Add to composition”. The Template controls appear in Properties: text, colours, fonts, image, duration, and for infographics a table of values you can paste from a spreadsheet. Fill in the Brand kit once (5 colours, heading font, body font, logo) and every template uses it. Templates re-lay themselves out for 16:9, 9:16, 1:1 or 4:5.
How do I open an After Effects project?
Open the .aep or .aepx file with File › Open… or drag and drop it. An Import report lists what was kept, approximated or not kept. The project's videos, images and sounds are not stored inside the .aep file: they show up as “Missing media” in the Media tab. Click Relink a file for each one. Details under Supported formats.
How do I add automatic captions?
Select the video or audio layer, open the AI tab and click Automatic captions. Speech is transcribed on your device and a word-by-word animated captions layer is added. Correct the text in Properties under the transcript; style (Karaoke, Boxed, Neon…), font and words per page are set in the same place.
How do I turn a 16:9 video into a vertical one?
In Properties (with no layer selected), click the format you want under “Format”. A template composition rebuilds itself; any other composition is copied into a new composition and the original is kept. Full-frame videos are reframed on the subject by the AI (fallback: centred crop). You can also run Reframe on the subject in the AI tab once the format is set.
How do I add an effect?
Effects tab: about thirty effects in 9 families (blur, light, colour, green-screen keying, stylize, distort, generate, transitions, depth). With no layer selected, the effect goes on a new adjustment layer that affects everything below it. The colour lookup (LUT) effect needs an imported .cube file.
How do I draw and animate text, a shape or a mask?
The viewer tools are Text (T), Rectangle (Q), ellipse and Pen for a mask (G). In Properties, a text animator animates a text; a mask (rectangular, elliptical or drawn with the pen) is set with its mode (Add, Subtract, Intersect…), feather and expansion; a layer can act as a matte for the one below it (alpha or luma, inverted or not). Layers link through a Parent, can become 3D layers and can be filmed by a Camera (Add layer menu, with Text, Solid, Shape, Null, Adjustment layer and Captions). Every layer also has a Blend mode.
How do I adjust how a movement feels?
Right-click a keyframe to choose its easing (Linear, Easy ease, Ease in, Ease out, Expo, Overshoot, Anticipate, Hold). The timeline's Graph editor lets you draw the speed by hand.
How do I organise several compositions and mark the edit?
The Compositions panel lists the project's compositions; New composition adds one and Main composition (export) picks the one exported by default. Double-clicking the timeline ruler drops a marker; the work area limits the export to one section.
How do I lighten the preview if playback stutters?
Set the Preview resolution (Auto, Full, Half, Quarter) above the picture. Safe areas and motion blur are switched on in the same place; the render indicator shows the computing time per frame.
How do I make a transition between two shots?
Select the two consecutive layers (Ctrl+Click), then in the Animate tab pick a transition (soft fade, side push, circular wipe, light leak…).
How do I write an expression?
Click a property name in Properties to open the “Expression” field. pulpMotion understands part of After Effects expressions: time, value, wiggle, loopOut, linear, ease, thisComp.layer(…), valueAtTime, bounce… Only number and vector properties can be driven by an expression.
How do I cut an edit to music?
Select the audio layer and the layers to align, then AI › Sync to the beat: the tempo is detected, pink markers are placed on the beats and the selected layers snap to them.
Supported formats
| Format | Open | Save | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| pulpMotion project (.pmotion) | Yes | Yes | Complete project, media included |
| After Effects (.aep, .aepx) | Yes, partial | No | Detailed import report; media to relink |
| Motion graphics template (.mogrt) | Yes, partial | No | Inner After Effects project and bundled media |
| Lottie (.json), dotLottie (.lottie) | Yes | Lottie (.json) | Expressions converted to keyframes on export |
| Photoshop (.psd) | Insert | No | Separate layers; RGB only |
| SVG | Insert | No | Editable shapes or a self-drawing stroke |
| Video (.mp4, .mov, .webm, .m4v, .mkv) | Import | MP4, WebM | Preview depends on what your browser can play |
| Audio (.mp3, .wav, .m4a, .ogg, .aac, .flac, .opus) | Import | Inside the video | AAC in MP4, Opus in WebM |
| Images (.png, .jpg, .webp, .gif, .avif, .bmp) | Import | GIF, APNG, PNG sequence | |
| Colour lookup table (.cube) | Import | No | For the LUT effect |
Export presets: YouTube 1080p and 4K, high-quality master (HEVC), light web video (AV1), Shorts, Reels, TikTok, Stories, Instagram square and portrait, LinkedIn, light and high-quality GIF, animated sticker (transparent APNG), transparent video (WebM), PNG sequence (zip archive), Lottie.
Known limitations:
- After Effects: partial reading. Kept: compositions, layers (footage, solids, nulls, adjustment layers, precomps, text, shapes, camera), parenting, track mattes, masks, keyframes, expressions and some effects. Not kept: lights, 3D model layers, layer styles, motion trackers, layer markers, text on a path, some shape operators (merge, offset, twist…). Effects with no equivalent are listed in the report.
- Media from an .aep are never inside the file: relink them one by one. After importing, also check the volume of audio and video layers.
- .mogrt: parameters exposed by the template are listed in the report but do not become pulpMotion controls. Templates made in a video editing program cannot be read.
- PSD: adjustment layers and most layer styles are lost; 16- and 32-bit documents become 8-bit; CMYK documents are refused (convert them to RGB). Simple text stays editable, everything else is kept as an image. The .psb format is not accepted.
- Lottie export: video, audio, charts, adjustment layers and cutouts are not exported, nor are most effects (the list is shown after export).
- Export uses the composition on screen. There is no custom size or frame rate: a composition with a different shape is centred with bars unless you click “Adapt to format”.
- MP4 and WebM export needs a browser that can produce video (recent Chrome or Edge). Otherwise, export to GIF or PNG.
- The export window also offers quality, exporting only the work area, motion blur and whether to include the sound.
Keyboard shortcuts
On a Mac, Cmd replaces Ctrl. Single-letter keys do nothing while you are typing in a field.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Play / pause |
| V | Selection tool |
| H | Hand tool |
| T | Text tool |
| Q | Rectangle tool |
| G | Pen tool (mask) |
| → or PageDown | Next frame (Shift: 10 frames) |
| ← or PageUp | Previous frame (Shift: 10 frames) |
| Home / End | Go to start / end |
| Esc | Cancel the path being drawn and deselect |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo |
| Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y | Redo |
| Ctrl+D | Duplicate selected layers |
| Ctrl+M | Open the export window |
| Del or Backspace | Delete selected keyframes, otherwise layers |
| Ctrl+S / Ctrl+Shift+S | Save / Save as (.pmotion) |
| Ctrl+O | Open a file |
| Ctrl+Wheel | Zoom the picture or the timeline |
| F1 | Open this help |
In the picture: Shift while moving constrains to one axis, Shift on the rotation handle turns in 15° steps, Alt on a corner handle frees the proportions. While editing text, Esc or Ctrl+Enter finishes.
AI in pulpMotion
The AI tab holds 12 automations. All of them run on your device. Those that rely on an AI model download it once, after you agree (the size is shown first), then keep it on the device: see AI models.
- Automatic captions: speech transcription (about 170 MB to download). The language is detected automatically; check the text, proper names and line breaks.
- Sync to the beat, Cut silences, Stabilise, Track a point, Automatic adjustments, Match colours: computed without an AI model. Check the detected tempo (it may be doubled or halved) and the silence cuts.
- Cut out the subject: an animated matte of the main person or object, adjustable under the cutout settings (tighten, soften, invert). A message flags the frames where the subject was lost.
- Depth and parallax: a depth map and a “3D photo” effect; it also enables the depth haze and depth of field effects.
- Remove an object: removes the cut-out subject and rebuilds the background. It assumes a locked-off camera; areas that were never visible are invented, and their percentage is shown.
- Reframe on the subject and Track a face: follow faces, people or the main object.
pulpMotion does not generate video or images from text. Once an AI action has started it cannot be stopped midway; when it finishes, a single Ctrl+Z undoes it.
FAQ and troubleshooting
My After Effects file opens without its videos. Why?
An .aep only holds references to files on your disk. In the Media tab, click Relink a file for each missing item; the list is also at the bottom of the import report.
The imported animation doesn't look quite like the original.
Read the Import report: the “Approximated” and “Not kept” lines explain the differences (effects with no equivalent, blend modes replaced by the closest one, multi-style text reduced to its first style…).
Where are my projects?
On this device, in the space reserved for the browser, listed under “Recent projects”. They are not uploaded anywhere. Deleting a project from the home screen is permanent, and clearing the browser's data erases them. For a backup, save a .pmotion file. See your documents.
Video export fails or isn't offered.
The browser produces the video: you need a recent browser that can do it (Chrome or Edge) and a recent graphics card. Otherwise choose GIF or PNG sequence. If the composition is very large, try a smaller preset.
The app says accelerated display is not available.
Update your browser (recent Chrome or Edge) and check that hardware acceleration is turned on; pulpMotion needs a recent graphics card.
The left panel or the properties have disappeared.
They are hidden in narrow windows (under 768 px for the left panel, under 1024 px for the properties). Make the window wider.
Does pulpMotion work offline?
Yes, once the app has loaded, as long as you have already downloaded the AI models you need.
My .mov doesn't show in the preview.
The preview depends on the formats your browser can play. Convert the video to MP4 (H.264) or WebM.