Best Visual Effects (VFX) Software with a Free Trial

Create cinematic movie titles, intros, and transitions. Remove an object from a clip. Start a fire or make it rain. Animate a logo or character. With After Effects, the industry-standard motion graphics and visual effects software, you can take any idea and make it move. Animate titles, credits, and lower thirds. Start from scratch or with presets available right from the app. From spin to swipe to slide — your text is on the move. Combine videos and images to create anything you can imagine. Choose exciting effects from hundreds of options, remove unwanted objects or people, and create VR videos to drop your audience right into the action. Set anything in motion with keyframes or expressions. Or use presets to kick-off your designs for unique results. Create compositions in Premiere Pro. Use Dynamic Link to eliminate intermediate rendering between applications. Import from Photoshop, Illustrator, Character Animator, Adobe XD, and Animate.

Adobe Creative Cloud is a comprehensive creativity platform that brings together 20+ industry-leading apps for photo editing, graphic design, video production, and more. It includes popular tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, and After Effects, along with Adobe Firefly creative AI for generating images, video, and audio. Designed for individuals, teams, and businesses, Creative Cloud enables seamless collaboration through shared libraries, cloud storage, and integrated workflows. Built-in AI tools accelerate tasks such as image editing, content resizing, generative fill, and text-to-video creation. With centralized administration, enterprise-grade support, and integration with tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, Creative Cloud helps teams streamline creative production. It provides a complete ecosystem for creating, managing, and delivering high-quality digital content efficiently.

DaVinci Resolve is an all-in-one post-production software that integrates professional editing, color correction, visual effects, and audio post-production into a single platform. Its intuitive interface makes it accessible to beginners while offering advanced tools for professionals, making it the go-to solution for filmmakers, television editors, and content creators. DaVinci Resolve is known for its Emmy-winning color grading capabilities and industry-leading audio processing with Fairlight. The software includes dedicated workspaces for each task—editing, color grading, visual effects, and audio—enabling users to seamlessly switch between tasks. Its powerful features are enhanced by AI tools and real-time collaboration capabilities, allowing teams to work simultaneously on the same project without the need for complex file transfers or conversions.

HitFilm Pro is the top choice for artists and video editors worldwide. No need to jump from video editing software to VFX software and back again – HitFilm gives you editing, compositing, titling and 3D tools in a single product. You have everything you need to make videos in one place. Our video editing software is industry-leading, with powerful chroma key, particle and text tools – not to mention the world’s biggest VFX software toolkit. We also work with the biggest names in the industry to bring professional technology and creative tools to you, including Foundry’s 3D camera tracking, Boris FX’s pro titling tools and support for VideoCopilot’s After Effects plugins. Let our powerful video editing software take you where you want to go, faster. From industry-standard video editing tools to our own unique technology, HitFilm Pro’s video editor gives you everything you need to create dynamic, snappy edits.

VideoPad Master's Edition for Windows can create movies and edit videos of many different formats including avi, wmv, .3gp, wmv, divx and more. Create videos or movies easily with the intuitive user interface. Simply drag and drop video clips. Choose from over 50 visual effects and transitions including chroma key or green screen technology. Fine tune color and visual effects. Show your friends by burning to DVD or uploading to YouTube.

Get up-to-speed with all the latest features in Red Giant Complete. Trapcode brings the power of 3D particle systems right into After Effects. Use particle emitters to create fire, water, smoke, snow and other organic visual effects, or create technological marvels and user interfaces with immortal particle grids and 3D forms. With a subscription to Red Giant, get even more 3D geometry input options thanks to Cineware .c4d file import. Use Cinema 4D files (including animation) in particle systems or as 3D models in After Effects. Magic Bullet is a set of plugins for color correction, finishing and film looks. With powerful real-time color grading tools, video denoising, and cosmetic retouching, you’ll have everything you need to make your footage look great, right on your editing timeline. Universe is a set of video transition and effects plugins for editors and motion graphics artists.

3D visual effects (VFX), finishing, and color grading software. Flame® 3D VFX and finishing software provides powerful tools for 3D compositing, visual effects, and editorial finishing. An integrated, creative environment means faster compositing, advanced graphics, color correction, and more. Extract mattes of the human body, head, and face with AI-powered tools for color adjustment, relighting, and digital cosmetic and beauty work. Isolate skies and salient objects quickly for grading and VFX jobs. Edit, composite, and color correct in one environment, without toggling between software. Create and iterate quickly for more productive client sessions. Tools for fast and interactive visual effects finishing and 3D compositing. A timeline-centric, fully compatible assistant station for Flame. A fully compatible creative assistant station for Flame in collaborative VFX workflows. Real-time color grading software for creative look development.

3ds Max offers a rich and flexible toolset to create premium designs with full artistic control. Create massive worlds in games. Visualize high-quality architectural renderings. Model finely detailed interiors and objects. Bring characters and features to life with animation and VFX. The built-in Arnold renderer provides a rich experience and can handle your more complex characters, scenes, and effects. Save time with centralized creative tools for interactive light mixing, color correction, and lens effects on the rendered image. Work faster with an artist-friendly user experience and intuitive controls. Iterate and produce high quality renders and variations faster. 3ds Max lets you scale your workflow with automation, allowing you to spend more time on creativity. Use 3ds Max as a compute engine to scale content production. Extend built-in workflows with accessible APIs.

Chaos® V-Ray® is a 3D rendering plugin available for SketchUp, 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Rhino, Revit, and more. It is widely used in architectural visualization, advertising, and visual effects for film and television. With V-Ray, artists and designers can explore and share their projects with real-time ray tracing and render high-quality visualizations. V-Ray has a large community of users and is recognized for its incredible versatility. V-Ray has been honored with a Sci-Tech Academy Award® and an Engineering Emmy Award® for bringing fully ray-traced photorealistic CGI to the film and television industries. For more information, please visit chaos.com

For over 20 years, Nuke has empowered teams to work together to get pixel-perfect results, fast—all without sacrificing creativity and quality. Whether your focus is on blockbusters, short-form or binge-worthy episodic content, Nuke’s power, flexibility and robust toolset empowers whole teams to create the best content, with the same tools used by leading studios. Watch what studios all around the world say about Nuke. The tools to get the job done, no matter how you're working. Advanced node-based compositing, 3D tracking and model building, conform and review... the Nuke range scales to suit your needs. The Nuke family offers unparalleled power and performance to meet the needs of modern production work. Nuke’s node graph and resolution-independent processing mean the scope of work you can handle is unmatched. Easily collaborate with others, whether you’re sitting side by side or across the globe. Work fast with Nuke’s cutting-edge toolkits, GPU acceleration and fluid workflows.

Sapphire plug-ins let you create stunning organic looks unmatched by any host native effect tools. Key features include over 270 effects and 3000+ presets, a powerful effect and transition builder, and integrated tracking and masking with the academy award-winning mocha. Sapphire’s superior image quality, control, and render speed offers massive time-savings — allowing creatives to focus on what matters most, delivering an impact that keeps audiences coming back. Mac users with Sapphire 2021 will rejoice with the introduction of Metal GPU acceleration for over 60 Sapphire effect. Dramatic speed gains can be achieved with Metal acceleration in Sapphire; S_Rays renders over 4x faster with metal than CPU only. Performance can vary depending on GPU specs, host application, OS version, and individual Sapphire effects, but on average Sapphire 2021 with Metal acceleration renders 20% faster than CPU only.

Academy and Emmy Award-Winning VFX Tools Silhouette is a best-in-class, GPU-accelerated compositing application, delivering the industry’s most robust non-destructive paint and roto tools to feature film and visual effects teams. Since 2005, Silhouette has made its mark on Hollywood’s biggest film and TV shows including Avatar, Black Panther, Stranger Things and many more. Silhouette is officially recommended by the Netflix Post Technology Alliance in the VFX category. The artists tool for Roto, Paint & Tracking. Silhouette 2020.5 goes beyond traditional roto and cleanup as a professional stereoscopic enabled node-based compositing system with 146 nodes designed for every finishing task. Silhouette is available as a standalone application for macOS, Windows, and Linux with floating license options for enterprise. New Silhouette Paint plug-in! Our paint tools have now been streamlined into a multi-host plug-in supporting Adobe and OFX hosts, free for all Silhouette 2020 owners.

Optics is the definitive digital toolbox for photos. Created by professional feature film VFX artists, Optics is designed to simulate optical camera filters, specialized lenses, film stocks and grain, lens flares, optical lab processes, color correction as well as natural light and photographic effects. Take your images to the next level, try Optics. Available now as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, as well as a standalone application for macOS and Windows. Apply Optics and choose from 160 filters and thousands of presets. Optics provides everything you need to creatively enhance and improve photos using a staggering amount of filters and presets. Color grade your image using film style controls or go from reality to sci-fi with incredible lighting effects. All filters can be limited to a portion of the image using sophisticated but simple to use masking controls. A layering system to apply multiple filters, a built-in paint system for touch-ups,

Meeting tight turnarounds just got easier. The post-production industry’s most complete plugin collection delivers nearly 350 creative effects in 20 categories, 4000+ presets, built-in Academy Award-winning Mocha planar tracking and masking, a beat reactor that drives VFX to music, and the FX Browser. Busy editors and artists rely on continuum to get the job done. Continuum 2021 is the biggest release in its storied history with 80+ new effects, 1000+ new professionally-designed presets, 3 new Unit categories, major additions to particle illusion, a new keying effect, improvements to Mocha’s planar tracking, and more. The Cinematographer’s Toolkit gives artists access to 80 new effects, 3 new Continuum Units, and 1000+ new presets that pay homage to the bygone era of shooting on film. The built-in FX Editor makes it simple to browse the presets and create your own custom presets directly inside the interface. Recreate classic Hollywood looks in just one click.

INSYDIUM Fused contains all of our plugins and products in one complete collection. Everything you need to create stunning particle effects, realistic terrains and fulfil modeling tasks through to the final render. Plus, all our available 3D resources, hours of training, technical support, and content repository files. Get your copy of INSYDIUM Fused, which includes X-Particles, the ultimate particle engine for Cinema 4D, TerraformFX, Mesh Tools, Cycles 4D and much more. An essential component of an artist’s toolkit, X-Particles is the solution to satisfy all your particle needs, cloth, smoke, fire, fluids, grains and dynamics. Designers can switch effortlessly between motion graphics and VFX, within a unified system. Create outstanding ParticleFX from solar systems, FUI, holograms and medical visualizations to abstract artwork. Multiple options to combine emitters and modifiers, gives you a range of possibilities.

AdonisFX is a digital anatomy framework for Maya and Houdini. Layered solvers for muscles, fat, skin, and facial simulation produce high-quality results at every stage, from background characters to hero shots. Simulation is fully interactive: jump to any frame and get accurate results immediately, with no linear playback and no waiting for recalculation. Self-collision detection prevents interpenetration in extreme poses, and anisotropic muscle simulation delivers realistic directional fibre behaviour for believable tissue deformation. A modular architecture means the same system scales from simple rigs to full hero anatomy without rebuilding. Characters transfer between Maya and Houdini without conversion or data loss, keeping hybrid pipelines running smoothly.

Already in a committed relationship with your editor? No problem. Ignite Pro gives you 190 professional plugins to fire up After Effects, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, or any other major host. Experiment with over 565 visual effects, presets, and the industry’s best suite of 360° filters. No strings attached. No arbitrary restrictions. No time limits. Ignite Pro neatly plugs into Adobe After Effects, FCPX, or any other host for hassle-free editing on your Mac or PC. Every license gives you 3 seats so that you can use Ignite Pro at home, in the studio, or on the beach — no sweat. Ignite Pro’s choice of customizable plugins is unmatched. You get over 565 professional visual effects and presets to use on any project, from sci-fi short films to thrilling action features and beyond. Looking for some drama? Bring a flavor of Hollywood into your short films. With plugins like Blood Spray, Gunfire, and Witness Protection, the visual effects in your shootout scene are going to be the best.