How to move a Figma design into After Effects

Overview

Prism is a bridge between design tools and After Effects. Instead of exporting a flattened PNG and re-drawing every shape by hand, you select something in Figma or Illustrator, push it, and it lands in your AE composition as real, keyframeable layers: shape layers stay shapes, text stays live text, gradients are rebuilt as actual AE fills, and groups keep their original nesting.

• Three design sources, one AE builder. The Figma plugin, the Illustrator panel and the Photoshop panel all send the same layer data to the same After Effects engine, so the result is consistent no matter where the design comes from.
• Editable, not flattened. Shapes, text and fills stay native AE objects you can restyle and animate immediately.
• Layer structure preserved. Frames, groups and component nesting come across as the same hierarchy in AE.

Install

Prism has two pieces: a design-side plugin (Figma, Illustrator and/or Photoshop) and one After Effects panel that all of them talk to.

The Prism Launcher

The Launcher is the one window behind all the panels. It holds your licence, runs the local bridge the apps talk to, and shows what is connected right now. It sits in the system tray and can stay there permanently, so the bridge is up before you open anything.

Activation

Before activation the Connections page asks for your key. Paste it once and every app you have installed is unlocked at the same time, there is no second key to enter inside After Effects, Photoshop or Illustrator.

Reading the connection diagram

The pentagon is the quickest way to see whether the problem is Prism or the app. Each corner is one program and the line to the centre is its connection, so a glance tells you which side is not talking.

Settings

The Behavior page decides how the Launcher lives on your machine: whether it connects the moment an app opens, whether closing the window really quits or just hides it in the tray, and whether your activation is kept after you quit.

Updates

Each app is listed with its own badge, so a fix shipped to the Photoshop panel does not light up the After Effects one. Updates install from here: the Launcher downloads only the files that changed and writes them over your installation, no full reinstall. The Launcher updates itself the same way.

FIGMA

Figma workflow

From inside Figma, select a frame or a set of layers and run Prism. The plugin reads the selection exactly as Figma renders it and sends it to After Effects.

• Shapes and vectors arrive as individual AE shape layers, not one merged image.
• Text stays live and editable, font, size and copy can be changed straight in After Effects.
• Solid colors and gradients are rebuilt as real AE fills, not baked into a bitmap.
• Image fills and exported bitmaps are placed at full resolution, correctly scaled and positioned.
• Effects like blur and shadow carry over as keyframeable AE effects.
• Components and instances are recognized and kept as their own organized layers.

ILLUSTRATOR

Illustrator workflow

A Prism Illustrator license unlocks an Illustrator panel that feeds the same After Effects builder used by the Figma plugin. Select artwork on the canvas and push it across.

• Paths, text and groups are extracted and rebuilt as native AE layers.
• Rectangles, ellipses, stars and polygons drawn with Illustrator's own shape tools are detected and rebuilt as parametric AE shapes, not baked outlines, so their roundness, radius and points stay adjustable.
• Gradients (solid, linear and radial) are rebuilt with the correct angle and position.
• Clipping masks come across as a proper AE alpha track matte.
• Blend modes and stroke caps/joins are carried over.
• Rotated and multi-line text, including right-to-left scripts, is read directly from Illustrator's text engine.

PHOTOSHOP

Photoshop workflow

A Prism Photoshop license unlocks a Photoshop panel that feeds the same After Effects builder used by Figma and Illustrator. Select layers in your document and push them across.

• Image layers are placed at full resolution, correctly scaled and positioned.
• Text layers stay live and editable in After Effects.
• Groups are rebuilt as the same nested layer structure.
• Rectangles and ellipses drawn with Photoshop's own Shape tool are detected and rebuilt as editable AE shapes when Detect Shapes is on.
• Masks come across in all five of their Photoshop forms: painted raster masks, vector masks, the two combined on one layer, masks on a group, and shape layers.

DAVINCI RESOLVE

DaVinci Resolve workflow

The Figma to DaVinci Resolve bridge rebuilds your selection as live Fusion nodes, not a flat import. Send from Figma exactly as you would to After Effects, then pick the design up inside Resolve.

• Text arrives as a real TextPlus node, so the font, size, spacing and content stay editable in Fusion.
• Gradients (linear and radial) are rebuilt with the correct angle and direction, on backgrounds, shape fills, strokes and text alike.
• Strokes carry their real thickness, including the difference between an inside, centred and outside stroke.
• Blur and drop shadow are rebuilt as Fusion effect nodes you can keyframe.
• Rectangles, ellipses, lines and polygons are rebuilt as editable Fusion shapes.

Every button explained

Each panel keeps its controls on one small toolbar. This is what every one of them does.

Continuously Rasterize

Keeps vector artwork sharp when you scale it up in After Effects instead of letting it go soft.

Variable width taper

Sends a vector stroke that narrows along its length, with the start and end widths you set.

Ungroup to Null

Turns each group into a Null with its layers parented to it, so you animate the group by moving one control.

Live Sync

While it is on, editing the design in Figma updates the matching layers in After Effects on its own.

RTL Fix

Moves trailing punctuation such as ? ! : to the front for right-to-left text, which After Effects otherwise places on the wrong side.

Text vertical alignment

Overrides where text sits inside its box. Prism centres it by default; this lets you pick top or bottom instead.

Receive

Builds a design that was sent to Figma from Illustrator or Photoshop.

Detect Shapes

Sends clean rectangles, ellipses, stars and polygons as editable After Effects shapes instead of baked outlines, so their radius and points stay adjustable. On by default.

Print as Image

Sends everything as a flat picture instead of editable vectors. Use it for artwork After Effects cannot represent as a shape.

Switch to After Effects

Brings After Effects to the front, so you can check the result without leaving the keyboard.

Receive

Builds a design that was sent here from Figma or the other Adobe panel.

Split shapes to layers

Ungroups the selection so every shape arrives in After Effects as its own layer.

Break symbols

Expands Symbol instances into editable art before sending, since a Symbol on its own cannot be read.

Luma Matte

When on, Prism looks for a layer named exactly Prism Matte and uses its gradient as a real After Effects luma track matte. It can stay hidden, so your canvas stays clean. Use this instead of an Opacity Mask, which scripting cannot read.

Connect

Starts and stops the local connection the other apps send to. It runs on your machine only.

Pull

Asks Figma for whatever is selected right now, instead of waiting for a send from that side.

Clip Frames

Crops each frame to its own bounds. Off by default, so nothing that sits outside a frame disappears without you asking.

Flatten

Brings the incoming layers in as one flat level instead of keeping the nested group structure.

Merge

Combines the incoming shapes into a single shape layer rather than one layer per shape.

Push

Push is the core action in both Figma and Illustrator: select something, click send, and the layers appear in your active After Effects composition.

• Grouped elements are pushed as a single nested layer structure, matching how they were grouped in the design tool.
• Loose shapes on the canvas arrive as individual layers.
• The panel in After Effects shows a live connection status, so you always know whether a push landed.

Re-send / Live Sync

Editing a design after the first push is the normal case, and Prism is built around it. Every layer Prism creates carries an internal tag back to the exact element it came from.

• Re-sending an edited frame updates the matching layers in place instead of creating duplicates.
• New elements added since the last send are added, never mistaken for a replacement.
• The layer's position in the AE stack is preserved across updates, so re-ordering work you already did in AE is not lost.

Supported apps

Prism runs as a native panel inside each of these apps, bridged together by the local After Effects connection.

Figma

Send frames, groups and components straight into an AE comp, with Live Sync to keep them updated.

Illustrator

Push vector art as editable AE shapes, with symbol and matte support.

Photoshop

Push layers and shapes into After Effects, ready to animate.

DaVinci Resolve

Receive a Figma design as live Fusion nodes, with editable text, gradients and shapes.

After Effects

The receiving end: the local Prism panel that brings every push in and builds the comp.

Groups & layer structure

How you group elements in the design tool decides how they arrive in After Effects.

• Grouped elements become a single nested layer structure in AE, keeping the same parent/child relationship.
• Ungrouped elements arrive as individual, independent layers.
• Frames, groups and component nesting are rebuilt at every depth, not just the top level.

Unsupported elements

Not everything a design app can render is exposed through its scripting API. Where that is the wall, Prism is upfront about it rather than silently producing a broken layer.

• Illustrator Appearance-panel effects (live drop shadow, blur, glow applied via Effect > Stylize) are not readable through Illustrator's scripting interface, so they are not carried over as editable AE effects.
• Stacked fills/strokes on a single Illustrator object (multiple fills via the Appearance panel) are not exposed by the scripting API either; only the top fill and stroke transfer.
• Illustrator stroke alignment (inside/outside) is not exposed by the API and defaults to center, matching Illustrator's own default.

License activation

Prism is purchased once, no subscription. The Figma plugin is free to install; sending designs into After Effects requires an activated license.

• Activation is tied to your Prism account and checked by the After Effects panel on start.
• The panel's status indicator shows whether the bridge is running and whether the license is active, so a licensing issue is visible before you try to push.