Sprayon - Spray Painting Tool for AE by Aescripts (v1.0)

Downloadable Files

You can download Sprayon for free from the end of this page.

Sprayon

Sprayon is a native, GPU-accelerated effect for Adobe After Effects that transforms the appearance of a layer into procedural spray paint. Instead of simply applying a rough texture, it recreates several characteristics associated with actual aerosol paint, including droplet grain, overspray mist, sputter flecks, uneven coverage, and paint drips.

The effect works with text, logos, and footage, using the source layer’s own shape and colors to generate the result. It also includes a distinctive Sprayed-On animation system that can progressively paint artwork onto the screen stroke by stroke.

Authentic Spray-Paint Texture

Sprayon builds its spray-painted appearance procedurally from the source layer. The look can range from relatively smooth airbrush-style coverage to rough, gritty paint.

Several controls shape the final coat:

• Grain controls how finely or coarsely the paint breaks up.
• Overspray creates mist beyond the original edges, ranging from a tight boundary to a broad hazy halo.
• Sputter scatters larger flecks around the artwork, with controls for amount, size, reach, and seed.
• Coverage determines how much paint lands, allowing anything from a dusty initial pass to a solid coat.
• Variation introduces unevenness across the paint using Turbulence, Ridged, Cells, or Streaks maps.

Because the unevenness map can be animated, the texture does not have to remain completely static.

Sprayed-On Stroke Animation

One of Sprayon’s main features is its ability to animate artwork as though it is actively being sprayed onto the surface.

A single slider controls the reveal. For letterforms, Sprayon detects their skeleton and traces along it to create a stroke-like painting sequence rather than revealing the graphic with a conventional wipe or dissolve.

The detected path is not intended to reproduce true dictionary stroke order. Its purpose is to create a convincingly natural spraying motion.

As the reveal progresses, other parts of the effect remain involved: overspray mist follows the spraying action and drips can form while the paint is being applied.

The basic workflow is therefore straightforward:

Apply Sprayon → Choose or adjust the paint look → Animate the Sprayed-On slider → Refine coverage, mist, sputter, texture, and drips

Procedural Drips

Sprayon can generate paint runs from the wettest edges of the coat. These drips are procedural rather than a separate pre-rendered element.

Controls are provided for:

• Amount
• Length
• Width
• Speed
• Direction
• Seed

The drips grow naturally as the effect progresses and are designed not to play backwards.

This connects the dripping behavior directly to the painted result instead of treating it as an unrelated overlay.

Four Editable Presets

Sprayon includes four starting presets:

These presets do not lock the effect into predefined looks. Selecting one simply writes its settings into Sprayon’s controls, so every parameter remains editable afterward.

Two-Color Paint Coats

A second color can be introduced into the coat to create patches that show through the primary paint.

The amount can range from small blotches to a complete recoat. This provides another way to alter the surface without requiring a separate layer or independent spray treatment.

Sprayon can also pick up the original colors of the source, allowing the spray effect to be generated from existing artwork rather than requiring a single replacement color.

What Can Sprayon Be Applied To?

The effect is designed to work on different types of After Effects layers, including:

• Text
• Logos
• Footage

Its procedural system derives the paint from the layer itself, including its shapes and colors. This makes the same effect usable for sprayed typography, painted logos, animated graphics, or spray-treated footage without relying on a fixed collection of spray textures.

Performance

Sprayon is an After Effects plugin that uses Metal for GPU acceleration, with CPU fallback when needed.

It brings spray texture, overspray, sputter, color variation, dripping, and animation controls into one effect. It also includes presets that you can use as a starting point and customize for your own design.

What makes Sprayon interesting is how it handles animation. Instead of simply adding a spray texture and revealing it, the effect can build the artwork over time. With text, for example, it can follow the shape of the letters and make them appear as if they’re being sprayed onto the screen stroke by stroke.