MOTIONREF

A reference board inside After Effects. Drag stills, GIFs, and video in from the Project panel and arrange them next to your comp while you work.

Download MotionRef (.zxp) After Effects extension · free · macOS
About

MotionRef is a blank, endless board docked in After Effects. Drop footage on it and it appears at its real size. Move it, scale it, rotate it, stack it, zoom in on details, and pan around. Each project keeps its own board, so your references are waiting the next time you open the .aep. Items link to the original files; nothing is copied into your project. The panel follows After Effects' light or dark appearance, and the board can be white, black, or any color.

What it looks like
The empty MotionRef panel: drop images, GIFs, and videos here
A new board, ready for footage
A MotionRef board with stills, a paused video with a play button, and two items selected inside one transform box
Stills and a video, two items selected in one transform box
Supported media
Stills

PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP, BMP, SVG, AVIF

Shown as-is. Animated GIFs play and loop on their own.

Video

MP4 and MOV with H.264, MP4 with AV1, WebM (VP8, VP9)

Plays as-is. Videos start paused; click ▶ to play. They loop, muted.

Design files

PSD, TIFF, TGA, HEIC, OpenEXR, JPEG 2000, Illustrator, PDF

Converted to a preview with macOS's built-in tools the first time they're added.

Pro video

ProRes, HEVC

Converted to a playable H.264 preview. Codecs macOS can no longer read, like QuickTime Animation, get a still preview frame rendered by After Effects.

Previews are cached in ~/Library/Caches/MotionRef and rebuilt when the source file changes; the original is never touched. Previews don't keep transparency. Image sequences show their first frame. Comps, solids, and audio aren't added.

Working with media

Adding

Select footage in the Project panel and drag it onto the board. Several items land in rows, in Project panel order, from where you drop them. Right-clicking the board offers Add Selected from Project too.

Selecting

Click
select an item
Shift + click
add or remove an item
Drag on empty space
box-select everything it touches (Shift adds)
⌘ A · Esc
select all · deselect

Moving, resizing, rotating

Drag an item
move the selection (Shift locks to one axis)
← ↑ ↓ →
nudge (Shift for 10 px)
Drag a handle
resize, keeping the aspect ratio
+ Shift · + Option
stretch freely · resize from the center
Drag outside a corner
rotate (Shift snaps to 15°)
] · [
bring to front · send to back
Delete
remove from the board
⌘ Z · ⌘ ⇧ Z
undo · redo

Several selected items share one transform box, so they move, scale, and rotate together.

Getting around

Scroll wheel
zoom in and out around the cursor
Space + drag
pan (or drag with the middle mouse button)
F
fit the selection, or the whole board, in view

Right-click menu

Play / Pause, Bring to Front, Send to Back, Reverse Order (flips the reading order of the selected items), Reset Size, Reveal in Finder, Delete, Zoom to Fit, and Zoom to 100%. At the bottom, Background sets the board to Match After Effects (the default), White, Black, or a custom color from a picker; the choice applies to every project.

Setup
  1. Install the extension — open the .zxp with a ZXP installer (aescripts ZXP Installer is free).
  2. Restart After Effects and open Window → Extensions → MotionRef.
  3. Click the board once so the keyboard shortcuts reach it. Until then After Effects keeps its own (Space still previews your comp). Zooming and middle-drag panning work either way.

Boards are saved per project in ~/Library/Application Support/MotionRef/boards/. A file that's moved or renamed shows as a "Missing" placeholder until it's back.

The extension is signed with a self-signed certificate — your ZXP installer may show an "unverified publisher" notice. That's expected.

Requirements

After Effects 2022 or later (developed and tested on AE 2026) on macOS. Previews rely on tools built into macOS, so Windows isn't supported. Everything runs locally — no accounts, no network calls.