Newbie “What plug-in is this?” question

[Simon Bonner]

It looks like there are lots of things going on here, not just a single plug-in or effect.

There appear to be particles floating about in the water. This could be done with particle playground, or some 3rd party particle system like trapcode’s particular. I think Andrew Kramer’s tutorial “moving 3d lines” at videocopilot.net might show you a way of replicating this. Also, the inky shapes are rippling as though the water we’re seeing them through is refracting the light. You can achieve this look by using the displacement map effect which ships with AE. Aharon has a turorial on the effect in the AE podcast, so try looking that up. As for making the ink warp into shapes, well, I’m afraid I’m nowhere near proficient enough to offer a meaningful suggestion. But good luck!