01
Layers, cameras and lights
Solids, shapes, text, footage and nested compositions, with 306 effects and layer styles to stack on them. Turn a layer 3D and light it, seen through a camera you animate like any other layer.
Motion graphics and effects
In development
v0.2.4
Bay Effects
Ask for the animation, then ease every keyframe yourself.
AI-assisted motion graphics and effects for the Mac, laid out the way After Effects is. Roto Brush and face tracking can use trained models that run on your machine, and every action is a command an agent can run, so you can ask for a lower third and watch it being built.
How you work in Bay Effects
Ask for it. Fix it by hand. Keep it.
01
Ask
“Build a lower third with my name that slides in from the left.” The layers and keyframes appear in the open composition, each step in your undo history.
02
Adjust
The slide feels mechanical. Open the Graph Editor and ease the key by hand, the way you would in After Effects.
03
Keep
Save the effect stack as a preset and ask for it by name. The next title the agent builds starts from your settings.
What Bay Effects does
02
Keyframes that behave
The Graph Editor eases a key the way you would ease it there, and expressions like wiggle and loopOut run as written.
03
Render without installing anything
Bay Effects decodes and encodes video itself, so there is no FFmpeg to install. Queue H.264, HEVC, ProRes with alpha or WebM, or export Lottie for a web page.
04
Panels where you expect them
Project, Composition, Timeline, Effect Controls and Effects & Presets are docked the way After Effects docks them, and keyframes, the Graph Editor and expressions behave the same way.
05
Roto Brush with a trained model
Paint a few strokes over a subject and Roto Brush separates it from the background, then carries the matte from frame to frame. In Settings ▸ Roto Brush you can switch from the built-in segmenter to MobileSAM, which Bay Effects downloads when you ask and runs on your Mac.
06
Faces tracked to the landmark
Face tracking keys a mask to a face as it moves, or keys every eye, brow and mouth point into the layer, so other layers can follow an expression. MediaPipe Face Landmarker is the trained model for it, also downloaded on request and run on your Mac.
07
An agent can build it
Every action is a command, open to the bay-effects command-line tool and an MCP server. Ask Claude for a lower third and watch the layers and keyframes appear in the open project.
Questions
Bay Effects, in short.
Is Bay Effects free?
Yes. Bay Effects is free to download and use, with no subscription and no account.
Is Bay Effects like After Effects?
It is laid out the way After Effects is: Project, Composition, Timeline, Effect Controls and Effects & Presets panels, with a Graph Editor, expressions and 3D layers with cameras and lights.
Do After Effects expressions work?
Expressions such as wiggle and loopOut run as written.
Can it export Lottie?
Yes. Export an animation as Lottie for a web page, or render H.264, HEVC, ProRes with alpha or WebM.
Do Roto Brush and face tracking run on my Mac?
Yes. Roto Brush can use MobileSAM and face tracking can use MediaPipe Face Landmarker. Each model is downloaded when you ask for it and runs on your Mac.
Can an AI agent build animations in Bay Effects?
Yes. Every action is a command, open to the bay-effects command-line tool and an MCP server. Ask Claude for a lower third and the layers and keyframes appear in the open composition, ready for you to adjust.
Get Bay Effects.
What it costs, and what it sends
Bay Effects is free, there is no subscription, and you don’t need an account. Your projects and footage stay on your disk, and the trained models run on your Mac. The app sends crash, performance and usage reports to our own server so we can fix what breaks. They never carry your footage, file names, project contents or anything you type.