After Effects Shape Layer Stroke and Fill Guide

In Adobe After Effects, stroke and fill properties define the visual appearance of vector shape layers. While the fill controls the interior color or gradient of a path, the stroke determines the outline, including its width, style, and caps. Understanding these properties allows motion designers to create, stylize, and animate crisp, resolution-independent vector graphics directly within their compositions.

What Is the Fill Property?

The Fill property controls the interior area enclosed by a vector path. When you add a Fill to a shape layer, you can modify several core parameters:

  • Fill Type: A shape's fill can be set to None, Solid Color, Linear Gradient, or Radial Gradient.
  • Color: The primary color applied to the interior of the path when using a solid fill.
  • Opacity: Determines the transparency of the fill independently from the overall layer's opacity.
  • Composite: Controls how the fill blends with other fills within the same shape group, including blending modes like Normal, Multiply, or Screen.

What Is the Stroke Property?

The Stroke property defines the outline that traces along the vector path. Strokes in After Effects are highly customizable and can be styled beyond simple solid lines:

  • Stroke Type: Like fills, strokes can be set to None, Solid Color, Linear Gradient, or Radial Gradient.
  • Color and Opacity: Controls the hue and transparency of the path's outline.
  • Stroke Width: Sets the thickness of the stroke in pixels.
  • Line Cap: Defines the appearance of the stroke's endpoints on open paths:
    • Butt Cap: Squared off squarely at the endpoint.
    • Round Cap: Semicircular, extending past the endpoint.
    • Projecting Cap: Squared off, extending past the endpoint by half the stroke width.
  • Line Join: Determines the shape of corners where two path segments meet:
    • Miter Join: Creates sharp corners, controlled by the Miter Limit.
    • Round Join: Rounds the corners.
    • Bevel Join: Squares off the corners with a flat edge.
  • Dashes: Allows you to break a continuous line into patterns of dashes and gaps, with an Offset property to animate the pattern along the path.
  • Taper: Controls the start and end thickness of the stroke, allowing for tapered lines common in character design and hand-drawn aesthetics.
  • Wave: Adds procedural waves along the stroke, allowing for customizable amplitude, wavelength, and phase.

Stacking Order and Hierarchy

Inside a shape layer's contents, the order of elements dictates rendering:

  • Stroke Over Fill: Placing the Stroke property below the Fill property in the timeline hierarchy makes the stroke render on top of the fill.
  • Fill Over Stroke: Placing the Fill property below the Stroke property renders the fill over the stroke, effectively hiding the inner half of the stroke's width.

Interaction with Shape Animators

Stroke and fill properties can be manipulated using built-in shape animators:

  • Trim Paths: Animates the start, end, and offset of strokes without affecting the underlying path geometry.
  • Repeater: Duplicates both stroke and fill across offset transforms, allowing for geometric patterns and complex motion arrays.
  • Wiggle Paths: Procedurally distorts the vector path, causing both the stroke and fill to warp dynamically in real time.