What you'll learn
Recreate the curse energy fire effect from Jujutsu Kaisen entirely inside After Effects — no third-party generators required. The workflow builds from a CC Mr. Mercury base through cel-shaded outlines, fractal noise displacement, roughened hand-drawn edges, inner detail lines, and finally optical glow with background heat distortion.
Resources
Phase 1 — Base Animation
The entire fire is driven by CC Mr. Mercury, a particle effect built into After Effects.
Setting up the solid
Create a new composition and add a solid layer (Ctrl/Cmd + Y). Apply CC Mr. Mercury (Effect → Simulation → CC Mr. Mercury). This generates the fluid, upward-moving particle system that forms the body of the flame.
Refining the particles with Simple Choker
CC Mr. Mercury on its own produces loose, blob-like particles. Apply Simple Choker (Effect → Matte → Simple Choker) directly on the same solid. Increasing the choke amount contracts the particle edges and rounds their shape — this is what gives the flames their clean, graphic outline.
Building a layered base
Pre-compose the solid layer (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + C → Move all attributes). Duplicate the resulting pre-comp. On the duplicate:
- Increase the Simple Choker amount beyond the original.
- Add a Liquify effect and paint a small amount of distortion into the shape.
These two layers stacked produce depth — the inner layer is tight and clean, the outer layer is slightly looser and more distorted, mimicking how real fire has a dense core and diffuse edges.
Phase 2 — Cel-Shaded Styling and Outlines
Anime fire uses flat, filled color with hard outlines rather than volumetric shading.
Coloring the base layers
Drop both pre-comps into the main composition. Apply a Fill effect (Effect → Generate → Fill) to each layer. Use a saturated orange or blue-white for the primary layer and a slightly different hue for the secondary. This creates the two-tone color separation visible in Jujutsu Kaisen's curse flames.
Generating the outline
Set the top animation layer's blending mode to Screen. Adjust the Simple Choker value on this layer until a visible stroke appears around the shape below it. The screen mode makes the overlap region generate an apparent outline without any additional stroke effect — the boundary between the two layers becomes the line.
Softening and adding depth
- Apply a Gaussian Blur to the bottom base layer. A small blur (3–8 px) softens the fill so it doesn't compete with the crisp outline layer above.
- Duplicate the base layer once more. Set its fill color a shade darker and drop its Opacity to around 40–60%. This darker duplicate sits behind the main fill and creates a shadow volume inside the flame shape.
Phase 3 — Fractal Displacement
Static flame shapes read as a logo, not fire. A displacement map driven by animated fractal noise makes the edges flicker organically.
Creating the noise source
Add a new solid and apply Fractal Noise (Effect → Noise & Grain → Fractal Noise). Change:
- Fractal Type → Dynamic
- Complexity → 1 (keeps the noise stark and simple — complex gradients produce muddy displacement)
Open the Transform group inside the effect. Disable Uniform Scaling and increase the width relative to the height. Stretching the noise vertically mirrors the upward direction of fire, so the displacement will push pixels along the correct axis.
Automating the movement
Alt/Option-click the stopwatch on Offset Turbulence. In the expression field, enter the expression from the video description (links the offset to time, driving continuous upward scrolling). Adjust the multiplier value to control flame speed.
Masking the noise
Draw a mask on the fractal noise solid that keeps full density at the top of the flame and fades to nothing at the base. Fire flickers at its tips, not its root — this mask ensures the displacement is strongest where it should be. Pre-compose this masked fractal noise layer.
Applying the displacement
Create an Adjustment Layer above all flame layers. Apply Displacement Map (Effect → Distort → Displacement Map). Set the Displacement Map Layer to the fractal noise pre-comp. Set the displacement amount to around 75. The flame edges now flicker continuously.
Phase 4 — Edge Refinement and Inner Details
The hand-drawn quality of anime effects comes from irregular, slightly rough outlines and small detail lines inside the fill.
Building a clean stroke
Duplicate the base shape pre-comp. Apply a Fill effect and set the color to pure black. Set Opacity to 100%. Use Simple Choker to expand this layer slightly beyond the original shape — it now forms a thick black silhouette that extends past the flame edges.
Add a Set Matte effect (Effect → Channel → Set Matte) pointing to the original base shape, with Invert Matte checked. This cuts the interior out of the black layer, leaving only the expanded outer ring — a clean outer stroke.
Roughening the stroke
Apply Roughen Edges (Effect → Stylize → Roughen Edges) to the stroke layer. This breaks the mathematically smooth edge into an irregular, painted line. Adjust Border and Scale until the stroke reads as drawn rather than generated. Add a second Displacement Map instance here, set to a lower value (around 25), for an additional layer of hand-painted irregularity.
Adding inner detail lines
Duplicate the base shape layer. Add Fractal Noise, stretch it vertically with a high frequency, and adjust Brightness and Contrast until you see thin white lines against a black field.
Apply Linear Color Key (Effect → Keying → Linear Color Key) and key out the black, using the tolerance slider to control how much line detail survives. These lines become the small dash strokes visible inside anime fire effects.
Add a Fill effect after the key to tint the lines gray rather than pure white. Copy the Displacement Map from the stroke layer onto this detail layer to keep the lines moving in sync with the rest of the flame.
Phase 5 — Glow and Final Compositing
Adding optical glow
Pre-compose the entire flame stack into a single composition. Duplicate it in a new parent composition. On the top copy, apply Optical Glow (or the native After Effects Glow effect if you don't have a plugin). Adjust:
- Amount — how far the glow bleeds
- Size — radius of the bloom
- Vibrance — color saturation of the glow halo
The glow layer handles the luminous aura. The bottom copy of the flame stays sharp and provides the core.
Directional blur on the base
On the bottom (non-glowing) copy, apply Directional Blur (Effect → Blur & Sharpen → Directional Blur) aligned to the direction the flame faces. This is particularly useful when the fire sits on top of a character or object, as it softens the base contact point and anchors the effect to the surface.
Color correction
Add an Adjustment Layer above both flame copies. Apply Curves. Pull the highlights up to blow out the brightest areas of the flame, lift the shadows slightly to add heat, and push the curve toward the fire's accent color (blue for curse energy, orange for natural flame).
Background heat distortion
To sell the fire as part of a scene, create a new Adjustment Layer above the background footage only. Mask the region immediately surrounding the flame. Apply Displacement Map and link it to the flame animation pre-comp. Set the value low (10–20 px). The background now ripples with heat distortion that follows the flame's movement exactly.
Rigging for reuse (optional)
Create a Null Object and use pick-whip expressions to link the flame pre-comp's Position and Scale to the Null. All position and size control then lives on one object rather than scattered across layers. Place any Transform effect above the Displacement Map effect in the stack — order matters here, as Displacement Map reads the layer state before Transform if Transform sits below it.
