# Repeating Patterns in Adobe After Effects - review & insight | Gareth B. Davies Source: https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/repeating-patterns-in-adobe-after-effects/ [← All courses](https://garethbdavies.com/course-insights/) Video & Animation · Quick win · Rated 7 /10 # Repeating Patterns in Adobe After Effects By Gareth B. Davies · Updated August 2026 Jake Bartlett · Motion Designer Intermediate · 22 min Twenty-two minutes shows you how to turn any shape or squiggle animation into an infinite tiled loop using two built-in After Effects effects. [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Frepeating-patterns-in-adobe-after-effects%2F46687130) New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost. Jake Bartlett's *Repeating Patterns in Adobe After Effects* is a tight, technique-focused class built entirely around two native effects: Motion Tile and Repetile. It does not teach animation from scratch. Instead it assumes three pre-built animations (a rotating shape, a duplicated multi-color arrangement, and a squiggly stroke path) and spends its runtime showing what happens when those loops get tiled across a full HD frame. The structure is a steady escalation rather than a flat tutorial. It opens with the mechanics of Motion Tile, output width and height as percentages, the mirror edges checkbox, phase shift, and the tile center offset, using a single rotating square-to-circle shape as the test case. From there it moves into compositing tricks: duplicating and rotating layers 180 degrees, adding fill color changes, and applying time-remap expressions so a duplicated layer runs out of sync with its source. The Repetile section functions almost as a compare-and-contrast: it covers the same tiling idea but explains how Repetile's independent per-edge expansion and its checker, flip-H, and flip-V modes produce noticeably different results from Motion Tile's symmetrical approach. ## The seam problem gets real treatment The most substantive part of the course is the seam-checking section. When a moving element like the squiggle animation exits and re-enters the tile boundary, naive tiling cuts it off mid-motion. The fix demonstrated, an adjustment layer with Motion Tile applied and its tile center pushed to the edge, turns an invisible problem into a visible one, and offset duplicate layers timed 10 and 20 frames apart solve it. This is the kind of practical, non-obvious workflow knowledge that separates a course worth taking from one that just repeats effect panel labels. ## Where it thins out The final lesson, building a hand-placed irregular tile from eight duplicated and rotated copies, nudging the scale to 94.3 percent to remove a seam, is the most ambitious demonstration but also the most rushed. The reasoning behind specific values, like why that particular scale percentage closes the gap, is skipped in favor of just showing the result, which limits how well a viewer could reproduce it on their own project without experimentation. The course also leans heavily on the presenter's own project file and prior classes on shape layers and expressions. Anyone without that background will find the pace assumes familiarity with keyframes, easing via the graph editor, and time remapping, all introduced with minimal explanation. As a piece of instruction on tiling itself, the course succeeds. It is honest about its scope, delivers exactly what the title promises, and gives viewers two effects, several control parameters, and one genuinely useful verification technique they can apply immediately to their own loops. It is not a course about animation fundamentals, and it does not pretend to be. For an intermediate motion designer who already has loop-worthy animations sitting in a project file and just needs to know how to multiply them across a frame without visible seams, this delivers real value in a short runtime. For anyone earlier in their After Effects journey, the payoff will be smaller until the prerequisite skills are in place. The standout The seam-checker technique, an adjustment layer with Motion Tile set to a zero tile center, gives a concrete, reusable way to verify an animation loops cleanly before committing to a final render. ## What you will learn - · Building a small source composition and nesting it into a larger comp as a repeating tile - · Using Motion Tile's output width/height, mirror edges, phase, and tile center controls to vary the repeat pattern - · Using Repetile's independent edge expansion and checker/flip H/flip V tiling styles - · Setting up a Motion Tile adjustment layer as a seam checker to catch animation cut-off at tile edges - · Using loopOut() expressions on time-remapped layers to create seamless looping animation - · Hand-building an irregular tile by duplicating, offsetting, and nudging scale to eliminate visible seams Best for: Motion designers already comfortable with shape layers, keyframes, and expressions who want to add tiling and looping effects to their toolkit. Skip it if: Complete beginners to After Effects or anyone unfamiliar with shape layer animation, since the course assumes that foundation and points elsewhere for it. Engaging Teacher Clarity of Instruction Organization of Lessons Helpful Examples [Get a Free Month on Skillshare](https://skillshare.eqcm.net/c/3155494/298081/4650?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.skillshare.com%2Fclasses%2Frepeating-patterns-in-adobe-after-effects%2F46687130)