Experiments with shape layers led to this little doodad:

The rings use a wiggle expression to rotate independently on the x, y, and z. Those axes are local rotations, not global, in other words, they rotate in reference to their own center point, not necessarily the composition window. Basically, rotating the layers on the z axis doesn’t yield much visually. As an example, the purple dots rotate only along their z axis. You notice this because it’s not solid, however with the other rings, you would barely be able to tell. If they were perfectly symmetrical (which they are not), the z rotation would be invisible.

The other difference on the outer ring of dots, it uses time*5 to rotate, as opposed to a wiggle, so it’s steady movement instead of chaotic.

The scrambling nucleus is a pair of solids using the Generate > Circle effect. Yet another wiggle expression on their position gives them their chaotic motion. An Echo filter is used to make the trails, and Hue and Saturation filter gives it color, and of course, Glow.

Interestingly, I created the first nuclei completely, then duplicated it, and the wiggle expression gave it unique coordinates, so no modification was required to move it to a new position, as each wiggle expression generates its random numbers individually. The only thing that needed changing was the color.

And for the background, I used a solid with a 4-Color Gradient.

This project was inspired after watching Aharon Rhabinowitz’ tutorials on shape layers. To be perfectly honest, I thought that I’d rarely if ever use Shape Layers when I first looked at the features, but after watching these tutorials, I’m convinced they’re a necessity. A lot more helpful than they look. Like most things in After Effects. So, check these tuts out:

For Starters:

An Introduction to Shape Layers — Learn the basics about creating shape layers and adding modifiers to create new, interesting shapes.

Shape Layer Tip #1 - Custom Shapes — Aharon creates some new shapes, beyond the regular old Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle and Star, and demonstrates how to use them.

Shape Layer Tip #2 - Complex Shapes — Probably my favorite, Aharon uses multiple shapes to create a simple cog entirely in After Effects.

Best of all, Shape Layers are entirely vector-based, which means you can scale them ad infinitum. Awesome.

As always, my project file is available for download here:

Gyro Project File