How to round corners in After Effects

By Yash Raj, maker of RoundPro. Tested in After Effects 2023 to 2026.

1. Round a rectangle shape layer

This is the fastest method when you're drawing a rectangle from scratch.

1. Select the Rectangle tool (press Q) and drag in the Composition panel with no layer selected. After Effects creates a new shape layer.
2. In the Timeline, twirl open the layer: Contents > Rectangle 1 > Rectangle Path 1.
3. Raise Roundness. The value is in pixels and can be keyframed.

• Works only on the parametric Rectangle Path, not on paths you drew with the Pen tool.
• One value for all four corners.
• Doesn't help with footage, images or precomps.

2. Round any path with Round Corners

Round Corners is a path operation that rounds every vertex on the paths above it in the same group. It works on polygons, stars and Pen-tool paths.

1. Select the shape layer and twirl open Contents.
2. Click Add > Round Corners (the Add menu is next to Contents in the Timeline).
3. Set Radius.

• Rounds every vertex by the same amount. You can't skip a corner.
• Shape layers only.
• On paths with curved segments it can soften shapes you wanted to keep.

3. Round video, images and solids

Footage layers have no Contents group, so you round them by cutting them with a mask or a matte.

Option A: rounded rectangle mask

1. Select the footage layer.
2. Press Q until the Rounded Rectangle tool is active.
3. Drag over the layer. While still dragging, press the Up or Down arrow keys to change the roundness.

Once you release the mouse, the mask becomes a normal Bezier path. The radius is baked in, so changing it means redrawing the mask, and scaling the mask distorts the corners.

Option B: shape layer as a track matte (editable)

1. Draw a rounded rectangle shape layer (method 1) the size of your footage.
2. Place it directly above the footage layer.
3. On the footage layer, set Track Matte to the shape layer and choose Alpha Matte.

The radius stays editable through the shape layer's Roundness. The cost is an extra layer for every rounded clip, and the matte has to follow the footage if you animate it (parent it to the footage layer).

4. Round only one corner

This is where After Effects runs out of built-in options. Roundness, Round Corners and the Rounded Rectangle tool all apply one radius to every corner. There is no setting for rounding just the top two corners of a lower third, or one corner of a speech bubble.

The usual workarounds are slow:

• Pull individual Bezier handles by hand, which breaks as soon as the layer changes size.
• Stack a sharp-cornered shape on top of a rounded one to hide the corners you want square.
• Write a custom mask path expression and set it up again on every layer.

RoundPro has per-corner control built in. Click the link icon to unlink the corners, then type a radius for each one. It works on footage, images and precomps, not only shape layers, and the values stay editable in Effect Controls.

5. Round any layer in one click with RoundPro

RoundPro is an After Effects script that automates rounding corners. It works the same way on shape layers, solids, footage, images, precomps, masks and inverted masks.

1. Open the panel from the Window menu and dock it.
2. Select one or more layers.
3. Set the Corner Radius and click the rounded button.
4. For different corners, click the link icon and type a radius for each corner.

Turn on Consistent Roundness when you round layers of different sizes at once. RoundPro then scales the radius to each layer, so small layers don't turn into pills. You can adjust everything later from the layer's Effect Controls.

Which method should you use?