Issue with the Radio Waves Effect — Not Showing on Screen in After Effects

Report · Sep 03, 2025

Description:
Hi everyone, how are you?

I’m facing a strange problem with the Radio Waves effect in After Effects.
When I apply the effect to a solid, the solid becomes invisible and nothing shows on the screen (even with the Toggle Transparency Grid enabled to check).

In the tutorial I’m following, when the effect is applied, the waves appear immediately on the screen, but nothing happens for me — it seems the effect simply doesn’t generate anything visible.

What I’ve already tried:

Changing the main parameters (Wave Type, Polygon with multiple sides, Stroke, Expansion, Frequency, Lifespan).
Setting Stroke Opacity to high values.
Switching the composition preview mode to Full Resolution.
Adjusting Render Quality within the effect.
Using solids of different sizes (200x200, 1920x1080).
Clearing media cache and disk cache.
Turning GPU acceleration on/off.
Creating a new composition from scratch.

Additional details:

After Effects version: [After Effects 25.4.0]
Operating system: [Windows 11 Home]
GPU/Driver: [Geforce GTX 1070 FTW + latest driver updated]

Reference:
In the tutorial [link here: https://youtu.be/XXUefpkOY4o?si=O1rclWHRD2dj1ehJ&t=63], the effect appears immediately after being applied, with no additional settings.
In my After Effects, this does not happen.

Has anyone experienced this? Is there a known bug with Radio Waves in newer versions, or any setting that might be blocking the rendering?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Report · Sep 03, 2025

in the future, to find the best place to post your message, use the list here, https://community.adobe.com/

p.s. i don't think the adobe website, and forums in particular, are easy to navigate, so don't spend a lot of time searching that forum list. do your best and we'll move the post (like this one has already been moved) if it helps you get responses.

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