After Effects — Creating an Animated Ray Effect

The trick behind the anime-effect-like animation is the Optic Compensation effect, which emulates the optic distortion. These animations consist of elongated and animated noise patterns that are bent using the Optic Compensation. These steps are based on the tutorial brought by Lester Banks, Create a Ray Transition Effect Using Ae’s Optics Compensation, and the below animations were greatly inspired by his work.

Left: Ray Transition Ver.3, Right: Ray Transition Ver.1

Create a Stripe-Like Pattern from the Fractal Noise

Step 1. Create a new solid to apply effects

Step 2. Apply the Fractal Noise Effect

Step 3. Increase the Scale Width of the Fractal Noise to make a stripe pattern

Under the transform property of the Fractal Noise, uncheck the Uniform Scaling option, increase the Scale Height, and optionally decrease the Scale Width to create a stripe-like pattern.