Email header motion design

Using After Effects, I wanted to create a moving gradient of three colours with an added glass refraction effect overlay on top.

This is the tutorial I have followed before for a moving gradient

Composition settings 1200x400px
Length 10s

Colour Gradient

New solid > rename Gradient

Effects & Presets > 4-Color Gradient > drag to Gradient Solid.

Change each of the 4 colours > Deep blue/grey #071420, dark blue/grey #1D2B38, green #75D68A I just used 3 for this.

Click the stopwatch on points 1, 2, 3, and 4.

drag each of the points out of the artboard.

Click the stopwatch on points 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Drag each of the points out of the artboard.

U on the keyboard on the gradient and highlight all the keyframes.

Copy and paste the keyframes to the 2nd second, then highlight all the keyframes and paste on the 4th second.

New adjustment layer > rename FX.

Effects & Presets > Turbulent Displace
Displacement > Twist
Amount > 150
Size > 400
Option+click on the evolution stopwatch and type in "time*200" in the expression field

Effects & Presets > Motion Tile

Drag and drop this above the Turbulent Displace FX
Output Width > 350
Output Height > 350
Mirror Edges > Check
I then scrubbed through and found a hole in the composition so I upped the Output Height
Output Height > 570

Glass Refraction

This is the tutorial I have followed for the glass refraction

Add a new shape layer > rectangle vertical.

Effects & Presets > Wave Warp
Wave Type > Semicircle
Wave Height > 60
Wave Width > 50
Wave Speed > 0
I then adjusted these settings to fit my composition dimensions
Wave Height > 50
Wave Width > 30

Click the moon icon to make this an adjustment layer.

I ended up ignoring the rest of the tutorial which proceeded to explain to adjust the shape to fit the same width as a single wave.

The rest of the results were from me tweaking and experimenting.

Effects & Presets > Turbulent Displace

Evolution expression field > time*50 to slow it down
Displacement > Turbulent
Offset (Turbulence) > 600.0, 1190.0

I removed all the keyframes on the Gradient layer apart from the first two. I set easy ease to these keyframes.

As I wasn't happy with the original wave warp results, I duplicated  and changed the wave type on both so they overlayed and created the effect I wanted.

Effects & Presets > Wave Warp
Renamed > Semicircle
Wave Type > Semicircle
Pinning > All Edges

Effects & Presets > Wave Warp
Renamed > Sawtooth
Wave Type > Sawtooth
Pinning > All Edges

Sawtooth sat above Semicircle in the layers.

I then precomposed all layers, cut 1 second from the front and placed it at the end with an opacity transition from 0% - 100% so the video loops seamlessly.