After Effects CS3 Introduces Shape Layers. Basically, a way to animate and create shapes directly from After Effects.

1. Open up a new project and create a new composition. You can choose any size that you want, but for this tutorial I created a standard Video 720X480 aspect ration.

2. Go up to the old masking tools in the tool panel and select the Star Tool. It used to be just the Rectangle and the Ellipse Tool, but now they've added the Rounded

3. Click and drag to create the star and a new shape layer should be added into your composition's timeline. Also, just to point out, the button on the left will draw a “shape” when you click and drag, but if the button on the right is selected then it will draw a mask. If I had a mask selected, then this button would be shaded and the Shape button would be grayed out because After Effects assumes that I want to draw a mask.

4. You can adjust your fill and stroke if you would like. By clicking on the swatch, you are able to change the color of the star. If you click on the word Fill itself, then you will gain access to fill options. For this tutorial, I will keep this as it is. The Stroke works the same way.

5. The true power of the shape layers happens in the timeline. Twirl open the Shape Layer  to and the Contents property to reveal the PolyStar Shape's attributes.

6. Adjust the attributes so that you have the same settings aobve. Just be aware that the transform property of the shape and the transform property of the layer itself are two totally different things. One adjust the entire transform gizmo, whereas the other only transforms the shape.

7. Twirl open the Repeater 1 property and adjust the number of copies to 10 and give it an offset value of 10 as well. You'll want to leave the Composite value set to Below.

8. Select the Motion Blur box to give it more of a believable effect.

9. Once, you have adjusted the layers, select the layers and select Brainstorm. It will come up with different variations for you and you can apply them to your composition if you like.