While you can use the grid to specifically mold objects to your desire, this will get tiresome after a short amount of time. The Freeform AE manual really totes this feature, but I found it pretty daunting and useless. In fact I was pretty disappointed until I found the Displacement Matte feature. With a Displacement Matte, Freeform AE really starts to shine. You can pick any motion background (including ones you make yourself) and begin to use those elements to literally mold your 2D elements in 3D space. The results, while pretty cool, can be wildly unpredictable, although you can immediately see the benefits of such an offering. I especially saw how useful this can be in creating really cool text elements.
In its most basic form, Freeform AE works smoothly. There are generous amounts of render/preview options that the designer can toggle between before rendering. This is good because you will definitely need the toggle options, as to do anything worthwhile within Freeform AE can be trying to any system.
Smoothing animations by filtering adds further stress to your system. At default Freeform AE will not filter using antialiasing, which, in the worst case scenario, can leave your layers with jagged edges. To fix this, there are three levels of antialiasing (Low, Medium, High). Fortunately these filters work wonders on your animations, but, unfortunately the higher you go, the longer the render time.
Performance also dwindles when you add more squares to your mesh. Luckily, you don't need to add many to create a believable animation.
